My Grace Is Sufficient For You (2Corinthians 12:9)

So, Scripture thinks that human contrivance – whether wealth, intellect, family, honour, or longevity – is a problem. But … not in itself. It is a problem when human contrivance drives us, forms us, and replaces God. What’s the alternative? It is tempting (I use this word deliberately because this is a temptation to be resisted) to think that we have to renounce human wisdom, wealth, planning, etc. As though it is either one or the other, and because human ingenuity is bad we need to evacuate all human agency from our lives to let God do the planning and ingenuity instead. Either one or the other.  But it just isn’t true. To think it is either us or God is using the same currency/coin in both cases. They are just on either side of the coin. 

As disciples of Jesus we renounce all false gods, including human will and ingenuity, wealth and intelligence that is not in the service of the kingdom. But, the kingdom needs our intelligence, ingenuity, wealth, etc. The problem is not human ingenuity, planning, and wisdom. Of course, the problem is when we replace God with human agency, ingenuity, wisdom, etc. But the more relevant problem might be that we try to use human ingenuity and intelligence to make sure that we don’t let human ingenuity and intelligence replace God in our lives! And that’s why this is harder than it seems. So what is the solution? It is to be rebuilt differently than the simplistic one or the other approach. We want to be people who live out of a heart that hears, "my grace is sufficient for you.” And we do that not by trying hard to stop misusing our wills, intelligence, and ingenuity, but by surrendering to God’s sufficiency. It is the hard work of grace. Of being remoulded into Christ. We do this through all the ways the Christian tradition has learnt and now teaches us. And this way includes scripture, prayer, liturgy, and doing all this in a community of faith. But to do it with intent. Not too seriously, but with intent. Human ingenuity, no matter how spiritual, will not pull us into grace. It is because God’s grace is sufficient that my human will and ingenuity can be pulled into grace. The currency, if you like, is the sufficiency of God's grace. This is the centre that God wishes to build within us and within the church.

A Certain Ruler (Luke 18:18-30)

 This certain ruler must have been quite excited when Jesus said, "There is still one thing lacking." Great, only one thing! After a life of disciplined obedience to the commandments, maybe the ruler might be able to work himself into eternal life?

This passage reminds me of Luke 17:5-6.  "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed ... (you could do the miraculous). Just that little bit of faith is all we need? Really? Surely we can do that. No, that's the point. We can't manufacture even that little bit of faith ourselves. It's a gift.  The 'one thing lacking' (Lk 18:22) in our passage also seems impossible. Yes, that's right. It is impossible for mortals ... but possible for God. It is a gift. Peter and the others have received the gift. (18:28-30) The ruler leaves despondent because he doesn't get it. An impossibility for him but not for God. (18:27)

The God of the impossible. By Luke 18, we are late in the Gospel of Luke, and Jesus is nearing his journey to Jerusalem, where he will be rejected and killed. And raised. The impossible is possible for God. In other words, it is all grace. Or, to use the language of the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is resurrection all the way through. God doesn't meet the little bit we have done (the mustard seed, the one thing) and top it up. It's grace through and through.

Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14)

 This parable is classic Jesus and stands as a warning to the critical spirit that lives in us and can take over if not combated. And it is entirely consistent with the biblical warning to beware the self-righteousness that can become the foundation of our identity.

This parable provides us with a classic example of finding a (false) identity by not being someone else. (vv 11-12) The Pharisee, critical of others, is grateful that he isn't a sinner like ... (See Phil 3:4-11)  And finding one's (false) identity isn't much better if it is found in one's own righteousness. And even if a sense of righteousness isn't accompanied by a conscious rejection of others, the rejection is there by implication. And some people internalise either criticism by others or the righteousness of others. Their identity of self-rejection is formed not by the God who redeems but by the criticism and/or self-righteousness of others. Whatever the case, these identities are all false. 

Imagine a society built on the Pharisee of this parable, where identity is formed and maintained by self-righteousness and criticism of others. It would be a burden because a false identity that needs to pull others down or needs to puff oneself up is like a drug and can never be fully sated. Such a society would eat itself in a flurry of criticism, self-righteousness, and virtue signalling. (Gal 5:13-15)

The sinner in the parable has a different foundation. He looks to God, the God who forgives and does not rely on the criticism of others or any alleged personal virtues. He looks to personal transformation. Imagine a society built on this foundation. It would be a society that builds up rather than pulls down. (1Thess 5:11) Inner change, not just thinking everyone else is the problem.  This is (part of) what we are called to be as church. Our foundation is Christ, the one who died as a victim of just such criticism and self-righteousness. We look to personal transformation (new covenant, the law written on our hearts) and bearing one another's burdens (Matt 11:28-30; Gal 6:2-3), not adding to the burden.

The Surprising Mediator Between God and Humankind

This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For
there is one God
there is also one mediator
between God and humankind
Christ Jesus, himself human,
who gave himself a ransom for all. (1Timothy 2:3-6)

The baptism by John in the Jordan evokes some of the great moments in Israel's history, of failed covenantal righteousness and renewal offered. Think of the Exodus, liberation from slavery through the waters of the Red Sea. Think of the entrance into the Primised Land through the (temporarily) dry bed of the Jordan River. Followed by centuries of prophetic criticism and hope in a new covenant. 

In the Baptist, the offer of renewal is underway: a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Lk 3:3) in preparation for the coming of the messiah. (Lk 3:15-17) 

John preached for a response. (Lk 3:7-14) John called the people from their unfaithfulness and from the centres and people of power and importance into the wilderness (Lk 3:1-2), like returning from exile. (Lk 3:4-6)  
But there was a surprise in Jesus, the messiah. Jesus is God's radical turn to the sinner, displayed in a fashion that brought joy to some and opposition from others. In the table-fellowship of Jesus, his absolving of sins and healings, his relationship to the Law and the Temple, his parables and teaching, Jesus ran counter to the expectations of many. (cf Lk 7:18-23)

And this turn to the sinner is deepened in the cross. The rejection of Jesus by all leads to the greatest surprise: forgiveness of sins to those who rejected the offer of grace and forgiveness in the first place! And if that wasn't surprising enough, the one rejected is our acceptance of the offer of renewal. In Christ we are simulataneously forgiven and in his faithfulness, self-sacrifice, and surrender to God the covenant is fulfilled. The Law is written on a human heart. (The heart of Jesus, see Jer 31:31-34.) 

Authenticity, Worship, and Confession

 Christians seek, among other things, authenticity. So what makes authentic worship? Scripture links authentic worship to our lives outside of worship. Our love for God is expressed in worship just as it is expressed in our lives. In gratitude for what God has done for us, our lives are to express God’s love through the practice of righteousness and justice, faith, and mercy. That is, we are to love God by obeying God’s commandments, a love expressed through worship as well. But it is not so much that worship must be accompanied by a life of righteousness, mercy, etc, but that without a congruence between our lives and what God commands the worship of God loses its authenticity. Worship and our lives are not separate silos; lives of righteousness and mercy are the precondition for worship. That’s not a call to try and earn God’s love in our lives, but a call to live lives of gratitude by practising mercy and love in faith. 

So a precondition of authentic worship is authenticity in our discipleship day to day. And that’s a problem. Whose life is one of perfect obedience? Does this mean that our worship is necessarily inauthentic? Confession in worship can help us out here. In confession, we come as authentic sinners confessing authentic sins to an authentically loving and forgiving God. And God’s forgiveness is ahead of us in this. It is not that we repent and confess our sins and God forgives us as a reward. God’s love is already waiting for us and does not need our confession first to then be able to forgive us. God loves us now, so we confess in the knowledge of that love. And so confession and absolution become an expression of authenticity and the means to seek greater authenticity. We acknowledge who we have made ourselves into, and in this context of forgiveness and love need not hide from who we are. That’s authenticity. And we can begin to unravel what we have made ourselves into via this path of authenticity. That’s authentic change. 

 In other words, confession is an aid in avoiding hypocrisy, an archenemy of authenticity. We don’t have to come to worship ignoring our failure to live authentic Christian lives. Instead, we can come to the God who is rich in mercy as an authentic sinner who is authentically forgiven. It is, after all, not the perfection of the pure that makes the angels rejoice in heaven, but, if I could rephrase Jesus, the sinner authentically repenting.

Our Poverty Implies God's Fullness.

We are incomplete. As humans. It is our nature.

We see this clearly, as the poet says:

On the Mystery of the Incarnation 

It's when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:

not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.      (Denise Levertov)

There is a 'taint' in our own selves. The poet recalls for us the terrible things we humans do to each other, from truly horrific violence to all kinds of mundane emotional cruelty. But, she says, this incompletion is the way in which our hearts and minds can be transformed, converted. (“…that awe cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart…”)

There is plenty more evidence for this lack in us, this incompleteness. Not just incorrigible human failure like ethnic violence, family and generational violence, but also the more mundane distress we have all felt in our families of origin, in our own families. Parents see themselves in their children, good and not so desirable, and wonder how the not-so-good happened despite our best efforts! It’s common. 

Utopianism is further evidence, if it is needed. We are currently in the power of all sorts of extreme utopianisms. Utopianism is a kind of denial of our incompleteness. A kind of ‘she doth protest too much’, an over-insistence to cover the fear, to protest against, and to reject of the lack in us.

Our tendency to monument building is another sign of this incompleteness. We don’t last, We are like the grass of the field, as scripture says. So, let’s build a monument to ourselves, our family, our culture. Nothing necessarily wrong with monument building, it’s just that it sometimes can be, once again, a protest, against our evanescence: we age, we fade, we disappear.

Or again, the self-help industry. It’s good, why not try to help yourself? But, again, it is an acknowledgement of our incompleteness, there is more to us than what we are now. So we try all sorts of methods to change and grow, all kinds of methods, philosophies, and irrationalities.

We are told to embrace honestly, or at least, to accept this incompleteness in the myriad ways it shows itself. To change what needs to be changed, to grow, to accept.. Of course.

But there is something missing in that account. The Christian account, while accepting what I have just said, thinks there is something more. It’s not just to accept and or change, as good as these are. It is to acknowledge our poverty, our spiritual poverty. The incompleteness doesn't mean that we just have to learn new methods of self-enquiry or a helpful technique to grow psychologically.  We are poor, but to acknowledge this is to acknowledge God’s loving fullness waiting to be poured into our hearts. Christianity doesn’t say we are poor; it says God is rich and wishes to share God’s richness with us in our poverty. We are made incomplete to be filled by God’s Spirit, to take us to a new depth of loving that we ourselves cannot bring about. And this fullness doesn’t just complete us, it brings healing. The very signs of our incompleteness can be transformed and healed in God’s fullness. Anger, hate, malice, fear, anxiety, violence and revenge, alienation and the fear of death, all can be healed and we can be taken where we were made to go.

This is Christmas. God comes as a human being, the beginning of a new humanity filled by God’s Spirit. The weak, helpless baby a sign of God’s desire to stoop down to us and take us to where God is. Not just the birth, of course. There is to come Jesus’ ministry, rejection, crucifixion, and resurrection. But God has done in Jesus what we are made not to be able to do on our own: to be a complete humanity, in the image of that same Christ. 

Grace and Discipleship

I have a new post on the grace of discipleship reflecting on Matt 9:35-10:8 here.

Cheap and Costly Unity

"... so that they may be one as we are one." (Jesus, John 17:11)

While reflecting on last Sunday's Gospel passage (John 17:1-11) it occurred to me that unity and union, with God and with each other, is costly. And in the same way that grace is costly - although humans have a tendency to seek the cheap version - so too unity has its costly and cheap versions. The union Jesus looks toward comes at the cost of his life. It is costly, and our discipleship of him is costly, just as the unity in Christ we seek is costly.

Iain McKillop, Jesus' High Priestly Prayer in
John 17, from a series of 7 paintings
 focusing on that last night and Gethsemane.

A reason why unity in Christ is costly is because it does not end the quest for unity prematurely. Human societies feel safer when identity and unity are attained and can then be protected and enjoyed. What I like to call mutual back-slapping (the kind of human unity built on mutual affirmation within narrow parameters of behaviour or belief, and applies to most human organisations, associations, sporting clubs) stops too early in its quest for union. Prematurely ending the quest for unity is why mutual back-slapping doesn't have the capacity to go very deep, and when it meets conflict, has the tendency to paper it over. Moreover, while it might appear that mutual-backslapping groups are relaxed about diversity, this relaxed attitude is because the diversity is not actually part of the unity itself. (Cf 1Cor 12:4-11)  The hard work of including diversity and 'the other' isn't carried through. Community built on mutual back-slapping also falls easily into its alter-ego of the attack-dog, pointing the finger at the 'accused', forming a temporary but false unity on the ostracised.

Churches are called beyond this kind of tribalism (both the mutual back-slapping society and the attack-dog gang are tribalistic). Jesus reminds us of the cost of unity (see John 11:45-53) but also its provisionality. It is because the work of the Spirit in uniting the human race is not yet complete that churches are asked to hold themselves open to including the outsider, and work to make difference a foundation of their community.

This is exactly why unity is costly. Unity grounded in diversity changes the community as it stands, and makes the life of that community less comfortable. When the current unity of a congregation is considered provisional it means that congregation is saying that it expects, even wants, its current identity to change. New people will mean a new identity, both for the existing members of the community and those joining it, requiring both some personal and group dying.

When unity and its cost is understood like this much of the New Testament focus on Christian disunity (e.g see 1Cor 1:10-31; chapters 5-8; 11:17-34; chapters 12-14) and the confusion to identity that new members (Gentiles) bring (to faithful Jewish Christians, see the Gospel of Matthew; Acts 15:1-21; Galatians 2:11-14) becomes understandable. Whether it comes through the personal call to die with Christ or a community's call to die to its current secure identity, union in Christ comes at a cost and humans tend to resist that call.

Sinners

The two fundamental affirmations of Christianity are that God is good, and that we are sinners. The two go together. It is tempting, however, to split them. Most people seem to quite like the first; even those who don't believe in God! It is the second that causes all the trouble. Some people don't know how to make it an affirmation; they only hear it as destructive and over time can't stop it demolishing their carefully constructed sense of self. Others embrace the appellation of 'sinner' because it fits their low sense of self. Just another way to flagellate themselves.

We can hide from the harshness of the designation 'sinner' by looking at 'sin' and 'sinner' as forensic terms, with the simple meaning that we fail. 'Sinner' becomes a bare fact, rather than saying something about our identity as human beings. As a purely forensic term it remains external to who we are. However, a more nuanced and deeper exploration of our failure makes us realise that everything we do is tainted: we are sinners, not just occasionally falling into sin. And this is when it start to gets harder and people are tempted to recoil from 'sinner' altogether. This rejection of 'sinner' is completely understandable if our sense of self is dependent on us creating our sense of worth, through a kind of moral standing. (I'm a good person, I'm worthwhile, etc.) The 'self-made man' remains in control, separate and ultimately alone. But must at all costs avoid anything that can tear down the self-creation. (Good people can occasionally sin, but they remain essentially good, i.e. I am good.))

The alternative is offered by the gospel. God loves us. God comes to us when we are sinners to show not only that we don't have to create ourselves, but also that we can gain our true identity in that relationship of love.  Or to put it another way, when we are at our weakest God comes to us in an act of utter grace to show that we don't need to earn God's love. In Christ God's love is given freely and lavishly. And although grasping onto our self-creation will only hinder the full realisation of that love and our true identity in it, our self-creation can't prevent the generous showering of love that God gives to us. It can make us lovers of God and others. (Luke 7:47)

And we can go further than this. God's gracious act in Christ shows us that our self-creation remains irrelevant to receiving God's love. Grace is not a stepping stone to a spot where we can take over ourselves, eventually creating a self that doesn't need God entirely and utterly. We don't at some point take over from God's grace and do it ourselves and thereby eventually earn a grudging acceptance from God. Our identity is always to be found in God's gracious action in Christ.

Moralists are suspicious of the bold statement that our moral standing is irrelevant to receiving God's love. They are worried that grace then becomes cheap. St Paul's critics thought the same. Whatever you do with the call to holiness it should never be at the expense of our utter dependence on God's love irrespective of any self-created personhood or moral standing. On the other hand, St Paul did not preach cheap grace, and for all those who accept the pure gratuity of God's love an annual reading of Bonhoeffer on costly grace is a necessity. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, pp. 35-47.) Grace is not to be universalised as a principle that is everywhere present and automatically available apart from God's free act in Christ. This is the error of liberal Christianity: moving from God's love in Christ freely given and without reserve to a necessary principle universally available, conceived almost as a right. Cheap grace in other words.

God With Us!

Here is a great quote from Karl Barth. I have cut this from an extended quote here.

"God with us! That is too strong a contradiction, not only over against our sins and sufferings but also against the nature of our existence down to the very deepest depths of its roots. God with us! That conflicts too much, not only with our unrighteousness, but more yet, with our righteousness; not only with the atrocities of history, but more yet with history's supposed progress and achievements; not only with the misery on earth, butmore yet, with the supposed happiness and saisfaction on earth. God with us! That subjects our total human nature to a judgment, to a No, that will leave nothing left of us, and will bow us under a grace, a Yes, that we cannot comprehend. God with us!

The Importance of Worship Without Expectations (Going To Church Series)

One of the ways to misunderstand worship is to come to worship for a purpose. It is easy to say about worship: I'm coming to be re-filled for a new week; I'm coming because I love hymns (or whatever kind of song); I'm coming to receive the sacrament (celebrated in a certain form, whether traditional or not, catholic or protestant); etc. When we do this, no matter how laudable the reason, we are worshiping for a reason other than what worship is for. Worship is to give thanks, to be open to God, not coming with our agenda. When we do come with an agenda we run the risk of manipulating God and indulging in magic. This is hard because we have all had the experience of worship that is badly done, lacking content and style, or even if spoken in our native tongue, it still seems to be alien to us. So we are tempted to think that what we should do is seek out what we want in worship. I am, of course, sympathetic to this because it has, for one thing, made churches more responsive to people if they wish to survive and flourish. And this has been a blessing to traditional churches, even though some may die because they won't/can't move. But, and this is a very large caveat, the danger is merely magnified when we go to worship with a particular outcome in mind.

Why do I say this? Let's think a bit more about magic. Magic is the use of a formulaic set of words and actions to bring about a certain outcome; manipulation of whatever the 'magic' is being used on. If you come to worship with a certain outcome in mind (whether it be how you should feel, what you should receive/get out of it, the content, the spiritual nourishment) aren't you doing magic? The minister, musicians or preacher become the magicians for you to get what you want from God.

What's the alternative? A couple of places to start. First, let's not pre-decide what we should receive from worship or how we should feel. Maybe your expectations are wrong. Maybe the conversion the gospel asks of us is exactly directed at our expectations of God. Second, come to worship to give thanks for all the graces in life, especially the grace of Christ and the Spirit. What we receive that day, if we come to worship without expectation, can be received as gift, further grace in our lives. this means that, instead of preconceived expectations of what God/worship should do or be like, let us approach worship with the expectation that God will indeed be present (even, at times in an apparent absence or dryness), but not necessarily as we would like.

In the Line of David?

The Old Testament sets its hope on the emergence of a messiah in the line of King David (See 2Sam 7:1-17; Mk 12:35-37). The New Testament picks this up and sees it fulfilled in Jesus. (E.g. Mk 10:47) Nothing surprising in that is there? David was, after all, designated by God who sees the heart (1Sam 16:7), and made Israel a great nation politically. Except that David was also an adulterer and a murderer. (2Sam 11:1-27) It is easy to forget this when we read in the New Testament of Jesus spoken of in terms of King David. And Matthew's Gospel emphasizes the fact that Jesus is the product of the liaison between David and Bathsheba. (Matthew mentions Bathsheba specifically, whereas virtually all the other entries in the genealogy of Jesus are solely the males. See Matt 1:6b) What are we to make of this? The importance of repentance? (That is, God can make something of a repentant sinner?) Yes, but there is something more profound going on here. God can use sin and sinners for God's own purposes. Think of the cross, a terrible sin, yet the point of salvation. And Jesus seems to prefer sinful humanity in calling disciples. We like to think of the great saints as above reproach, but they didn't think of themselves in such a way, and when we cut through the hagiography we find grace moulding itself around, and sometimes using, continuing failure. And Jesus, as God in the flesh, is incarnated in a real human nature, and is at one with sinners in his crucifixion and death.

Why would God do it this way? Pride and perfection leave less room for God, and perfection can lead us to give the credit to human beings rather than God. Not so the sinner. God uses the weak to shame the strong and their wisdom. God has more space to work a surprising result through the weakness of the human vessel. (1Cor 1:18-31)

Creedal Ideology?

My hermeneutical key to reading Scripture is the regula fidei as expressed in the Creeds, and generally the four key doctrines of Trinity, Incarnation, transcendence and grace. Is this another set of preconceptions that need to be put aside like the conservative preconception of inerrancy and the liberals' expressivism? (See previous post here.) I don't think so, and for two reasons.

First, inerrancy and expressivism seem to me to be alien to the Scriptures, plucked from another set of agendas. From the beginning the regula fidei is internal to the church, always present and developing, and used as the hermeneutical key, in the debates that raged in the patristic period. It is this rule of faith that internal to the church's reading of Scripture from the beginning, and its refinement parallels the formation of the Creeds and the canon of Scripture.

Second, I came to this position after being converted from a diametrically opposed position, indeed the outright rejection of the doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation. What converted me was the way in which these doctrines opened up the Scriptures from the inside, and brought back together what some modern biblical scholarship tears apart. But the rule of faith does this from the inside. Inerrancy is an alien principle that is believed and applied before Scripture is read (or eisegeted into Scripture itself), and expressivism's source of truth lies outside Scripture. The Trinity and Incarnation (and grace and transcendence) are internal readings. Give it a go; read the Scripture from the point of veiw of these four key doctrines. You will find that you replicate the debates of the early church that resulted in these creedal type beliefs, and come to the same kind of splits that the early church came to. Are you willing to affirm your humanity, as it is? Or do you try to split your humanity from God ever so subtly? How comfortable are you with a God who forgives so generously? And how do you feel about God's unity with a corpse? God dead in the flesh? Ask these questions, apply the doctrines, and read Scripture.

The Freedom of God's Covenant With Israel

In a previous post I mentioned that in the story of Exodus 32 God's action is not determined by human behaviour, particularly human failure. This corresponds to the free initiative of God in choosing Israel in the first place. God chose Israel not because of its power or righteousness, but out of love. (See Deut 7:7-8) And because God's free choice of love was not determined by Israel's standing, to then break the covenant by destroying the people because of their abhorrent failure would be a denial of God's freedom. In the same way that God chose Israel not for any reason inherent in Israel (that is, God's action was not conditional upon certain human behaviour), so too God can, in God's freedom, bring a surprising word of forgiveness into the cul-de-sac of human failure. This foundation of the covenant upon the freedom of God also corresponds with the purpose of God's election: our participation in the freedom of God. (See Rom 8:21)

All of this continues seamlessly in the story of Jesus, particularly his crucifixion. The cross of Jesus is a low point in the history of human failure, but it becomes the means for a new and final word of forgiveness for all.

For Pentecost 22(A)
See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Engagement With God, pp. 13-18.

Ordinary Religion (vs The Gospel)

[Matthew 20:1-16]

Ordinary religion says that we all meet a fork in the road; one way goes to hell, the other to heaven. Follow the rules (whatever they happen to be, whatever it is you are meant to believe) and you go to heaven, don't follow the rules and the way to hell opens up. Its religion as law, and there is plenty of it about. It is ultimately about remaining in control within our relationship with God. The recluse in the story below is a member of ordinary religion.

When God walked into heaven and found that everyone was there, he wasn't pleased at all. He owed it to his justice, did he not, to carry out his threats. So everyone was summoned to his throne and the Angel asked to read the ten commandments. The first commandment was announced. Said God, 'All who have broken this commandment will now betake themselves to hell'. And so it was done. The same was done with each of the other commandments. By the time the Angel came to read the Seventh, no one was left in heaven except a recluse - smug and self-complacent. God looked up and thought: 'Only one person left in heaven? That makes it very lonesome." So he shouted out, 'Come back, everyone!' When the recluse heard that everyone was forgive, he yelled in rage, 'This is unjust! Why didn't you tell me this before?' (Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird, pp138-139.)

The recluse did his part of the bargain, and when God 'changed' the rules, he lost control. Personal interest does not take us all that far down the road to God. (It can take us a little way, as it turns out, but becomes a dead end if we can't jump tracks. More on that in a future post on the four degrees of love.)

Contrast this to the gospel. The gospel is not about control, but about grace. The gospel still holds out the possibility of damantion, but does not conceive of two equally wieghted roads. The road to salvation in Christ is heavily weighted in our favour, with the possibility of damnation remaining. In God's kingdom the rules of ordinary religion do not apply so neatly.

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; ⁴and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. ⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” ⁷They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” ⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” ⁹When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. ¹¹And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” ¹³But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’ (Matthew 20:1-16)

What is the antidote to ordinary religion? The gospel of Jesus, of course. But how do we enter the upside down world of the gospel? Here are a couple of clues:

1. This is not popular at the moment, but start with your own failure, and your moral equivalence (in failure) with every other human being. Then remember grace.
   
   
2. But more importantly, love God. The grace of God gives us the gift of responding to God, and the response we are given is love of God. The more we love God the less we begrudge God's grace shown to others, and, sometimes only eventually, we come to see the grace that is at the beginning and end of our response of love.

Another story to finish.

Jesus began to teach in parables. He said: the Kingdom of God is like two brotheres who were called by God to give up all they had and serve humanity.

The older responded to the call though he had to tear himself away from his fiancee and his family and go off to a distant land to spend himself in the service of the poor. Years later he was imprisoned for his work, tortured and pt to death.

And the Lord said, 'Well done my good and faithful servant! You gave me a thousand measures of service. I shall now give you a thousand million measures of beatitude. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

The younger boy ignored the call. He married the girl he loved and prospered in his business. He was kind to his wife and children and gave an occasional alms to the poor.

And when he came to die, the Lord said, 'Well done my good and faithful servant! You gave me twenty measures of service. I shall now give you a thousand million measures of beatitude. Enter into the joy of your Lord.'

When the older boy was told that his brother was to get the same reward as he, he was surprised. And he rejoiced. 'Lord,' he said, 'had I known this at the time you called me I know I would have done exactly what I did for love of you.' (Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird, pp. 134-135.)

[Pentecost 19(A) September 21, 2008]

Pure Forgiveness

Jesus comes across a bit on the excessive side at times. Hyperbolic, we might say. If someone takes your coat, give them your shirt also (Lk 6:29); turn the other cheek (Lk 6:29); how many times should I forgive my brother or sister? (Matt 18:21-22) And, in one of the parables Jesus uses to teach about forgiveness (Matt 18:23-35), notice the ridiculous amount of debt that is forgiven. (10,000 talents = 150,000 years of a labourer's wage!) It is easy to set our sights too low when it comes to forgiveness. (Or difficult to set our sights higher.)Most forgiveness is that which is 'earned' in some way. We find it easier to forgive someone who has shown remorse or repented their actions, than if they remain unrepentant. We are then able to respond with a suitable response of forgiveness, and a bridge over the trouble is built through this 'negotiation' of repentance and forgiveness. Note though, in this process the repentant person has already moved on from the sin and the kind of person they were. We are not forgiving the sinner per se, but an improvement on them! This is our usual modus operandi in respect to forgiveness. There is nothing wrong with this, and it is very practical in all areas of human life, ranging from the interpersonal to the public and political. Saying 'sorry' has become part of the political landscape, and we find it easier to move on with the apology than without. But there is a purer forgiveness: the utterly gratuitous forgiveness of the sinner and the sin without prior repentance. This is forgiveness worthy of the title of forgiveness. How difficult it is to forgive the sinner who has not repented and continues to be the person capable of recommitting the sin. Purer forgiveness, but much harder. We rarely see it, even more rarely (if ever) live it ourselves. The purest forgiveness is implied in this less perfect form of forgiveness but is displayed to us in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is God forgiving us before we repent, before we make ourselves worthy of forgiveness. (Rom 5:6-11) In Jesus Christ, the pure forgiveness of God is made manifest and efficacious for all. (Rom 5:18-21) When we repent it may feel as though the forgiveness we receive from God comes in response to that repentance. However, the possibility of repentance is a gift we received within the gratuity of pure forgiveness. That is, God's forgiveness is pure, and it leads to repentance, to that very practical kind of forgiveness we are all so familiar with. No matter how hard we try, and no matter how successful in changing, all of it comes to us through the gratuity of pure forgiveness. (Lk 7:36-50) [Pentecost 18(A), Matt 18:21-35] See J. Derrida, 'On Forgiveness'.

No Simple Contrast

... a simple contrast between activity and passivity will not do for creatures' relations with God because no matter how active one is as a creature, one is never anything other than the recipient of God's active grace - God remains active all over. Kathryn Tanner

God's Gift of Life is Christ

The way God gives us life and holiness is by giving us Christ, therefore causing us to share in the qualities that Christ possesses. Since Christ’s giving of himself to us constitutes God’s giving us participation in himself, Christ must be God by nature, not merely by a grace borrowed from another.
(DonaldFairbairn, Grace and Christology in the Early Church, writing on Cyril of Alexandria's theology of grace (mapped to his Christology), in contrast to the theology of grace (and Christology) of Theodore of Mopsuestia. Book review to follow soon.)