Soundings: Lent 3B 2021

Lent 3B 2021

Fr. Dale Matson

Disordered Affections

My homily today is based on our opening collect, our Epistle Lesson and our Gospel lesson.

Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you: Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections, that we may behold your eternal glory in the face of Christ Jesus; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Let’s examine our opening Collect a little more closely. Have you ever wondered why you are here? Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Have you heard this comment before? Saint Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Our Collect continues, “…Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections. St. Augustine, struggled with disordered affections and discussed his problems with lust at length in his Confessions.

St. Ignatius, coined the term “disordered affections” and founded the Jesuits also struggled with disordered affections. “St. Ignatius longed to sacrifice himself for a great king, serve faithfully a beautiful lady and win immortal fame in the eyes of the world. His early adult life was marked by gambling, womanizing and fighting. He longed to prove himself in battle.” https://www.stmarymagdalen.org/Catholicism/Saints/StIgnatius.htm

In a battle his leg was struck by a cannonball and during his convalescence at his sister’s house, “The only two books in the house were one on the life of Christ and the other on the lives of the saints. As he read these books, St. Ignatius’s heart was gradually transformed. He became ashamed of the vanity, pride and lust that ruled his life. While recuperating, St. Ignatius underwent a conversion.” [Ibid]

“…He began writing what later became the Spiritual Exercises (one of the classics of Western spirituality). The Spiritual Exercises lay out a program (usually for thirty days, in solitude) of examination of conscience, contemplation, meditation based on a vivid representation of scriptural events and discernment of God’s will in one’s life.” [Ibid]

The four weeks focus on sin, the life of Christ, the passion of Christ and the resurrection and ascension of Christ. I commend The Spiritual Exercises as a possible devotional during lent.

For both St. Augustine and St. Ignatius, the road to sainthood was paved by putting on the mind of Christ. They practiced holiness daily.

Saintliness is often behavioral. If you are doing what you believe God wants, then you avoid sinning. As we confess in the Ancient Text service, “…have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen. (p.130) Ouch! I must confess that I more often acquiesce to God’s will than delight to do it.

I believe Eve fell prey to disordered affections. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” (Gen. 3:6)

“Disordered attachments are those things (objects, experiences, activities, even other people) who become the focus of our desires and, consequently our time on this earth, rather than seeking the will and companionship of God.” https://itoccurstome.net/2016/10/29/disordered-affections/

From the fall of humans until the Law was given, people did not know what was right and what was wrong. The Law gave them boundaries and with those boundaries, they became free from uncertainty and confusion. When the Law is rejected, people lose sight of what is the proper conduct. For those of us who embrace the Law of God and we know what the right thing to do is, we have trouble doing the right thing even though we know that we should. The past behavior has become so firmly established because we have done it over and over again that our will to change cannot overpower the sin that has become ingrained in our being. That sin has become a part of our nature. Eventually we get to a point where we want to stop sinning but we no longer can resist sinning because we have done it so often for so long. We are stuck in a rut. It is having the will power to not misbehave but not having the “won’t power” to stop misbehaving. Dealing with sin requires turning our will over to God. Paul talked about our human struggles in today’s Epistle lesson from Romans Chapter seven. “If I could only do those things I want to do and not do those things I don’t want to do.” Once we decide to quit doing something, we have to overcome the momentum of how we have acted in the past. Our sins are not just outward actions. Our sins change our inner nature.

We have committed some sins so often; they have become a part of who we are. They are a part of our identity. Someone who drinks too much becomes a drunk. That is how they are known and it is a real identity crisis to quit drinking because it would be giving up a part of your identity even though it is an ugly part. People who know us expect us to act like a drunk. They can even unconsciously help us remain a drunk and that is called “enabling”. That is also why it is difficult to love the sinner and hate the sin because the sinner can become so immersed in their sin; it is no longer a behavior. It is a character defect. C.S. Lewis once said that chronic grumblers become grumbles.

What St. Paul is saying in Romans seven is that the Law is good but the Law cannot make men good. The Law tells us what is right and what is wrong. We do not decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. The Law does not empower us to stop doing the wrong thing and start doing the right thing. That is where we ask for God’s empowerment. We affirm this in our baptismal vows. The bishop asks, “Will you resist the devil and all rebellion against god?” We respond, “I will with God’s help.”

On those occasions where we experience guilt there is only one healthy response. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). Guilt is a symptom of sin, with sin as the underlying illness. For us, there is the weekly confession of sin and there is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. After the confession, we hear the following from the BCP, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive you all your offenses; and by his authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (p 224)

I have had several besetting sins in my life. Perhaps the best way to describe them is that the sins can occupy and consume our thoughts. One of my remaining sins is fear. My fear of flying is a specific problem that kept me from flying for twenty-five years. Fear can control your life. To the extent sin controls your life it diminishes it. Christ said, “I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10).

So what is our spiritual firewall? How do we keep the accuser out? We are called to live a holy life. We are called to be a holy people. Our spiritual firewall is Virtue. In the King James Version of Holy Scripture it states that when a woman with a bleeding problem touched Christ, she was healed and He felt a virtue leave Him. (Mark 5:30) Virtue is power. But you say to me, “I don’t have to be a holy person, Jesus paid the price of my sins”. That is true but he also told the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11).

So what are we to do with these besetting sins that give Satan an opportunity to steal our identity, blackmail short circuit and rob us of our power as Christians? I believe the first step is with our will. We must ask God to give us the will to turn away. I prayed for two years for the desire to quit smoking. Even though I knew smoking was bad for me; I did not have the will to quit. I was a slave to this sin. Smoking was an addiction that owned me. The second step is what Psychologists call providing a replacement behavior. For example in Alcoholics Anonymous the expression is, “Don’t pick up a drink. Pick up the phone.” In the case of the seven deadly sins, there are also seven corresponding virtues. The prescription is to practice virtues that work against the entrenched sins. I believe that is why St. Paul listed the Fruits of Spirit following the sins of the flesh in Galatians. For example, if you are someone afflicted with hoarding behavior, the most freeing thing you can do is to give things away. You are replacing greed with charity.

In a portion of our Gospel lesson today, we hear, “In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.’” (John 2: 14-16)

St. Paul said, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1st Corinthians 3:16-17)

What will Jesus find in your temple? What must be cast out and overturned. What idols must be thrown down? Is your house a house of prayer and repentance or just a container of disordered affections?

I believe many Christians see themselves as imposters and powerless. It may be because they have secret sins that Satan exploits. They have asked for forgiveness over and over yet remain captive of those sins. These are besetting sins that keep us from progressing as Christians. These secret sins keep us from being a holy people. We must ask God for the will to resist these sins and seek a virtuous replacement. Brothers and Sisters, the Kingdom of God is an upside down Kingdom. The weak are strong, the last are first. The foolish are wise and the poor are rich. To rid ourselves of these sins, we must do the opposite.

I would like to conclude with a prayer from St. Ignatius from his Spiritual Exercises.

“Soul of Christ sanctify me”

Soul of Christ, sanctify me

Body of Christ, save me

Blood of Christ, inebriate me

Water from the side of Christ, wash me

Passion of Christ, strengthen me

O good Jesus, hear me

Within thy wounds hide me

Permit me not to be separated from thee

From the wicked foe defend me

At the hour of my death call me