Homily for 28 June 2015--the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: "We All Have to Submit to God"

We All Have to Submit to God

Homily for Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (28 June 2015, 27 June 2010)

Romans 10:1-10…………….Matthew 8:28-9:1

 

In today’s reading from the Letter to the Romans, St Paul warns that people who don’t know about God’s righteousness, and try to establish their own righteousness, fail to submit to God.

In today’s reading from the Gospel of St Matthew, the demons possessing the two men challenge Jesus by asking, “What do You have to do with us, Son of God?”  They don’t want to submit to God, but they know they have to.

The point here is that we all have to submit to God, whether we want to or not.  God is the Creator of the Universe and all that is in it.  God is the Savior of the world from sin.  God is the Judge who can grant us eternal life.  God is the Spirit of Truth, our guide and counsellor and comforter.

Whether we are led astray by ignorance or by pride or by demons, ultimately we have to submit to God.  St Paul says we are saved by faith—by what we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths.  And that faith is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the World.

This is why we can’t take our religion or our faith or our salvation for granted.  If we don’t believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, the Son of God who rose from the dead, and if we don’t proclaim that belief by our words and our actions, and if we don’t submit to the righteousness of God, we will end up destroyed like the demons who entered into the pigs and plunged off the cliff into the sea.

Probably we don’t like the idea of submitting to anyone or anything.  We like to think of ourselves as independent and strong and able to take care of ourselves.  We think of submitting as defeat.

But submitting to the righteousness of God is not defeat.  In fact, submitting to the righteousness of God brings liberation and victory—liberation from sin and victory over death.  Only God, the Almighty Creator and Redeemer, can give us that.

And in two separate Covenants or contracts with humankind, God has promised that liberation from sin and victory over death to us, as long as we submit to God’s righteousness.

In the Old Covenant, God gave the Law of Moses to guide God’s Chosen People in living in righteousness with God and each other.

In the New Covenant, God fulfilled the Law by sending God’s Living Word, God’s only Son, to teach all people the new Law of Love.  The Law of Love—love God completely and love your neighbor as you love yourself—shows us how to live in righteousness, not by observing the details of many rules, but by being conscious of how we relate to God and to other people—all the time.

We don’t need to invent our own righteousness because we know what God wants.  We don’t need to ask, “What do You have to do with us, O Son of God?” because we know that we are nothing without God, who loves us so much that He sent His only-begotten Son to bring us life instead of destruction.

So we proclaim Jesus as Lord.  We believe in our hearts that He rose from the dead.  And we submit to the righteousness of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.