May 24, 2021

Holding forth on the leavening effects of aging, one of Wendall Berry’s country characters says, “Age has done more for my morals than Methodism ever did.”

 

As we will pray in our prayer today, we confess that – try as we might to live on the straight and narrow – our wills are unruly. Sometimes it takes the accrual of years and the natural diminishment of desire to drain the sap that rises from the tree of Good and Evil that is planted deep in our hearts.

 

In the end, aging isn’t enough to vanquish sin. Only Jesus does that for us. “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.” (Romans 8:3) And we, both young and old, live in the blessed state of eternal forgiveness.

 

“Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” (Fifth Sunday in Lent – BCP p. 219)

 

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May 21,2021