Sermon: March 23, 2025
Readings: Luke 13:1-9 / Psalm 63:1
Jesus never promises that we will be free from accidents or tragedies. They can happen anytime and anyplace. Given the unpredictability of life, it is important for us to seize the opportunity to seek God’s embrace of love and forgiveness. We are to seize the opportunity - We may be reminded of the Latin expression Carpe Diem – seize the day. It’s a fairly common phrase used in a lot of books and movies. For many, it became well known from the movie “Dead Poet’s Society” starring Robin Williams.
In the movie, Williams played a teacher who inspired his student’s love of poetry and life, advising them to seize the day – Carpe Diem. The phrase Carpe Diem means to have an intentional attitude of making every moment of everyday matter. While this is a good and worthy motto, it doesn’t quite capture what Jesus was talking about.
However, a little less known phrase, Carpe Diem Coram Deo – strikes at the heart of what Jesus is trying to teach us. Carpe Diem Coram Deo – means to seize the day before the face of God. Essentially, we are to actively seize the day, embracing every moment with a focus on honoring God, aligning all of our actions, decisions, and behaviors – every aspect of our lives – with God’s divine and all-inclusive love. It is about fully living in the present while recognizing that we are always accountable to God for our actions towards God and how we treat our fellow human beings.
When we discover something that we are doing is out of line with God’s love, we are compelled to change our actions, decisions, and behaviors and begin a new relationship with God. That is what repentance is about, and it isn’t something we do one time. It is a continual examination and reorientation of our lives so that we may seek a deeper relationship with God and the rest of humanity.
Our psalm today sings out with the passion and desire we are to have as we repent and seek to be closer to God’s divine love. “O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a barren and dry land where there is no water.”
As the psalmist wrote, we should urgently seek out God as if we were in a barren, dry land where there’s no water, and our soul desperately thirsts for God who loves without exception, division, or partiality.
In this season of Lent, Jesus reminds us of the frailty of life. Accidents and tragedies, both man-made and natural, can suddenly happen to us. Jesus calls us to urgently recognize our desperate need to repent and orientate our lives so that we have a deeper loving relationship with God.
Carpe Diem Coram Deo is Jesus’ call to us to seize the day, to embrace every moment of every day focused on God, re-centering our values, expectations, and practices so that we are aligned with God’s divine love and with the rest of humanity.
With our faith firmly rooted in God’s love, may our restless and wandering hearts be at home in God’s kingdom, where we can quench the thirst of weary souls.
