Sermon on Third Sunday of Advent- Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters

May it be given to me to speak in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. [Music] The scriptures are so wonderfully alive. You can read the same passage repeatedly and through the Holy Spirit they speak to you in new ways on your Christian journey. I've read today's Gospel before many times, but this week a specific challenge arose to me. If I were to meet Jesus’ tomorrow, if he had a great day, I specific challenge arose to me. If I were to meet Jesus’ tomorrow, if he were to return at his second coming and I would stand before the judgment seat, would I be ready? This is a challenging question. I've never physically stood before my Lord, King and righteous judge, nor is anyone else that they know. So how can I know if I'd be ready? Yet I have stood before Christ sacramentally many times, including this morning. I've confessed that I've fallen short of his glory in thought, word, and deed, of ask for forgiveness, and received his grace. In a few moments by the Holy Spirit's miracle, he will place himself into my hands at the altar. In the Eucharist, Christ meets us not just symbolically but truly, in bread and wine, by sacrifice and grace become body and blood. A sacrifice for my life, a gift for my beloved community, grace, holy, unearned and freely given. So perhaps with this in my day, I am ready. I rarely come to church with trepidation after all. I know that I will meet Jesus, having fallen short of who I've been called to be that week, and yet I'll receive forgiveness, love and grace I could never deserve. The King of love has never failed to meet me in the Eucharist, no matter what I've done, no matter how I feel. But if I leave it at that, I wonder if I'm in danger of pursuing what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Cheap Grace. Bonhoeffer wrote of Cheap Grace in his 1937 work The Cost of discipleship. He wrote during the rise and rule of Nazism in Germany, which he came to publicly and vehemently oppose until his imprisonment and eventual execution and martyrdom in 1945. According to Bonhoeffer, cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Chief Grace says, "Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolation of forgiveness." This isn't an easy or indeed a popular message. One of the strengths of the Christian message is that people know that they are loved and welcomed by God, whoever they are and whatever they've done. They are welcomed as they are, not expected to be perfect. This ancient understanding of grace was espoused by Saint Anselm, the first bishop of Canterbury, who in his paper, Cadayas Hommo, that forgiveness must come through Jesus Christ alone, because only he is worthy to meet the debt of sin. Thus, forgiveness must be free because we could never bear its cost. And yet, we might well see something cheap in confession and absolution if they stand alone and if we weigh what they achieve. Just now we have corporately confessed sins of thought, word, and deed. But we haven't described them to God or to each other beyond those generic terms. We spoke the words quickly, the words have never changed, and I would imagine that most of us could say them by route. Yet in those few moments we acknowledged actions which made the world less loving, which separated us from God, which incurred a debt that we could not pay, actions which should, without Jesus, lead us to death. But as soon as we confessed, the words of absolution separate, separate those actions and their consequences from us, as far as the East is from the west to quote Psalm 103. In a couple of seconds time an awful lot was achieved but very little was actually asked. So have we created a square we cannot circle? Grace and forgiveness must be free because we cannot meet the cost of our sin. But grace freely given seems cheap if it requires no response. Save for the few words of corporate confession we offer on a Sunday morning. Probably whilst we're still thinking about our Sunday lunch. Well, Bonhoeffer gives us the answer. It isn't forgiveness that cost us. It's the discipleship which follows. St John the Baptist argued against cheap grace and the cheap assumption of righteousness before God in our gospel reading this morning. He proclaimed, "Do not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our ancestor, "for I tell you God is able from these stones "to raise up children to Abraham. "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, "and whoever has food must do likewise." So John the Baptist was speaking to the complacency, which he saw at the heart of the assumption that because the people Baptist was speaking to the complacency, which he saw at the heart of the assumption that because the people he was speaking to were the descendants of Abraham, they were righteous before God, whatever they chose to do. He assured the crowds that their familial claim to Abraham would not be sufficient to stand before God, and he adjured them bear fruit worthy of repentance. His baptism was freely offered but having been baptized he expected that the crowds would change their lives, that they would bear the fruit of change, that they would live a costly life, living differently, sharing what God had given them with others. Jesus fulfilled that expectation of righteousness before God, requiring that much be given when He revealed Himself as the Messiah and began calling his disciples. He was and is the one by whom a person might truly and finally come to the Father, but he taught that discipleship, "True discipleship requires much of the disciple." In Matthew 16 verse 24 he said, "If anyone wants to become my follower, he must first deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." The road of discipleship was and is the road that Jesus walked, one of self-denial and sacrifice, one of death which leads to life. Those who would follow don't have to be good enough to gain entry, but they do have to be willing to count the cost of following. As Jesus taught in Luke chapter 14, "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower, what you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it." Review laid down the foundation and not an "not" able to complete it. Review laid down the foundation and not an not able to finish it. Everyone who sees you will ridicule you saying this person began to build and wasn't able to finish. Starting to follow, receiving the grace of forgiveness is free. But the road of discipleship costs much. In fact, it must cost everything. Once we give our lives to Jesus, declaring him as Lord and God, there is no part of us which is beyond his claim. Our thoughts, our words, our actions, our inaction, all belongs to him. Jesus demands that we become like Him, that we embody His teaching, that we strive towards ultimate relationship with the Holy Trinity, concluding in Matthew, chapter 5 verse 48, "Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." as your Heavenly Father is perfect. By grace we go to the cross and are found in Jesus. We give him our sin and in him they die. Then in him we rise to the resurrection set on the path to claim the impossible future he won for us. Grace is free but discipleship transforms us, empowering us to live Jesus' love, bring his light to the world and pray thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But though discipleship is costly, it is also grace, because being a disciples Jesus Christ is pursuing who and what we were made to be. There's disciples we are freed from life enraptured by sin which only leads to death and made captive to costly discipleship which leads to life. Costly grace is costly freedom. So, as Paul explains in Romans chapter 6, "When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. But what benefit did you reap at that time from the things you were now ashamed of? Those things result in death. But now you have been set free from sin and become slaves of God. The benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. And this is why he wrote to the Philippians, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice." They didn't rejoice because discipleship was easy, but because they had been given a gift beyond worth and the means to lay older it. That gift, relationship with Jesus Christ, and in him with the Holy Trinity allowed them the peace which surpasses all understanding. They faced the trials and sacrifices of their faith, which for them, as the Bonhoeffer, meant literal persecution, imprisonment, death. But they knew that what they had gained was worth more than what they had set aside. Or as Bonhoeffer put it, "Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow." And it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life and it is grace because it gives man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his son to dear a price to pay for our life. Costly grace is the incarnation of God. This event we are invited to ask, are we ready to stand before Jesus when he comes tomorrow? Have we been pursuing cheap or costly grace? If ready means living that life of costly grace, may we all have the strength to say, "Yes, I am ready." But the road carries on. Amen.

Matthew 16:24 Luke 14 · chapter mention Matthew 5:48 Romans 6 · chapter mention