8th Sunday after Pentecost 19 July 2015 Sermon

8th Sunday after Pentecost 19.7.15 The way to happiness

We are taught as children not to eat everything in sight; not to be greedy; to consider others, and various other points of etiquette and character-building.

It is good for us to learn manners, but there is also a spiritual parallel here to be learnt.

As we should not reach out too greedily for the food, nor should we for any other perceived benefit.

As we learn restraint and self-discipline in one area so we need to apply it in all areas.

We learn to be patient, humble, generous, considerate of others; and not to be ruled by our appetites.

We need to cultivate these attitudes and make them the basis of our whole spiritual life.

If we are patient with God Himself we will obey Him even when there is no immediate or obvious reward; and even if there is no obvious penalty for disobeying Him.

It is not that hard insofar as God has laid it out for us like a garden. Everything you want, just ring, and you shall have it. The only tiny condition is that you must not touch the forbidden fruit.

And as soon as we are forbidden something we want to know why, and think about how we can get around that command. No matter how much God blesses us we still want to sneak a little more. We don’t want to wait around to be happy. We want to be happy now, as well as later.

So we are tempted to advance our own interests even if it means going against God Himself.
This is the essence of all temptation and all sin.

Sin is snatching at happiness in a way that is too much too soon (like being greedy with food).

If Adam and Eve could not withstand the temptation we are in a worse position because human nature has been weakened by the first sin, and we live in a sin-infected world.

But there is still the same essential simplicity of the choice before us as Adam and Eve faced.

We are still promised happiness if we obey God; and threatened misery if we disobey.

We are no longer in the Garden but God still wants to bless us and make it as easy as possible.

Adam and Eve misfired. Jesus and Mary came along and did better. And now they are helping us to extricate ourselves; to give up slavery to sin and take up holiness of life instead (epistle).

In small and steady ways, in a thousand little things, we can make progress as we throw off the old yoke and take on the new identity.

We can change ourselves if not the whole society.

I cannot stop other people bashing and robbing, lying and killing. But I can stop myself from those things; or even the less obvious sins like speaking ill of others, laziness, pride, anger.

The closer we get to the way of Christ the better we are going to feel, and we can make at least some impact on the whole society, especially if many of us are making the same resolutions.

We must be patient with ourselves also, as we often stumble back into the old ways. We do not give up believing that it is possible to live without sin. It is simply a matter of following God’s instructions.

We learn to recognize the false logic of the devil: Disobey God and claim happiness now – this is the essence of his message.

We have learnt by now not to snatch at the forbidden fruit.