17th Sunday after Pentecost 23.9.12 One Lord
We have the same Lord, the same faith, the same baptism, the same God... (epistle)
Who is this Lord that is the same for all of us? It is Jesus Christ, God the Son, who has taken on human nature and saved us from sin and death.
That He is Lord must mean that we have to be submissive to Him.
Who talks about submission anymore? We have become so used to egalitarianism – where everyone is on first name terms; and leadership is by consultation not by decree.
Things have become much more casual than they used to be, and we see this in the Church as well. Formality is suspected of being insincere. Only a very chummy, matey style of prayer is allowed. We speak to God as an equal, or nearly equal.
While we can and should approach Our Lord as a friend and helper, it is never as an equal. We must give Him obedience, adoration, and absolute submission of mind, heart and will.
It is not, after all, a burden to obey Him. As He tells us, My yoke is easy; My burden light. He makes the commands delightful to us.
He is Lord as in all-powerful, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, as well as Saviour. Every detail in the whole of creation is under His authority.
As Lord He can make laws. They will always be good laws, far exceeding human wisdom. Today elected governments and houses of parliament think that they can overturn divine laws. There are some things that cannot change, eg that marriage must be between a man and a woman. Such things cannot be decided by vote or opinion poll.
A man recently asked me, Did I believe in women priests? The next pope maybe would change it, he thought. Given enough time people come around. They do ‘come around’ but that just shows how foolish people can be when cut loose from the source of Wisdom.
Much better if we leave things as the Lord has arranged them! That certain things cannot change gives us peace of mind and a solid basis on which to build other things.
There is peace of mind also in obedience. If we would all obey the Lord what a different world it would be. If we make our own laws we have the world looking like it does!
We understand the concept. Look how every sport has very precise rules and how everyone respects those rules. There would be a riot if someone tried to change the rules to suit themselves. eg how a goal is scored in a football game.
We have the same Lord for all, because human nature is the same the world over. The Church is not meant for just a few places. Cultural differences are fine but we cannot have differences in the basic beliefs.
People try to make all religions acceptable to give everyone a sense of belonging. You will not miss out just because of your beliefs. This is a false harmony, ignoring the differences.
The real harmony is when everyone obeys and worships the same Lord. Then we really have unity and ‘tolerance’ (so much extolled these days).
This is what St Paul was appealing for. No one will fight if we all believe the same things and live the same truths.
So we see there are a lot of ‘ones’ here – one faith, one baptism, one Lord - restricting our choice but working very much towards our advantage.
If we want to stop the fighting the best way is if we all believe the same things, and it would help if we could get the beliefs to match the objective truth -
Jesus Is Lord!
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