THE KINGDOM COME: SERMON FOR THE 15TH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

A Contemporary Iconographic Apse Above the Altar in a Greek Orthodox Church, Showing the Kingdom of God Gathered in a Heavenly Synaxis 

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

Beloved in Christ, as we gather on this 15th Sunday after Trinity, we are called once again to reflect on God’s providence, mercy, and the call to trust in Him completely. Our readings from Isaiah, the Psalms, Galatians, and the Gospel of Matthew offer profound insights into God's care for His creation, our role in trusting Him, and the transformative power of the Cross. Together, they present a full perspective on divine providence, human frailty, and the invitation to live free of anxiety in the light of God’s Kingdom.

Let us begin by meditating on the Old Testament reading from Isaiah 49:14-16: “But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.' Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me."

I understand the impulse of bitterness and confusion that Zion expresses here. I feel anger, hurt, doubt and disbelief welling up as I struggle to submit to the will of God, feeling that God has not kept His part of the social contract, which implies that, if we obey Him and are faithful to Him, He will protect us and our generations, and that we will inherit the land. I have to remember that God is not bound to the same definitions of obligations that the people around me are using to extract good behavior and compliance, either governments demanding compliance and submission for continued peace and freedom, or family, clan and friends, who interact with me on the hope of mutual love, loyalty, honesty, hard work, compassion, protection and respect. In all these social contracts, like Hobbes and “Leviathan” imply, the guarantee is for a physical equilibrium and peace. With God, the reward for our good behavior is not the “land” that we inherit as a family or nation here on earth, but the new and recreated Cosmos, the universe as it should be in the perfect Will of God - the Coming Kingdom. 

This moving image of God's steadfast love for His people recalls His covenant faithfulness throughout Scripture. In Deuteronomy 31:6, God commands His people: "Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you." Just as God promised to never forsake Israel, He assures us today that His compassion endures forever. His engraving us on the palms of His hands points prophetically to the ultimate act of love and remembrance—the wounds of Christ on the Cross. In John 10:28, Jesus promises: "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand." This echoes Isaiah’s message: our security in God is eternal, unbreakable. God loves us, wants the best for us, and we can trust Him to do what is best for us. This is the “land” in which we can “rest.” 

The theme of God’s unfailing providence continues in Psalm 62:1-2: “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken."

This “rest in God” reminds me of the hesychastic tradition of St. Gregory Palamas, presented so beautifully in his “Letters from the Holy Mountain” and the “Triads,” which teaches us that in the stillness of our hearts, stayed on His love as our foundation, and crying out in His Holy Name as the source of our strength, we encounter God. In 1 Kings 19:11-13, the prophet Elijah found God not in the earthquake, wind, or fire, but in a "still small voice." The act of waiting in silence, as the Psalmist exhorts, draws us deeper into trust, into a peace that surpasses understanding, as Philippians 4:7 says: "And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Silence, then, is not an absence of words, but waiting for the fullness of God’s voice to fill the void — the place where we listen for God’s voice and know that He is our unshakable rock only comes when we “be still and know that [He is] God” (Psalm 46:10). 

In the Gospel of Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus urges us: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?... But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

This passage reflects the harmony of God's creation, an idea emphasized by the Cappadocian Fathers like St. Gregory of Nyssa, who taught that creation is a mirror of divine love in his profound text “On the Making of Man" (De Hominis Opificio). In this text, St. Gregory presents the idea that the purpose of creation, particularly humanity, is to reflect the goodness and love of God. He writes that human beings, created in the image of God, are meant to mirror the divine attributes and participate in the goodness of God's love. In “The Life of Moses,” St. Gregory also speaks about the ascent of the soul towards God, where one can see reflections of God's glory in creation, but it is ultimately in the transformation and perfection of the soul that divine love is fully realized. 

In Genesis 1:31, God saw all that He had made, and it was "very good." The natural order, from the birds of the air to the lilies of the field, reveals God’s care. As Psalm 145:15-16 declares: "The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing." In this providence, we are invited to relinquish our anxieties and trust fully in our Creator, Who makes the whole world to function in a grand cycle of birth and death, building a narrative of redemption and compassion, while giving us a free will and the opportunity to repent as we continually draw closer to the Lord in love. 

But the Gospel also points us to something greater than the mere platitudes of love, something that we saw in the Psalms and Old Testament readings for this morning: the Kingdom of God is present and is also coming! Jesus tells us to seek the Kingdom first, a call that ties back to the prophetic words of Isaiah 35:3-4: "Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, 'Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.'" The coming of God’s Kingdom, inaugurated in Christ, is the reason we can abandon anxiety and fear, because everything will eventually be as God wills it to be, as we cooperate with God fully in our divinized free wills. St. Maximos the Confessor reminds us that the Cross of Christ is the axis of this cosmic order, where all creation finds its true purpose and fulfillment, and through which we all find our Telos, our goal and end perfection. As Colossians 1:16-17 says: "For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth... and in Him all things hold together."

Turning to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians 6:14, we hear: "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." St. Paul brings us to the heart of our Christian faith—the Cross. St. Maximos the Confessor understood the Cross not just as an instrument of suffering but as the cosmic pivot of all history, the place where Christ reconciled all things to Himself. In his “Ambigua,” we see how the Cross is the universal symbol of the Incarnation, the place where the Uncreated God meets the created world, and makes a new creation in which God and man, and the whole universe, are united in the Person of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:14 echoes this: "For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility." In Christ’s crucifixion, humanity is reconciled to God, and the world itself is drawn into redemption. We are called to boast not in ourselves, but in the work of Christ on the Cross, for it is through the Cross that we are made new creations. St. Paul says that he will not boast, except in the Cross of Christ in Galatians 6:14: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." And again in 2 Corinthians 5:17, he declares: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

Even as we live in the shadow of the Cross, we do not live as those without hope. As Romans 8:18 affirms: "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Through Christ’s suffering and resurrection, we are given the hope of new life, and that is the Kingdom we seek above all else. Our suffering has a point, if Christ’s Cross marks the beginning of the recreation of the world - our pains are birthing pains, leading to the fullness of God’s mystery in the world, the full realization of the Incarnation. 

In the New Testament, we find further encouragement to cast aside anxiety. In 1 Peter 5:7, the First Bishop and Great Apostle exhorts us to "cast all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you." This assurance connects back to the very words of Christ in Matthew, where He reminds us that our Father knows what we need before we ask. This teaching is also emphasized by the famous theologian N.T. Wright, in “Surprised by Hope” and “The Resurrection of the Son of God,” explains his realization that the resurrection of Jesus is the first sign of the "new creation" that is already breaking into the world. We live not in fear, but in the expectation of God’s redemptive plan. As the Cross marks the spot for the transformation of the cosmos to start, so the resurrection actualizes it and brings a static concept into a truly living romance between God and Man. 

Beloved, whether we meditate on the words of Isaiah, the Psalms, Jesus’ teachings in Matthew, or the words of St. Paul, the message is clear: we are called to live without fear, anchored in the providence and promises of God. As Romans 8:38-39 reassures us: "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Let us respond to this call. Let us, like the Psalmist, wait in silence, trusting in God's providence. Let us glory in the Cross of Christ, through which we are made new. We only have one life to live, and our lives are like the vapor of clouds and the blades of tender grass, which vanish away in the beams of the sun. Let us live this life for the only thing that matters and seek it first above all things - the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, knowing that all things will be added unto us if we do so! 

As we bring this sermon to a close, let us pray a collect written for this homily: 

COLLECT 

O Lord, who dost ever sustain Thy people with Thy perpetual mercy, grant that we, trusting in Thy divine providence, may rest in the stillness of Thy presence and seek first Thy Kingdom. Teach us to cast all our anxieties upon Thee, that in Thy light we may see light, and by Thy grace be led ever more fully into communion with Thee. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.