Jesus speaks to you today saying,
“26 Look at
the birds of the air:” and “Consider
the lilies of the field…”
Indeed, by the world’s estimation, Hippie Jesus has come out
to play on this 15th Sunday after the Most Holy Trinity. What they
mean of course, is finding God in nature. They want you to stare at the birds and
the flowers, meditate on them, and be enlightened.
Their reasoning is that these are creations of God, so there
must be something of God within them. Something that hard thought and peaceful
meditation can uncover, if you would just relax and open your mind.
This is the idea of Mother Earth and mother nature. That
somehow, if we are kind to them, they will be kind to us. Do not “pshaw” just
yet. You are indeed all caretakers of the gifts of God, the earth being one of
them. What you are not, are its saviors.
So much has this environmental movement spread and infected
the Church, that even the Pope commanded a day of prayer on the first of this
month. It was decreed that we should pray for the care of Creation in the hopes
of saving it and bringing everyone together as one.
Truly, truly I say to you, as long as humanity is in danger
and a cause to save it can be established, there will be no end to the Tyrants
who are ready and willing to take up their great and noble mantle to lead you
poor plebeians to enlightenment. How irksome.
In the Gradual today, Jesus told you “It is better to trust in the
Lord than to put confidence in man or princes” (Ps. 118:8-9). In fact,
while you groan on and on about how the world doesn’t need any more hippies and
chafe at the fact of being placed under their authority, as elected officials, Jesus
demeans you one step beyond even that.
Jesus demands that you become disciples of the birds and the
lilies, not that you emulate them or find comfort in them, but that you find
the Law and your sin. For, Jesus knows of no more splendid a king than Solomon,
yet He said that all his glory is nothing compared to a lily that neither toils
or spins, as you all do. (Spangenberg, p.311)
Now, then, if God feeds the birds and adorns the flowers in
the field with such beauty only to be trampled upon and eaten by the animals,
and in the morning flourish and in the evening cut and thrown into the fire,
will the Lord not much more nourish and feed and clothe you sentient men, if
you only could believe it? (ibid.)
Irksome indeed. We should be ashamed almost to the point of
death when we see a bird flying by in the air and a wildflower growing in a
field. That we must be taught by them and they should be our doctors is
disgraceful. Are we not men?
Dear Christians, we have our father and mother Adam and Eve
to thank for such a miserable condition, but even they were not the source of
this curse; not even satan. The Lord has cursed the earth to eventual
destruction. It was the Word of God that spoke in the Beginning and brought
futility and corruption to earth.
Do you think you can fight against the curse of God? Do you
hope to save the earth by recycling a few Wednesdays a year? The earth is
doomed. Heaven and earth shall pass away”, says the Lord. Who are you to go
against the Word of the Lord?
What God ordains is always good. He has ordained the earth
to be corrupted to its eventual demise, not in anger, but in love and hope.
Holy Scripture declares, “For the
creation was subjected to corruption, not willingly, but because of
him who subjected it, in hope;”(Rom. 8:20)
Hope is in the Word of God. Hope is that the Lord will bring
us to faith and graciously sustain us in such faith, by the Holy Ghost, that we
would endure even the curses of God, as Jesus has done.
Consider Christ on the cross. He neither sows, reaps,
gathers, toils, or spins and yet, in His dying on the cross, you find all this
given to you at the price of His Body and Blood. The evil of the day fades,
withers, and tomorrow is tossed in the fire, yet the Word of the Lord endures
forever and this Word creates Faith.
Answer these questions of Jesus, dear Christians: What shall
you eat? What shall you drink? What shall you wear?
The righteousness of God has been revealed apart from
creation, sin, and the Law. The Glory of God is posted on an unnatural tree; so
unnatural that it is able to bind the infinite in place and kill the most holy
God. Not by its own power, but by the will and desire of Him Who created it.
By the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross you are to eat and
inwardly digest the Word. By the declaration of a fallen world, you are to
drink of the Word and thirst no more. By the command of the crucified and risen
Lord of all Creation, you are to be baptized and so clothed with Christ
Himself.
The Word of God gives you the answers to these questions. Do
not be anxious, Jesus says, because they are already provided for you. These
Sacraments are of the Church which no darkness nor even the gates of hell can
overcome.
In the midst of a cursed and dying world, Jesus gives
undying clothes and food and drink. Christ’s robe of righteousness does not
wear out nor is it eaten by moths. The Bread of heaven does not spoil nor does
it leave a man hungry. The Blood of Jesus is a well of eternal life that
springs up from inside of you, as you drink for the forgiveness of sins.
The birds of the air teach us that our work is in vain, yet
the Lord delights in it all. The flowers of the field teach us that beauty is
fleeting, yet a Church that delights in her Bridegroom will be praised (Pro.
31:30).
We are not to seek out our salvation in any other place or
from any other person or idea, other than Christ Crucified. There is no
salvation in nature; there is no salvation in unity. Salvation is found only in
the Word of God, revealed and spoken by the only Son from heaven.
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