Sermon, 13th Sunday After Trinity, 2025
This Sunday, we are reading the 11th Homily in the first book of homilies, which is entitled:
A Sermon Against Whoredom and Uncleanness
These sermons have been edited to shorten them and to update the language, with the intent of maintaining the content, or at least the core meaning. The original texts of the homilies can be found in the manuscripts after the edited texts that were preached. For background on these homilies, see the links below.
We 21st century Christians tend to romanticize the past, thinking that hundreds of years ago in Britain, everyone was Christian in thought and deed. The 11th homily, though, begins by condemning the cavalier attitudes toward, and the all-too-common participation in, sexual sin. Then we are reminded that Christ sets a high standard of righteousness for His followers. We are to keep, not only our bodies, but also our thoughts, pure. Obedience isn’t just a matter of not committing actual sexual sin, but also of not lusting after others in our thoughts.
In part 2 of the homily, we are confronted with the fact that sexual intimacy with another person constitutes a union with them. And since, as members of the Church, the presence of God dwells in us. We are temples of the Holy Spirit, so to sinfully join ourselves to another is to offend the Spirit of God within us. It is to drive God from us, for God cannot be joined to sin.
In the final part of the homily, we are reminded of how God has previously judged sexual immorality in Scripture, even destroying the world by the flood in the days of Noah. The homily ends with some practical means one can personally employ to avoid this sin.