On the Cost of the Gospel

[Sermon delivered at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, June 21, 2026]

✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided. Amen.

I confess when I started on this sermon, I looked at the readings[1] and said to myself, “Where do I even start?” These readings today are full of difficult stories, hard sayings, and even dire forebodings. Truth be told, even the Gospel on its own is intimidating for both speaker and listener alike.

There have been many approaches to hard truths like this in the past. One more familiar to Western congregants is the message that God is God, get with the program, or resign yourself to eternity as one more log on the fire. Obviously, that particular theme has grave pastoral issues associated with it and is singularly unhelpful. Others avoid the question altogether and preach on generalities or a pressing issue of the day. What I ended up landing on is to look at this passage as revealing what are the consequences for someone to forsake the way of Sin and Death and to cleave to the way of Life in God.

The first point I will mention is that St. Paul is very clear in today’s Epistle that we have been given the means to break away from the curse of Sin and Death because of God’s Grace, namely, His love, selflessness, power, and wisdom. He is careful to state that this grace is not to be interpreted as license to Sin without fear of consequences,[2] but freedom to break away from Sin and to embrace a life emulating God’s righteousness without it being pointless and wasted effort.[3] In Christ’s Death, he tells us that we are able to die to Sin now and upon our own deaths to be free from the claim Death has  on our souls.[4] If this was not the case, then some justification may be found in saying, “What’s the use in living free from Sin and Death?” throwing it all to the four winds, and just muddling around with no real thought for anyone save one’s self. Yet this is not so, because if we share in the Lord’s Death and die to Sin and Corruption, then we too will share in His Life, fully in God’s suffusing and indwelling presence.[5]

As a second point, consider this hope and consider living in harmony with the Way of God and living by the Good News as disciples of Jesus Christ our Lord. We will note the following:

• We no longer find fun in shameful, hurtful, and even downright sociopathic pursuits, and if you should happen to ask, who has fun in sociopathic behaviour, just stream a few tik-toks; it will become abundantly clear.

• We honour the Image of God, no matter how tarnished, in everyone: the low-born, the destitute, regardless of ill, even the criminal; while we may work to contain the damage they can do, we who follow the Gospel do not dehumanize them, and we treat them humanely regardless whether they deserve it or not.

• We give of ourselves freely to those around us in need, the stranger, the alien, the enemy, even those who would wish us harm; greed and miserliness no longer find a place in us or in the community of the faithful.

• We honestly and earnestly live not only to love God, not only to love our neighbour, but to love both, and not in half measures but with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.

In stark contrast, observe if you will the political campaign signs you see scattered about. Watch the news. Read the editorials. Listen to your neighbours. Do not skim over it all but observe critically, ascertaining beliefs or motives not for judgement but for understanding. You will note the following:

• Personal and community selflessness is the exception, not the rule, and is in dreadfully short supply.

• The dehumanization of the “other” is startlingly common and increasingly strident.

• While lip-service to God among leaders and influencers is common, the results of a faithful life lived according to the Gospel within that context is rare.

• Anyone who calls out these behaviours truthfully as contrary to the Gospel or who demonstrably lives by the Gospel of Our Lord gets savaged virtually, or in some cases literally, by those for whom the Gospel holds no real meaning.

This makes clear that the Way of the Kingdom of God is radically opposed to the Way of this present age.

The third point I wish to make is that Our Lord stressed in this discussion with His disciples that holding to the Way would  land them in hot water with friends, family, peers, and even strangers. How many of us have attended a family holiday gathering where an inflammatory topic comes up, opinions flare, and even adhering to the Gospel could not prevent, or it even further precipitated a conflagration which left people with hurt feelings, wrecked relationships, and killer indigestion? How many of us have innocently entered an online discussion, shared what we learned from listening to the Gospel, and have been raked over the coals for it? A bishop of Holy Mother Church made a public appeal to the powerful for mercy toward the unfortunate and not only was demeaned by those in power and told to recant her appeal made in faithfulness to the commands of her Lord and Saviour, but was excoriated even by those who were supposedly members of the same household of faith? The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Patriarch of the West, held (and still holds) the light of the Gospel to the policies of many nations, and was snidely dismissed by a high-ranking politician who technically is part of the Pope’s larger flock and who is woefully untrained in Catholic social teaching. Worse yet, faithful men and women of God have made their voices known and have stood up for the Way and were beaten, imprisoned, spirited away, or even killed outright, and yet many have congratulated as heroes those who victimized these faithful witnesses of the Gospel.

Today, Our Lord tells us not to be surprised one least little bit. The Principalities and Powers of this Current Age and their minions mocked even Him, called Him a liar and a madman, stole Him away by night, beat Him, imprisoned Him however briefly, tortured Him, and then slew Him in the most brutal, vicious way possible.

Yet He came back from the Dead, not only fully vindicated, but as full Victor, having redeemed our Nature from the grip of Sin and Death.

Our Lord was very clear that the Way would stir up strife between those who would live in peace with God and those who would do anything except live in peace with God. He was clear that we who faithfully confess Him and the Way would not only live in peace with God now but will do so eternally in the Age to come, and nothing, not even bodily death can prevent that.[6] God truly loves us. God truly values us. God will reach beyond the grave and rescue us. Jesus told us not to fear those people, because what they can do to us has no permanence, instead we are to fear, that is, to place all our hope and trust and respect on the One who either can rescue us from Death because we seek peace with Him or let us continue to hold to enmity with Him and His Way and persist eternally in that Death which we have chosen because we chose to fear the wrong things.[7] As St. Paul put it, if we die to Sin, that is, if we take on Christ’s nature and live by it, forsaking the old nature and all that goes with it, then Sin and Death no longer have power over us.[8] Those, however, who reject peace with God, who cling fast to that old Nature, that mortal Nature, that Nature that will have nothing to do with God, that does not love God, and that would even hide from God,[9] they deprive themselves willingly of the Life that can only come from God. Therein lies the Wrath of God, the final severing of relationship with those who would have nothing to do with God. That there is strife between those at peace with God and those at enmity with God should come as no surprise, but we should be assured that those who seek peace with God will not be left by Him to their own devices.

My friends, do not lose heart. Our Lord clearly states that each of you that love and follow God are of incalculable value to Him.[10] Death no longer has power over us.[11] Many, family included, will try to make us choose between them and God, but such a conditional love has no eternal basis and is indeed not love at all, but the love of God is forever and will bestow life forever. He will never leave nor forsake us, and not even Death can take us out of His hand,[12] we only need to persist in that love and confess that love to Him, to each other, and to all around us.

And who knows, perhaps that love will win over someone else and rob Sin and Death of yet another victim.

✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Holy Dominic, and all the saints, Saviour save us. Amen.

[1] Gen. 21.8-21, Rom. 6.1b-11, Mt. 10.24-39

[2] Rom. 6.2

[3] Rom. 6.4

[4] Rom. 6.6

[5] Rom. 6.5

[6] Cf. Rom. 8.38

[7] Mt. 10.28

[8] Cf. Rom. 6.9-11

[9] Gen. 3.8

[10] Mt. 10.31

[11] Rom. 6.11

[12] Rom. 8.38