Sermon for Sunday March 1, 2026-

Lent II- Holy Communion Service by Deacon Nick Acker

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Hear these words:

“ALMIGHTY God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (pp. 127 BCP)

This is our collect for this week, the second week of Lent.

A collect is prayer used to collect our mind and direct our actions towards God. Each week of the Christian year (and on Holy Days) we are assigned a specific collect to pray.

Most of these are hundreds or years old and are designed to teach us how to properly orient ourselves towards Our Creator. That is why we are instructed to say them at our morning and evening prayers each day, so that they may help “guide our feet into the way of peace”. (pp. 594 BCP)

So what does this collect tell us?

          “That we have no power of ourselves”

This is definitionally true. One aspect of what’s called divine hiddenness is that we can (at times) feel alone and that we are simply deciding for ourselves, but we are not. God is sovereign.

He made all. He allows all. We can do nothing good or bad, but what he has allowed. He is our Father, and just like our earthly fathers He will allow us to make mistakes. But unlike our earthly fathers, He cannot make mistakes. He is ontologically incapable of doing so. Which means that you and I, and every other person on this planet are loved of God and part of His plan, for God makes no mistakes.

But how can that be? As our Psalmist said in our psalm at Morning Prayer today:

“I poured out my complaints before him, * and showed him of my trouble. When my spirit was in heaviness, thou knewest my path; * in the way wherein I walked, have they privily laid a snare for me.”

(Psalm 142:2-3 BCP)

If our heavenly Father loves us, each one of us, then how can there be such trouble in this life? If there are no mistakes, then how can God want “snares” to be laid for us?

He does not, but he knows they will be laid. For it rains too “on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). By allowing us to choose between good and evil, He allows us to truly choose Him. For God is goodness.

God does not call us unto evil. He does not call us unto rebellion.

What does He call us to do? As we read in our second lesson at Morning Prayer:

“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” (Colossians 3:12-14)

God may allow us to choose, but He clearly instructs us how He wants us to walk in this life.

And he even tells us why, as we saw in our Epistle today:

“[W]e beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.” (1 Thessalonians 4:1)

Like any loving father, when He instructs and corrects us, we must remember it is not only for His benefit, but for ours, as well.

God is not telling us to walk in holiness in denial of evil or without consideration of our weakness. (For remember, our collect: “we have no power of ourselves”)

No, He is telling us that because of these things we need to turn to Him. To turn to Him in every troubles we have, because however bad they are, we must trust always in the good that God wants for us, so that we may “abound more and more”.

When we pray, and when we walk in His ways, we are learning to turn to Him, as we ought.

“For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.

He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.” (1 Thessalonians 4:7-8)

God calls us to (as Paul says in his letter to the Romans):

          “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

And what better example could we have of this, than that example of Jesus Christ.

Jesus our only “mediator and advocate” (1 Timothy 2:5). To whom our prayer are directed. He is the Holy Temple of God, for as He says in John’s Gospel:

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

But he spake of the temple of his body.”

Yet it was at the dedication of the First Temple, where we saw Israel praying God to hear them, as they directed their prayers there, saying:

“If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpiller; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;

What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:

Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)

[…]

Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for: that all people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel; and that they may know that this house, which I have builded, is called by thy name.” (1 Kings 8:37-39,43)

In that we see an allusion to our Gospel reading today.

A Canaanite woman, a stranger, who was not one of the Jews, came to Jesus (that Holy Temple) asking for her daughter to be healed of a devil.

Let us remember our collect “that we may be defended from all adversity… all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul.”

Is not that a devil, a tempter, an accuser, that we all have been vexed with?

This loving mother, this stranger, she goes to God, goes to the Temple, asking Him to defend her daughter from this unclear spirit.

And Jesus says “no”.

“But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)

Let us not forget, that as our collect says, we have no power of ourselves, so she in love and desperation, continues, a stranger at the Temple, rebuked, still she turns to Jesus.

“Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.”              (Matthew 15:25)

It is hard, at times, to accept our need and total dependence on God. Especially when it seems he turns from us. At those times it is especially hard to accept that truth, that He is our only true hope.

Though how much hard that after letting go of our pride and coming to God we hear what she did:

“But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.” (Matthew 15:26)

So many would rebel admonition.

They might say, “Why am I not good enough? Why can I not have what others have?”

This is why in the Anglican faith, we have the prayerbook to help guide us as guard against the temptation of such times as these. How do we come to God when we feel like we’re asking something reasonable, but it seems He is telling us no. As Anglicans we can look at the Pray of St. Chrysostom, that ends our Morning and Evening Prayer services.

In it we are taught to pray in this manner: 

“Fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting.” (pp. 20 BCP)

For God’s ways are not our ways, but we must trust always that He knows best.

In a similar manner we see the Canaanite woman reply:

“And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.

Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” (Matthew 15:27-28)

We must remember that Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life. Even the crumbs from His table can feed us unto everlasting life. We are to bound for heaven, which Jesus Himself tells us:

“[I]s like unto treasure hid in a field, which, when a man hath found, he hideth; and for the joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” (Matthew 13:44)

What Jesus Christ offers us is more precious than everything we have in this life. We can never forget that our God is a loving father, who ask of us hard things, not to our sorrow, but to our joy. Remember that as you are asked to walk in holiness, sanctifying your flesh, to the glory of the Lord.