Sermon 23A

SERMON 23/A

SERMON ON THE RESPONSE OF PSALM 74:
"We will praise You, God,"
"We will praise and invoke Your name"

To confess to God is to humble oneself to God.

We are happy if what we hear and sing we also do. For our hearing is the sowing, but the doing is the fruit of the sowing. A field in which wheat is sown and generates thorns should not expect a granary but flame. So too those who hear good things and do evil things should not expect for themselves the granary of the kingdom of heaven, but that fire of which it is said: "Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels." Having said this, I admonish your Charity that you do not uselessly enter the church, hearing so many good things and not doing well. But according to the goodness of the sower and the seed of the word of God, so in your morals and in your life, just as in good soil, let the most abundant fruit of good morals arise, and expect the farmer to come, preparing for you the granary into which you will be placed. Behold, we have sung: "We will confess to you, God, we will confess and call upon your name." To confess to God, what is it but to humble oneself to God, not to arrogate any merit to oneself? For by his grace we have been saved, as the Apostle says, not by works, lest anyone should boast; for by his grace we have been saved. There did not precede any good life which he from above would love and cherish and say: "Let us help, let us come to the aid of these people, because they live well." Our life was displeasing to him, everything we were doing in us was displeasing to him, but what he made in us was not displeasing to him. Therefore, what we did he will condemn, what he himself made will save. He will condemn the evil deeds of men, and he will save the men themselves. For men did not make themselves, but they did evil deeds. What in them God made, because God made man in his image and likeness, is good. But what man turned away from the creator and maker through free will and turned towards wickedness and did evil, this God condemns, so that he may free the man, that is, God condemns what man did, and God frees what he himself made.

A great doctor has come to us.

Therefore, we were not good. And He pitied us, and sent His Son to die, not for the good but for the wicked, not for the just but for the impious. Indeed, Christ died for the impious. And what follows? Scarcely for a righteous person will one die, though perhaps for a good person someone might dare to die. Perhaps someone might be found who dares to die for a good person. But for the unjust, for the impious, for the iniquitous, who would want to die, except Christ alone, so just that He would justify the unjust? Therefore, my brothers, we had no good works, but all were evil. Therefore, when the deeds of men were such, His mercy did not abandon men. And although they were deserving of punishment, He gave grace instead of the punishment that was due, grace which was not owed. And He sent His Son to redeem us, not with gold, not with silver, but with the price of His shed blood, a spotless lamb led to sacrifice for the blemished sheep, if only blemished, and not wholly infected. Therefore, we have received this grace. Let us live worthily of the grace we have received, lest we insult such great grace. So great a physician came to us and forgave all our sins. If we want to be sick again, not only will we be destructive to ourselves, but also ungrateful to the physician.

He showed us the way of humility through his precepts and made it by suffering for us.

Let us therefore follow His ways which He showed us, especially the way of humility that He Himself became for us. He showed us the way of humility by commandments, and He made it by suffering for us. For He would not suffer unless He humbled Himself. Who would kill God, unless God humbled Himself? For Christ is the Son of God, and the Son of God is surely God. He is the Son of God, the Word of God, about whom John says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made. Who would kill Him, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made? Who could kill Him, unless He humbled Himself? But how did He humble Himself? John himself says: The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. For the Word of God could not be killed. Therefore, that He might die for us, which could not die, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The immortal took on mortality, that He might die for us, and by His death, He might kill our death. This the Lord did, this He granted to us. The great became humbled, humbled and killed, killed and rising again and exalted, that He might not leave us dead in hell, but might exalt us in the resurrection of the dead, whom He exalted now in the faith and confession of the righteous.

You impudently invoke the name of him whom you do not confess.

Therefore, He gave us humility as our way. If we hold onto it, we will confess to the Lord, and not without reason will we sing: We will confess to you, God, we will confess and invoke your name. For you shamelessly invoke His name to whom you do not confess. First confess, so that you prepare a dwelling for Him whom you invoke. For your heart is full of wickedness. But confession pours out the filth that you harbor within, and cleanses the house to which He whom you invoke may come. For whoever invokes before confessing, seeks to dishonor Him whom he invokes. For if you would not dare invite any saint into your house before you have first cleaned your house so that his eyes do not suffer injury, do you dare to invoke God's name into your heart full of wickedness, unless you first pour out your inner iniquity through confession? Therefore confession, my Brothers, humbles us, justifies the humbled, and exalts the justified. For if we are proud, God resists us; if we are humble, God exalts us; since He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble, and: He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Turned towards God.