3rd Sunday after Epiphany 26 Jan 2020 Sermon

3^rd Sunday after Epiphany 26.1.20 Authority

Our Lord can cure any illness from any position. Today we have Him healing one person through touch; another from a distance.

A miracle is an intervention in nature by one who is powerful enough to do that. Our Lord is unquestionably powerful enough; He has authority over all things.

We ordinary mortals cannot overrule nature. We cannot make it rain, or stop the operation of gravity just by wishing it, but Our Lord could do so - with a word, with a thought. Let there be light.

The word of God carries authority, and nature knows when it is beaten as far as God is concerned.

We see that Nature does not usually give way to us. We can, however, go some way to increase our spiritual power, and we do that by coming into closer union with Our Lord.

Doing that we will have more authority over what is below us. Lower creation will obey us if we obey the authority above us.

The Centurion explains this in today’s Gospel. He has the authority to make a lower-ranked soldier come or go, just by a word. Obedience holds the whole structure together. If nobody obeyed there would be complete chaos. If everyone obeys there is order.

If we disobey God nature will disobey us, and even sometimes destroy us (cf disasters).

God meant us to rule over the lower creation. But we cannot even control ourselves let alone the rest of the creation.

The more we are at one with God the more of His power will be available to us.

There would be more order if there were less sin. It is sin that sets off all the trouble.

Knowing this, if we cannot stop a storm we can at least stop what causes the storm. If we do not yet have enough spiritual authority to work miracles, we can build up that authority by practising obedience to God.

It starts with you and me. The faith and humility of each particular servant will increase the likelihood of a good outcome.

It is not our primary aim to become miracle-workers; it is merely that we are giving to God the sort of trust and fidelity that should have always been there. The miracles will flow from that as a by-product.

To be at one with God is itself a more noble objective than the power to work miracles, but we should manage both.

We are seeking to restore what has been lost. When we were expelled from the Garden of Eden we had to start all over again, and in a much more painful and tedious way.

We would be assisted by the grace of God but we would have to struggle to overturn our attachment to sin.

We regain control as we had it before the Fall, and suddenly everything will look a lot easier.

As it is we are pushing uphill on many points at once.

The key to it all is to come back to God. We approach Him in sorrow for sin, and humility of spirit, and the rest will fall into place.

This is what we need for Australia [on our national day]. We are a spiritually desolate nation, and we continue to look in the wrong place, trusting to human reason to solve the problems.

Reason by all means, but we need faith too. We need to acknowledge the chain of command with God at the top. Then we will see better days – much happier people and less disasters, such as bushfires.

We are called to repentance, like Israel of old. They usually did repent when called to it; may we have enough wisdom to follow their example.