A sermon for the 13th SUnday after trinity

A sermon on Romans 13.

The first part of this chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans begins with an admonition that the Christian be obedient to their civil rulers, which is very distasteful to many people today, and also seems at first glance to have little to do with the rest of the chapter. To understand this passage we need to look at the examples that Jesus himself gave us. Firstly, He acknowledged the rightful status of civil rulers; “render therefor unto Cesar the things which are Cesar’s” (Mat 22: 21 KJV). It’s worth pondering that, because God of course doesn’t like a lot of things governments and rules do, such as if legalise prostitution. He doesn’t like them being unjust, as parables about unjust landowners show us (Lk 12: 16 - 21; Mat 21: 33 - 46). So surely we can critique and rebel against unjust rulers? Well, in another parable disobedient servants are punished (Lk 12: 35 - 4 and in another obedience is rewarded (Lk 17: 7-10).  But these parables also tell us something important; both the rulers in them were good. Rulers who impel us to sin, such as to set up concentration camps or commit genocide, can clearly not be the subject of the verse “For rulers are not a terror to good works” (Rom 13: 3 KJV). So St. Paul is speaking of rulers who encourage us to good works. Not good because they come from our political party; not ruler’s whose tax policy we like, just ones who don’t demand we break the ten commandments. On that note, we are also clearly commanded to pay taxes at Romans 13: 6. But the fact that there is such a  definition of a good ruler is one that a lot of Christians in this partisan age struggle with. “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another” (Rom 13: 8 KJV). As long as a ruler doesn’t break this and other commandments (Rom 13: 9) we are impelled to obey them.

But we also are required to obey the commandments as well as the rulers, ourselves. St. Paul talks about this in the latter half of this chapter (Rom 13: 11-14). Just as we are required to submit to good rulers, we are required to be good followers of the commandments ourselves, because Christ did not abolish these law, but completed them, by making following them in your heart as well as in your mind the goal. Following them in your acts is obeying them, because a good ruler says to; following them in your heart is what we fall back on when we don’t have such a clear example (Mat 5: 17 - 28).

So St. Paul in this chapter asks us to just this, obey rules in public submission to a good ruler, and in private, for the Judgement day is approaching; the armour of light is the commandments (Rom 13: 11-12). Public submission: don’t riot, don’t cause political strife, don’t break the law by being drunk around the town.

Private submission: don’t fornicate, don’t covet.

St. Paul writes all these things in Romans 13; it is our obligation as Christians to live up to them.

A sermon on the 12th Sunday after Trinity

A sermon on Romans 10: 1 - 10.

In Romans we read about St. Paul’s desire to have Israel saved, but more importantly for us we read about HOW it can be saved. This passage is an affront to all those who make works a part of salvation; make no mistake,searching for Christian perfection is a work, and it does not get us saved. Rather, we do it because we ARE saved, for we are not capable of any good thing without being saved (2 Cor 3: 5). Salvation is through faith alone.

In Romans 10: 5 St. Paul clearly describes how the law (works) became an end in itself for Israel; “That the man which doeth these things shall live BY THEM” (KJV). Such was the “faith” of Israel before Christ came. But Christ put to death the law,so that it was no longer effective. There is reason preacgers still talk about salvation through faith alone though, which is that making judgements about people’s salvation through folllowing a law,or works,still infects Christianity and weakens it.

How often does the secular world look at Christians and say “they spend all this time talking about sex and not enough talking about Jesus”?. We’ve all had the experience of going to churches and hearing gossip. Gossip about which person is drinking, which person is fornicating, which person smokes. And the implication here is there is a subtle undercurrent of “how can these people be saved, what are they here for?”. Sure, they need to seek Christian perfection like all of us, but they need to be saved to do that, but we are looking at things backwards when we gossip; Christian perfection before we know if they’re saved. It’s wrong, and the secular world knows it’s wrong too, and we turn themoff Christ.

Look in the Bible; St. Paul writes “say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above): or, who shall descend into the deep?” (Rom 10: 6-7 KJV). St. Paul, and the Bible, thus clearly say that we should not go around judging people by their works; that is to go back to the days of the law, whereas we are now in the days of faith. We see how we are to become saved, and to get people saved, in Romans 10: 10. In one’s heart you must have faith that Christ died for your sins, and with one’s mouth you must confess it. Salvation is by faith alone.

So when we want to get Israel, or the secular world, saved, don’t go to them with works; go to them with the Word of God; if they believe that your works are good, it won’t get them saved. If you don’t drink or smoke,it won’t get them saved; only if you bring them the word of God, and they believe and confess that Christ died fortheir Salvation,will it get them saved.

The 11th Sunday after Trinity

“God be merciful to me a sinner” (Lk 19: 13 KJV)

In the Eastern churches, the favourite prayer of all is the prayer of the publican in this gospel account. “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”. Occasionally it is said as THE sinner, emphasising even more that no matter what the speck my Pharisee’s eye, I am the biggest sinner.

This sort of acknowledgment of our own sinfulness and need for salvation, mercy and grace has become vey unfashionable in our day and age. But it is worth dwelling on, because as the psalmist says “a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Ps 51: 17 KJV).

Protestant theologians of a liberal, and sometimes, a conservative ilk, are quite happy to critique this recognition of our sinfulness as being Catholic guilt, which we needn’t have as we are saved by Christ’s sacrifice. Interestingly, this is a very blinded point of view, because evangelical Christians are happy to emphasise the inherent sinfulness of man to get conversions, but not afterwards. We certainly put on a new man in Christ, but underneath the new man, the old man, with the heart of stone predisposed to sin certainly lies. We can see this with our desire to conform to the voice within us asking us to distract ourselves from worship on a Sunday with sport, BBQs, TV, a Sunday roast. Yet as Christians we are bound to keep the Sabbath holy. We may not be big sinners, but we ARE inclined to sin; we are able to resist our inclination to sin through Christ, but we are still drawn to it.

Theologians such as Wesley have devoted much thought to the problem of sin committed after conversion. It is clear that when we are saved, our former sinful lives are renewed by Christ. What is not so clear is what happens when we sin after conversion, or indeed whether we can sin after conversion. Hardline Calvinists would maintain that those who are pre-destined to be saved are saved regardless of their actions. Wesley on the other hand, maintained that one could indeed fall out of grace, coming close to Catholic theologians in his view that the Christian could maintain their saved stature by not committing sinful actions. Wesley’s state of striving towards perfection is much like the Catholic state of grace view, which Wesley equates with justification. Wesley however goes too far in saying a Christian can lose their justification.

When we are justified by faith, we are once and for all saved. If we fall into a state of sin, we can recover from it by solemn repentance. When we sin, we lose our state of grace, or fall down in our striving for Christian perfection. We are still saved, through God’s grace, because God is a merciful God. But we sorely need to repent, as King David did in Psalm 51 after his fornication with Uriah’s wife.

When we confess that we are a sinner, like the publican in Luke’s Gospel, we recommit ourselves to striving for perfection. It is a good thing to do from time to time, lest we become like the Pharisee, taking so much pride in our good works that we don’t see the fall coming ahead; and pride comes before a bigger fall, requiring more repentance to get right with God again.

So let us not skim past the prayer of the publican; for we all sometimes need to recognise, that however good Christians we are, sometimes we are in need of acknowledging our minor, frequent, unconcious sins, as well as any big ones, so that we might repent them, and return to the race towards perfection which God our Father demands of us.

A sermon for the 10th Sunday after Trinity

“If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!” (Lk 19: 42 KJV)

The Gospel of St. Luke is in this place difficult to relate to our own lives. However, I have pondered upon it and believe it has something to offer us in our day to day experience of Christ our Saviour, particularly for those who have a relationship with Christ, but have yet to personally accept Him as their Lord and Saviour.

The essence of Luke 19: 42 is to ask us to reflect on where our peace lies.

Is our life peaceful, and if not, why not? Let us look to 2 Corinthians 13: 11, where we see that God is what gives us peace in life. If we look through the letters of St. Paul, we see that grace and peace are intimately linked (cf Eph 6: 23 -4; Gal 6: 16 - 18 KJV ) and in Colossians 4: 18 St. Paul says GRACE, not peace, be with you (KJV), compared to Romans 15: 33 for example. This indicates something fundamental, which is that that peace comesthrough the grace of God, when we are redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice in faith.

When Jesus says that Jerusalem did not recognise him at the time of his visitation (Lk 19: 45) he says that Jerusalem will not know peace. We seeto this day that Jerusalem is repeatedly torn down by war and strife, just as Jesus prophesied (Lk 19: 43). Would the situation be different if Jerusalem had accepted Christ when he came the first time? We accept His prophesy on this matter.

The message the fate of Jerusalem holds for us is that we get one free shot at Christ; but when we reject our first shot at accepting him as our Lord and Saviour, our lives get harder and harder, because we don’t have that first bunch of peace we get from knowing him.

Conversion is never easy, but the more we reject Christ, the harder it gets, though the door is always open. The door is still open to Israel, but the more it gets into war and strife, the more the Jews and Muslims get locked into their positions and the harder it gets for them to know the peace that is Christ.

So I want to take away from this Gospel passage the invitation to help nurture those who are in need of Christ, that they can accept Him when he first knocks on the doors of their heart. Show them the peace that is Christ, because Christ frees us from all the problems of the world which torment us.

A sermon for the 9th Sunday after Trinity, 2008

“Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice.” (1 Kings 10: 9 KJV)

This verse stuck out to me this week, for so many reasons.Firstly, it shows us that God recognises the gifts which His servants possess. Because Solomon was wise, he was set upon the throne of Israel. But this, and the passage around it also tell us about the gifts which we recieve for using our talents to follow Christ, for being just, and for being good stewards of what we are given. The passage thus ties in nicely with the Gospel reading of this Sunday, being Luke 16: 1 - 12. And of course, the verse at 1 Kings 10:9 also looks forward, as does the whole Old Testament, to the days when Christ will reign as King over Israel. He holds the values perfectly which Solomon holds imperfectly. Nonetheless, we learn a lot of things about how to follow Christ from Solomon: I explain the above points in more detail below.

We should use our talents in following Christ.  Solomon had a talent for decision-making. God put him on the throne to govern Israel, because the way he used his talent was an echo of Christ. This is because he made his decisions with wisdom. Anyone can make a choice in a matter, but Solomon used wisdom, which is a gift from God. So we can set ourselves above the pack,when we use our talents in away where we reflect Christ even though we don’t know it. Solomon was noteworthy because he didn’t know Christ, yet still did such. Like all the Old Testament figures, he was a foretelling of Christ,while we are called to be echoes.

When we use our gifts to follow Christ, we are rewarded. Solomon was rewarded by the Queen of Sheba for how he lived, with gifts of valuable commodities of the time (1 Kings 10: 10). We see that while maybe we don’t get rewarded with these things, we get rewarded when we follow Christ in the way that God chooses. he gives us what we need. 1 Kings 10: 10 is not a verse supporting prosperity preaching; God gives what we need when we need it. If we read through the rest of 1 Kings 10 we see that Solomon spent this money on an army for Israel. One of the things we learn from the Bible is that sin is individual, and the consequences of sin are, where possible, borne by individuals. The reason God rewarded Solomon’s wisdom relates to  Solomon’s fall from grace, and far from being prosperity for Solomon,was prosperity for Solomon’s people, that they were not vanquished in battle when Solomon sinned (1 Kings 11: 14 ff). The bottom line is that when we use our talents wisely and well when following Christ,it reaps rewards in the way God chooses, and sometimes those rewards can be for others. We shouldn’t run from that, because as Christians,we are sinners like Solomon, and if we can get rewards for others by following Christ, they are still rewards; even if we don’t get prosperity now.

The way in which we follow Christ wisely is clear. When Christ in Luke 16: 11 talks about “unrighteous mammon” (KJV) what he is actually talking about is mammon which promotes or encourages righteousness, or which is intrinsically not holy. Christ’s message is that we cannot deal well with holy things if our lives are in disarray and we can’t even deal well with unholy things. We practice wise stewardship by not just doing the things in our daily lives that we get a payoff from. If we do that we are like the steward in this parable. The reason he takes money off the bills (Lk 16: 5- 7) is because the steward added things onto their bills for his own gain, and didn’t demand that they pack back merely what they owed his master. We shouldn’t be like that steward, we should not add on things for our own profit when we go to work or to socialise. A concrete example; if you have to fly away on a trip for work, don’t go for the big hotel because work pays, go for the cheaper hotel. Do you NEED the big hotel? There are all sorts of social situations where similar things are possible. To deal wisely with things, don’t take the payoffs, but do what is just and needful. We are not of the world, but working in it is training for working for the things that are not of it, so we need to deal justly with even the unrighteous things of the world; that way we train ourselves to act wisely,like Solomon did. Christ commends us when we do the right thing,even if our job is not of God, it trains us to manage things which are of God when we get the chance (Lk 16: 8).

These were some brief gleanings from scripture about how we best exercise wisely the gifts Christ gives us when we are in the world. Wisdom is given to all in greater or lesser degree so I use it as an example. may we seek to exercise wisdom in our dealings with the world.

Reflection on my ordination to the diaconate, 13th July: 2008, the 8th Sunday After Trinity.

I will not be writing a sermon as such this week, as the sermon preached at my ordination was preached by Rev. David Leet and I do not wish to reprise someone else’s work.

Instead, I offer a few reflections on what I believe to be the role of a deacon, why it is important that every priest spends time as a deacon prior to advancing to the priesthood, and why the deacon should be allowed to minister independently, without being dependent on a priest.

I do not like the term “advance” to the priesthood, because the advancement is only hierarchical. There are three different pools of holy orders, but each is part of the same pond; the journey from deacon to priest is lateral within the sacrament of holy orders, but vertical in hierarchical responsibility; the hierarchy advances, not the sacrament; one is as much in the sacrament of orders if one is a deacon as if one is a priest. It therefore follows that if holy orders are permanent, all degrees of it are permanent; it is also to some degree a misnomer to speak of a permanent deacon. A deacon is a servant, a priest is a sacramental leader; one has to serve before they can follow. But even a deacon who becomes a priest is somehow permanently a deacon, because even when one becomes a priest, to be an effective priest he must somehow stay a servant. By serving people, in pastoral ministry, as a priest, one stays a deacon in some fashion. The deacon is an icon of Christ the servant, which the priest assimilates, and shows at times, such as when washing feet at the Holy Thursday liturgy.

So it is important that a priest REALLY spends time as a deacon before he is ordained to priesthood, because he needs to fully assimilate the servant aspect of ministry as a deacon. The three degrees of holy orders reveal three aspects of Christ’s ministry:

• the diaconate, His service to humanity

• priesthood, His making present the divine in the midst of the human, by celebrating the sacraments which Christ instituted.

• The episcopate, Christ’s headship of the body of the Church; the Episcopate represent Christ at a local level

It is apparent therefore to see that the one who is called to be deacon, even if for only a short time prior to being ordained priest must be one who is called especially to serve, to walk and sit with the outcast, the bottom level of the world’s imagined hierarchy. Only when this has been achieved, when the minister has truly been moulded into a servant, can he be anything else.

The deacon is taught especially to serve his bishop; in the ordination service it is only the bishop that participates, representing that the deacon is for all time a servant of the bishop, learing the obedience to his bishop that he will later exercise as a priest. To have an order of priests which are Godly, humble and obedient, they must develop the virtue of serving Christ and his representatives.

Because the deacon serves the bishop, he need not serve the priest. The deacon, given pre-consecrated elements, and water, can distribute the Eucharist, baptize, and read the Holy Gospel. For this reason the deacon can be sent into new territories, to minister where none other will, without a priest, but as the emissary of their bishop. The deacon is close to his bishop in a special way, and is a whole, but humble and obedient member of the body of those in holy orders, not a second rate minister, but a first rate deacon, devoted to the first and principle lesson of being a Christian; to serve Christ and those he sends.

The 7th Sunday after Trinity 2008

I would like to write about shame.

The following verse of scripture has been springing out at me in the lessons for the 7th Sunday after Trinity:

“What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?” (Rom 6: 21 KJV).

This verse reminds me a lot of Matthew 7: 16, “ye shall know them by their fruits” (KJV). When I reflect upon the things I am most ashamed of in my life, I find that they bring forth thorns and ivy in my way rather than good fruits in the path of the Lord, to feed me upon that way.

So I ponder where shame plays a role in our conscience as people of God. There is a tendency for shame to be downplayed in our society as an indicator of low self-esteem. You look at the motivational theories which get bandied around in human resource management circles, such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and shame, morality don’t figure much. If you haven’t seen Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (MHN) I suggest you type it into your favourite search engine and look at it. Then consider what exactly it is a model of motivation for. If it represents the way that human beings make decisions about how to act, what are the actions it is asking about?

For a concrete example, MHN suggests that the first thing people have to have sorted out before they can be motivated to make any sort of decision is to have food, shelter, warmth, etc. Biological needs. And the second thing that they need to have is to be safe, to know that someone isn’t going to come and break into their house, kill them etc. And in theory if you don’t have these things you can’t be motivated to make any decisions or do anything in your work place, because this is a theory straight out of a human resource management textbook.

The problem is, if you ask what does a Christian need to have in place to be motivated to do good Christian acts, it doesn’t work. For example, what of the numerous Christian ministers in concentration camps in world war II who gave up food, water, shelter, and put themselves at risk so that they could minister to others. MHN doesn’t apply to them. And it doesn’t really apply to a Christian’s life at all, because it doesn’t differentiate between whether one is asked to do a good, neutral or evil act, and the criteria will differ, they won’t be uniform as modern theories like MHN assume.

So I would suggest that things like shame, fear of God, all these sensations that don’t fit into models of decision making and action like MHN, are strong decision making aids for Christians. If we are uncertain about whether we should perform an action or about the moral character of one we have performed, I would strongly suggest that shame, as well as the fruit which came or could come from the action, is a strong guide of whether God would approve.

After we were born again we have this little voice inside us, which is the Holy Ghost, who is telling us, or trying to tell us what we should do, in spite of the natural, sinful man who tends towards disobeying this voice. Shame is an instrument that the Holy Ghost uses to tell us that the natural man got something past the Holy Ghost, that the natural man tends towards doing something sinful. When we feel ashamed of what we might do, it is our Christian decision making process, directed by the Holy Ghost, which is telling us that we have been tempted. As a Christian it is our duty to try and avoid temptation, aided by prayer, particularly the Lord’s prayer. So when we feel shame, we shouldn’t lock it up as some part of our nature which is pre-modern and counter-productive to self-actualisation, but we should listen, and pray, and remedy our desires and actions accordingly. Shame should be a part of a Christian’s armour and decision-making, so we avoid tending to sin and having to evaluate the fruits of our actions when it is too late.

A sermon on St. Peter’s day, 2008

The readings given for this day about the activities of St. Peter in the early church give us much thought about how God regularly intervenes in the lives of those who follow him, sometimes by a miracle, sometimes by the power of the association of the faithful. I’ve expereienced both these things in my daily life recently during troubled times, so it’s a ripe time to say that God still does intervene in my life every day particularly through the thoughts and prayers of others.

We should never underestimate the power of prayer. We look at the boldness of the Apostles when they are taken before the authorities in Acts 4: 18 and we wonder if would do the same in their situation. What were the common factors in the Apostle’s that gave them their boldness? Acts 2: 42 tells us that the apostles were PRAY-ERS. Not only pray-ers, but regularly refreshing themselves by union with Jesus Christ iby following the commandment to celebrate His Supper. And as a result of their steadfastness in prayer and worship their actions were forthright and bold and “fear fell came upon every soul” (Acts 2: 43 KJV). And this is not just believers, even the high priests of the temple feared God through these men. They knew St. Peter and all the other pray-ers really spoke for God, but they didn’t like it. But it didn’t matter that they didn’t like it, because the Apostles were real pray-ers and they couldn’t do a thing about them healing people in the temple gateway (Acts 3: 7- 9) or breaking of an unjust prison (Acts 5: 23), because the Apostles prayed, St. Peter prayed, and the people prayed. When a whole bunch of people are praying there is not a lot that people can do against them.

It wasn’t always like this of course, because we know that St. Peter failed to pray with Jesus in Gethsemane (Mt26: 40), looked for the sword rather than spiritual boldness to solve disputes with the authorities (Jn 18: 10) and denied he even knew our Saviour (Mt 26: 75). But when he started praying things changed for him; we see that “AND WHEN THEY HAD PRAYED, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4: 31 KJV) (my emphases).

The thing we need to remember about St. Peter was that he wasn’t one of these Christians who have a sudden conversion and go and change the world, like St. Paul. he was a Christian like the bulk of us who struggled with his fears and his inadequacies and his vision. So he got a different mission than St. Paul; different gifts, different mission. But he always had gifts; he was able to percieve things about Christ that escaped others almost from the first (Mt 16: 16). That these were combined with doubt, also almost from the first (Mt 16: 22) is what makes St. Peter an Apostle like many Christians. What changed St. Peter and gave him the boldness he lacked at the thrice denial of Christ was prayer.

Let us pray that we don’t give up on the power of prayer in our lives, that we too may be bold in the face of those who reject Christ.

The 5th Sunday after Trinity

“And through covetousness they shall make a merchandise of you” (2 Pet 2: 3a KJV).

What are the false prophets in our time (2 Pet 2:1)? While there are many, I would like to focus on one trend in our society, which while viewed by some as a social norm or problem, I prefer to view as false prophecy, for while appearing to exalt the self and to view self-transcendence as salvation, it results in exactly what St. Peter foretold, which is that they shall make merchandise of us. I talk about the influences in our society that make sex self-transcendence.

How do they do this? Firstly they commodify the sexual identity of the individual. From t-shirts labeled with FCUK and bunnies with pornographic associations to celebrities making money with their intimate liasons by displaying them across magazine covers for big bucks our bodies and emotions and what we do with them are made to be tools of self-advancement. Graphic examples are the progressive “upscaling” of spouses exhibited by certain celebrities in their short, highly publicised marriages and the insuring of body parts for large sums of money,lest they no longer be able to profit from their sexuality.

Is our society marketed to by these events, and does this marketing constitute a kind of false prophecy? Does it encourage our society to covet the celebrity wedding, disregarding the celebrity marriage, which often does not benefit from the coveting of the big day? Does it drive us to covet the celebrity wife or husband, to compare our life to that, to desire that in our life, to compete for a comparable partner? By comparing our partner and wedding day to a celebrity’s if we do so, do we commodify either of those important things in our life?

It seems to my mind that the verse from St. Peter given above can be applied to the potential effects of this situation. We must ask ourselves how the comparing of spouses and weddings to media models and the exaltation of their and our intimate relationships as our final goal in life compares to the final commandment,which is that we do not covet anything which is our neighbour’s, even their attractions (Deut 5: 21).

I offer thoughts, and I want us to ask ourselves whether they apply in our society. if they do, let us not join, but let us love our spouses for who they are, not what we may receive from them. For in looking at them as an avenue to anything but a loving lifetime union we covet them, our neighbour, we make them a product to attain benefits from. let us recognise the potential for this to occur in our society, and be in our own lives and relationships steadfast examples against this. Let us love, that we may be loved, and give, rather than be given to because we view love as something to share not to gain.

The 4th Sunday after Trinity

A sermon on Luke 6: 36 - 39

It is significant that people are blind by how thy follow God, not that they don’t. One can be a blind guide by not being a sufficiently pious and faithful seeker of Christian perfection, not just by believing that God is merciful. that is, one can be blind by being unmerciful, for we are to be merciful as God is, not merely to believe it (Lk 6:36).

What happens when we become Christian, or why do we become Christian? We become Christians because we find traits in God which we find attractive, such as mercy, forgiveness, and wisdom; these gifts grant us salvation, for through mercy, God’s only son was given up for our sakes (Jn 3: 16).

We know that when we become Christians it is sufficient that we should believe this that we should be justified by faith. But, once we are saved, more is given to us, because we have ben given much (Mk 4: 25). Wehave been given mercy, then we are given the Holy Ghost that we might be a force for good. We must turn our salvation to the salvation of others and to their bodily and emotional wellbeing. This is the journey towards Christian perfection.

If we are born again of the Holy Ghost, we cannot be blind guides. For through the Holy Ghost we are given to works of mercy, as our Father in Heaven is merciful. We should reserve to Him the judgement that is His, lest we be judged on the last day. As with judging other’s works to be good or not, neither should we condemn them when we are found lacking in forbearance, but should forgive them, that we ight also be forgiven on the last day.

We should give, that we might receive. For faith without works is dead, and cannot bring life to others (James 2: 17). Let us commit ourselves to seek perfection, that others might seek it by knowing us. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.