Three elderly men, Eddie, Jenkin, and Martin go to the doctor for their memory test. The doctor asks Eddie, “What’s five times five?” “191,” is his reply. The doctor rolls his eyes and says to Jenkin, “It’s your turn. What’s five times five?” “Wednesday,” replies Jenkin. The doctor shakes his head sadly, then asks the third man, “Okay Martin, it’s your turn. What’s five times five?” “Twenty-five,” says Martin. “That’s great!” says the doctor. “How’d you get your answer?” “Easy,” says Martin, “just subtract 191 from Wednesday.”
My memory isn’t that bad, but I still think it’s time to retire! My call to the priesthood came over 50 years ago, and I was ordained to the priesthood 37 years ago on 26 October 1982. I was ordained at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Texas, by Bishop A. Donald Davies, Bishop of Dallas. I served as Curate at Saint Mark’s for two years, as Rector of Saint Andrew’s in Grand Prairie, Texas, for four years, and after that as Rector of Grace Church, Monroe, Louisiana, for 5 1/2 years, after which I became Rector of Redeemer. Linda and I’ve been here now for almost 26 years. It’s been a good run and we’ve accomplished much over the years to the glory of God and the building up of his Church.
The Gospel for today seems rather odd for my last Sunday as your Rector and as a priest in full-time ministry. Jesus is beginning his ministry. He was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, and at the beginning of his ministry he went to live in Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee.
John the Baptist had been arrested and thrown into prison. The Lord Jesus then began to preach with much the same message as his forerunner had preached. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
While I’m not ending my ministry, for ministry will be a part of my life as long as I live, I hope, this is the ending of a very significant part of my ministry. But it’s also the beginning of the next part of my ministry, the nature of which I’m not aware at this point. And it’s also the beginning of the next part of your ministry as a parish.
One of our parishioners, Jim Tollerton, emailed me this week and suggested that I leave you with a verse of Scripture, a verse that’s been and is important to me. He even suggested a couple of verses: John 3:16 was one. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.“ The other one, Acts 2:42, is “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
Both of those verses would be wonderful to leave you with. Fr. Wood suggested Mark 14, verse 51: “He left the linen cloth and ran away naked.” Instead, however, I think I’ll choose the verse with which Jesus began his ministry. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
This verse contains the secret to happiness. It’s the secret to having a good marriage. It’s the way to build good will and have better friendships. It summarizes the reason our Lord came to this earth. It summarizes the Gospel; indeed, it summarizes all of Scripture, from Genesis through Revelation. It’s the way truly to believe in Jesus and thus live into John 3:16. And it’s the reason the early Church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
Why is it all of these things? Because it gets to the very root of all of our problems, from the anxiety we feel to our relationships at home, at work, and at play, to our relationship with God. The root of the problem is that we put ourselves in the center of our own little universe and expect everything to revolve around us. In other words, we make of ourselves a god. Every human being who has ever lived or who ever will live, with the exception of our Lord Jesus, has that orientation. It’s ingrained in us. It’s our fallen nature. It’s what the Church calls original sin. It’s Sin with a capital S.
To repent is to turn away from that nature and put God in the center of our universe. Each individual in this world needs to undergo a spiritual Copernican revolution. Copernicus, you know, was the one who discovered that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. We need a spiritual Copernican revolution. That’s what repentance means.
So how do we do that? The simple, plain answer is that we can’t. It’s impossible for us to do it because we’re so lost in our self-centeredness. The only way true repentance can happen is by the grace of God, the grace of God convicting us of our need and the grace of God empowering us to change.
What will the end result be if we allow the grace of God truly to change us? We’ll finally be at home, with God, in heaven. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. It’s within our grasp. It’s possible to experience even in this life. Whenever God is truly in the center of our lives, we’re experiencing heaven.
I’ve experienced heaven, or at least caught glimpses of it, many times over the years in this parish, always by the grace of God. I thank God for that, and I thank you, because God works his grace mightily through you. Whatever might become of my memory in my old age, I’ll never forget that.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
3rd Sunday of Epiphany
26 January 2020