Trinity XV Sermon 2026

September 13, 2026 | Fr. Glenn Spencer

I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them.

And further on in Matthew 10 Jesus asked: “Are not two sparrow sold for a farthing?” So what is a sparrow worth? Not much we would say, except that at the end of the verse our Lord says, “And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Heavenly Father.” 

Over the years I have pointed out that Liturgy is the prayer of the Bride of Christ and she intends to effect changes in the material world through this prayer. The effectual prayer of the Church is exactly that, a prayer that effects change. This change, this transmutation, this transformation does not destroy the thing it changes; grace perfects what it touches. Grace does not destroy nature. Just as our Lord by becoming a real human being through the agency of the Blessed Virgin Mary did not destroy the humanity he received from her in her womb, so the changes the Bride of Christ wishes to effect in the material world through her Liturgy will not destroy that which is changed; rather it is her intention to perfect nature. There are three changes we pray for in the Liturgy: First that the Bread and Wine will become the sacramental Body and Blood of our Lord. We feed upon the sacramental Life, the Body and Blood of Christ for the strengthening and refreshing our souls.  That points to the second change we intend by the Liturgy – that is that our interiority, our inward man, our interior life will be changed, transformed and over time perfected through the prayer of the Church. Having our interior life transformed by the love of Christ, we may then work and pray for good, wholesome, Godly, change in the world; the uplift of humanity, the Godly flourishing of all humanity.

Like last week, I want to attend once again to the sort of changes Holy Mother Church prays for in the life of her own children. And this week I want us to ask ourselves what we believe about the God we worship? There’s many a false image of God in the life of Christians. Especially in stressful and troubling times, false images of God, offer a sort of satisfaction and comfort. These false images are alluring. 

In the days of our Lord’s flesh, the only signposts that nomadic tribes traveling the desert could depend on were the stars. The stars guided pilgrims who used to journey in caravans. These old desert navigators would plot their journey from oasis to oasis using their knowledge of the heavens. There are no fixed landmarks in the desert. The ever-changing landscape, the heat of the day, the cold night, the fear of dangerous animals and dangerous people; the longing for an oasis that would bring relief and some security. Frequently, desert pilgrims would observe what appeared to be the flickering light of a campfire off in the distance. The temptation to leave the chosen route of seasoned travelers and follow that light, what they came to call “ignis fatuus,” or “false light,” had to be resisted. What was required was a sort of remediation – a remedial education – so they could learn how to travel the desert safely. I want to suggest that most of us need remediation over and over again when it comes to knowing the kind of God Jesus revealed to us.

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

How very difficult it is for people to believe what Jesus says in this passage. That God attends the death of a bird? Are you serious, Jesus? And know this, when he speaks of vesting the flowers in beauty, feeding birds and attending their dying, Jesus is not referring to God’s omniscience.  No — he is speaking of God’s love, his paternity and his providence. Jesus is describing a God who is lavish in what he gives away. I realized this sounds smaltzy and like a Hall Mark card, but this is exactly what Jesus said about his Father. Now this is the true light, not the false light that seems reasonable. And the Church, through the Liturgy, puts us through a perpetual program of remedial spiritual formation so that we not only identify and know the true light, but we are enabled to actually follow the true light. We have a tendency to keep on falling back upon our on natural and what we would argue are “reasonable” visions of God. Of course these are our own visions and not God’s.

I once had a neighbor who had a license plate that read, “Ky2Life” - Key to Life. I thought that was clever. But when I saw him with the hood up the next morning, working on some mystery of the internal combustion engine, the cleverness turned into a joke.  And then at noon the hood was still up and way before the red evening sun set behind Afton Mountain he slammed the hood down in great frustration.

That’s when I said to myself, “Self, isn’t that just like ‘the key 2 Life’ – our versions, our own visions?” Just when you need to get somewhere you can count on it breaking down.

Look we do it all the time. We fashion a God we think, “makes sense to us.” But he is never the God Jesus revealed. He is often controlled by his emotions. He keeps count of all that is done amiss. He seems intent upon exacting, what we think, is the punishment we deserve for sinning and when we don’t get that punishment we question his existence. Our visions of God too often resemble our own bruised egos. And when we substitute our own ego-visions for God’s vision we can’t get anywhere. It’s like my neighbor’s SUV. The exterior looks pretty good, but it is all locked up under the hood. You can climb behind the steering wheel, look out the window, but you’ll get no further than your own driveway. 

In John 17, our Lord places his own life of flesh before his Heavenly Father. His own disciple was betraying him at that very moment. His own agonizing death is at hand. He puts his life and work before his Father and he says,

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received [them], and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

Jesus declares that his Father delights in vesting the flowers in beauty, feeding birds and attending their dying. Jesus declares that his Father is a God of love, a God who is lavish. And you, my dear parishioner, happen to be the particular object of his lavish love. And the only way, or the most unmistakable way he chose to express that love is to offer you his own life. So this morning when you come to the altar and hold out your empty hands you will receive God’s own life. You will hold the life of the Lord of Creation, the life of the King of Love in the palm of your hand.

I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them.