{"id":595,"date":"2020-02-16T17:57:03","date_gmt":"2020-02-16T17:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=595"},"modified":"2020-02-17T00:00:52","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T00:00:52","slug":"sixth-sunday-after-epiphany-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2020\/02\/16\/sixth-sunday-after-epiphany-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixth Sunday after Epiphany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matthew 5:21-37<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did\nyou ever notice that most of our worship services begin with a kind of confession\nof sins and the season before us, Lent as we observe it, also emphasizes confession\nof sins and repentance? There is a reason for that. It is not because you and\nthe other people of St. Peter\u2019s are worse or in more need of confession than\neveryone else; you are not worse and you do not need it more than everyone else.\nBut you do sin. (We all sin!) Jesus made that very clear in today\u2019s Gospel as\nhe increased the level of culpability, let\u2019s say, to that of murder for anyone\nwho simply gets angry; Jesus wants us to understand that to God one sin is as\nbad as the other. Do you understand what that means? It means that when I am\nangry at that driver who cut me off on the road, and when I look at an\nattractive woman a little too intently, and when I take a vow of any kind that\nI do not keep, I am sinning, I am breaking God\u2019s Commandments and there is no\ngrading of sin from bad, to worse, to very bad, to unforgivable; sin of any\nkind is simply very bad. So, are you angry with someone this morning? Have you\nbeen looking a little too intently at someone, not your spouse? Are you a\nlittle too lax in keeping your pledges\/vows or in telling the truth? Yes or no?\nYou can tell me; I\u2019ll admit that I have sinned and am surely deserving of God\u2019s\njudgment and punishment; my guess is that you are deserving of this as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deserving!\nJesus wanted everyone to understand that they were all deserving of God\u2019s\npunishment. The church, as did Jesus, continues today to feel the need for each\nof us to be convicted of our sin. That is why confession was so important to\nJesus and why it is so important in today\u2019s church. Think about it, if we do not\nrecognize that we are sinners, what would it matter to us that Jesus went to\nthe trouble of suffering and dying for the forgiveness of our sins? Who would\ncare? In our world, there are too many people who do not care in the least, who\nhave no concept of personal or corporate sin, who live by the philosophy that\nthe \u201cends justify the means\u201d, and who do not worry about anyone other than\nthemselves or at least their own goals and expectations. We all know people who\nare like this; many of them are in our prisons, many are involved with\norganized crime, yet others are involved with big and even small business and still\nothers are involved in our country\u2019s politics and government; the world is\nloaded with people who believe things like \u201cmight makes right\u201d and \u201cmy way or\nthe highway\u201d and \u201cthe truth is, what we make it to be\u201d, although I have to\nadmit, that within big and small business and within our government there are\nalso those who are well-meaning and caring individuals who understand sin and\nwant to be a light to the world, and who try to do what is right and good and\nloving. But this is not about politics or business; Jesus was making a very\nimportant point for all people and that point is, bad is not limited to bad\npeople: no one is good; no one is able to stand before the Lord our God and say\nthat he or she is without sin, no one. And it is not just Jesus looking for\nhumility; Jesus wanted and still wants everyone to know and understand that\nthey are, by their own merit, undeserving of God\u2019s love; and that everyone is\nin need of God mercy and forgiveness. Knowing that we are sinners, changes\neverything about us; and because we know that we are sinners, we can seek out\nbetter ways to live; knowing that we are sinners we can look for help in the\nform of guidance and forgiveness; help that Jesus, because he loves us, is very\nwilling to send our way. Again, what would it matter that Jesus died for our\nsins, if we did not see anything that we did as sinful, if we did not recognize\nour sin and our need for Jesus\u2019 forgiveness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repentance\nis not a way to earn Jesus\u2019 forgiveness; repentance is simply the\nacknowledgement of our need for Jesus\u2019 forgiveness, a thing that (I should remind\nyou), has already been offered to us. It is truly amazing; it is a wonderful\nthing; before, even, we know or recognize our sin, before we are convicted of\nour sin, Jesus is here with us, forgiveness in his hand, offering it to us, like\na precious jewel, ready to give it to us, and offering to us through his\nforgiveness and love, peace of mind and hope for salvation. Nothing in Jesus\u2019\nmessage was said simply to make us feel bad, or feel guilty. All of what Jesus\nsaid was designed to convict us of our sin so that we would freely receive\nJesus\u2019 forgiveness; maybe even appreciate what Jesus has already done for us. That\nis why the part of the service that we call the \u201cConfession of Sins\u201d always\nends with a statement of absolution for your sins. In today\u2019s Gospel reading, unfortunately,\nthe forgiveness part does not appear, primarily because our reading is long and\nwhat we read is just a portion of a much longer story, but we should not\noverlook all that Jesus spoke about God\u2019s forgiveness and love, and we should\nnot ignore Jesus\u2019 many acts of healing and feeding and forgiveness and love,\nincluding Jesus suffering and his crucifixion for us. Even from the cross, in\nhis time of suffering, Jesus called upon God to forgive his executioners and again\nfrom the cross Jesus forgave the criminal who shared a similar suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus,\nby his suffering and death paid the price for your sins, my sins, everyone\u2019s\nsins, so that you and I and others do not need to suffer God\u2019s punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sin\nand punishment are not really the point of Jesus\u2019 message. Just as the point of\nthe Confession of Sins is not about making us feel bad, its point rests in the\nabsolution, so the point of Jesus\u2019 message is all about forgiveness, it is\nabout God\u2019s love and mercy, it is about God\u2019s hope that we will grow into a\nrelationship with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. A child grows up\ndepending on his\/her parents; eventually the child becomes an adult, feeling no\nneed for his\/her parents, it is only when the new adult experiences struggle,\nmaybe failure and admits to the difficulties of life that the child is able to\nform an adult relationship with his\/her parents. Similarly, it is through\nconfession and the other struggles of life that we are able to build a strong\nrelationship with God. A relationship of love, trust and faith. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew 5:21-37 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Did you ever notice that most of our worship services begin with a kind of confession of sins and the season before us, Lent as we observe it, also emphasizes confession of sins and Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":596,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}