The Ninth Sunday after Trinity.
The Collect.
GRANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/communion/trinity.html
1. The phrase from our Collect for this week: “…the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful…” This is the God-given gift of faith within the justified saint, justified extra nos...thirsting, hungering, and seeking Godly, ordered, directed, disciplined, and decorous thinking and living. This collect conjoins thinking and living.
2. We ponder the word rightful in relation to thinking, living, and justifying faith.
3. Rightful = rightful (adjective) /ˈraɪt.fəl/
= rightfully (adverb) /ˈraɪt.fəl.i/
= A rightful position or claim is one which is morally or legally correct
Examples:
Don't forget that I am the rightful owner of this house.
The furniture rightfully belongs to you.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/rightful
3. This Collect corresponds, succinctly, to the doctrine, worship and piety of the justified Psalmist (cf. Rom.4 closely) in Psalm 119, an earnest and determined effort to think and live rightfully.
4. Thinking rightly about what? An entire front of doctrine and living. The prayer pertains to us at every level. Every theological loci, sermon, Sunday School lesson, worship service, and every piece of music for the seminarians and Churchmen. And we're just warming to our subject here. Every paper, every exam and every text-book for secondary, collegiate, graduate or doctoral students. Every family, sociological, political or economic matter for the exegetes of culture. Engaging with this particular Collect for the Day--this specific prayer--is reminiscent of the phrase from St. Chrysostom's prayer at Mattins or Evensong, to wit, "...granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting, Amen." Getting it right matters.
5. It is consoling to parents if they have children living and thinking rightly. With this focus, they do well in all things insofar as their abilities allow. In fact, it's hard to imagine a parent not wanting a child to pray or live this Collect as his or her own: "GRANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful..." A life-changing prayer for a covenant child and just one more reason for our 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
Getting it right, will keep you from traffic tickets and accidents (stay in the lane), mis-expenditures of assets, mis-prescribing meds or amounts by nurses or physicians, and 100's of other practical problems--getting it wrong hurts.
Aside from the width of practicality, however, we are re-directed to one specific area by the directed reading for Mattins, Thursday, 5 Aug 2010. In fact, through this period, the lectionary involves re-reading Paul's magnum opus and governing letter, the "battleground of the Reformation." Ergo, from the noises, din and demands of this widely applied Collect, we are refocused on Paul. The NT lection for 5 Aug 2010 is Paul's Romans, specifically, chapter 5 and it concerns rightful thinking, justification by faith alone and faith itself.
6. We always do aright and well to meditate and ponder the insights from Confessional Lutheran Churchmen concerning rightful thinking, justification by faith alone (Romans 3.28, inter alia) and faith itself. Confessional Lutherans always afford us fine specimens of theological deliberation. From The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, III. The Righteousness of Faith (http://bookofconcord.org/sd-righteousness.php). For your meditation and rightful thinking, we quote III.9-10:
"9] Concerning the righteousness of faith before God we believe, teach, and confess unanimously, in accordance with the comprehensive summary of our faith and confession presented above, that poor sinful man is justified before God, that is, absolved and declared free and exempt from all his sins, and from the sentence of well-deserved condemnation, and adopted into sonship and heirship of eternal life, without any merit or worth of our own, also without any preceding, present, or any subsequent works, out of pure grace, because of the sole merit, complete obedience, bitter suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord Christ alone, whose obedience is reckoned to us for righteousness.
"10] These treasures are offered us by the Holy Ghost in the promise of the holy Gospel; and faith alone is the only means by which we lay hold upon, accept, and apply, and appropriate them to ourselves. 11] This faith is a gift of God, by which we truly learn to know Christ, our Redeemer, in the Word of the Gospel, and trust in Him, that for the sake of His obedience alone we have the forgiveness of sins by grace, are regarded as godly and righteous by God the father, and are eternally saved. 12] Therefore it is considered and understood to be the same thing when Paul says that we are justified by faith, Rom. 3:28, or that faith is counted to us for righteousness, Rom. 4:5, and when he says that we are made righteous by the obedience of One, Rom. 5:19, or that by the righteousness of One justification of faith came to all men, Rom. 5:18. 13] For faith justifies, not for this cause and reason that it is so good a work and so fair a virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel; for this must be applied and appropriated to us by faith, if we are to be justified thereby. 14] Therefore the righteousness which is imputed to faith or to the believer out of pure grace is the obedience, suffering, and resurrection of Christ, since He has made satisfaction for us to the Law, and paid for [expiated] our sins. 15] For since Christ is not man alone, but God and man in one undivided person, He was as little subject to the Law, because He is the Lord of the Law, as He had to suffer and die as far as His person is concerned. For this reason, then, His obedience, not only in suffering and dying, but also in this, that He in our stead was voluntarily made under the Law, and fulfilled it by this obedience, is imputed to us for righteousness, so that, on account of this complete obedience, which He rendered His heavenly Father for us, by doing and suffering, in living and dying, God forgives our sins, regards us as godly and righteous, and eternally saves us. 16] This righteousness is offered us by the Holy Ghost through the Gospel and in the Sacraments, and is applied, appropriated, and received through faith, whence believers have reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins, the grace of God, sonship, and heirship of eternal life."
5. This is sheer gold. This is rightful Biblical and Pauline thinking. The justification of the ungodly is a once-for-all declaration of the Divine Majesty, His Sovereign Majesty. Justification is not progressive. The passive voice of Romans 5.9 means there is no cooperation on our part. See: http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2010/08/romans-59-justification-future.html. Justification is purely by grace through God-given faith. This is rightful thinking.
Without further development, we would direct you to another golden confession that gets it right, the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 11, "Of Justification." http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/
6. In response, Psalm 100 (Jubilate Deo) follows the New Testament lection.
7. We close with “The Old Hundredth,” arranged by R.V.Williams, and as sung by the Choir of Westminster Abbey. The music is put to pictures of various cathederals around the UK.
Yes, getting music, liturgy and architecture aright is an Anglican characteristic. No apologies to the Reformed or Baptists here.
But grander than these veritable and justifiable beauties, in music and architecture, we point to Jesus Christ, our "greater than the Temple," the "Temple" of His body, His holiness and beauty, His transcendance and sovereignty, and His immanence to us and His Church Militant on earth by Word and the Sacraments. His staggeringly perfect righteousness put to our beggarly accounts, freely and abidingly by His life, death, burial, resurrection and ascension. We stutter to adequately appreciate this, yet we must get it right and side with the Catholic Church of the Reformation--Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed.
Rightly, with the Reformation, we use Psalm-singing, specifically, Psalm 100 to guide, restrain, direct, control and express our thanksgiving and joy. Sola Deo gloria. Sola fide. Solo Christo. Sola gratia. Sola scriptura.
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.
The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make;
We are His folk, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.
O enter then His gates with praise;
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His Name always,
For it is seemly so to do.
For why? the Lord our God is good;
His mercy is for ever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.
To Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
The God Whom Heaven and earth adore,
From men and from the angel host
Be praise and glory evermore.
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