Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time: 9-11-16
Peace be with You,
Over the last several weeks, we have received a challenging course in discipleship from Jesus, which reached a critical juncture last weekend. There, we found out what real discipleship entails, i.e. real discipleship is about viewing the world through the paradigm of the cross. To speak of the cross as paradigmatic for life is not to diminish the reality of the cross, reducing it to mere symbol. Rather, it is an attempt to make the cross the basis of daily living, by saying that if we are to be true disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, we must make the self-giving love of the cross a reality in our daily lives. To be sure, this is a tall order, which is why today; our God offers us a promise of mercy and love.
The same Christian worldview that could lead us to base daily life on the cross only makes sense by understanding other certain aspects of the same outlook. For, to say that the cross represents a model of perfection in life is to say something decidedly odd, unless there is more to the story. The rest of the story is the story of salvation history. God, out of loving goodness creates the world. Our first parents rupture the goodness of the created order by falling out of uninhibited relationship with God thus allowing death to enter the world. From then on, God attempts to re-establish this relationship in various ways in order to set things back in their proper order, an order based in love. This would ultimately culminate with the death of the Second person of the Trinity on the cross of Calvary, the only action which could undo the fall, and restore creation to its proper relationship to its loving Creator. The cross is not a magic wand however. For, though the door to a grace-filled life has been opened, and the possibility to share in the life of God re-instated, until the end of time the human family is faced with the choice of accepting this grace or rejecting it. This creates an existential tension in our lived experience that can be described as “already but not yet.” For, the cross of Jesus has already saved us, but we only experience the fullness of that salvation inasmuch as we allow ourselves to be conformed to that reality. In short, the means to our perfection has been made available, but we still struggle with the ramifications of our fallenness.
Our first reading from the book of Exodus for today gives us a good example of what this tension looks like. Now, to be sure, the Exodus took place far before the event of Calvary, however, it provides us with a good example of our topic because the establishing of the covenant with Israel attempted to do what the cross did, i.e. establish communion between God and his people. This being said, in today’s story we find the people of Israel having just been liberated from slavery in Egypt by the mighty hand of God through the mediation of Moses. Having carried out the salvific act, a covenant is to be established in order to maintain a relationship between the people and the God who saved them. We join the story just as Moses is receiving the Law, the parameters of this covenant, from God on Sinai. Now (this is the crucial aspect of the story) at the very same moment that God is giving Moses the Law that will enable the people to live in communion with their God, the people are creating a Golden Calf for themselves to worship (Exodus 31:18-32:6). If this seems unbelievable to you and even maddening, it should. For, at the very same moment that God extends his love to the people, they turn their backs; the love of God is rejected. We ask ourselves, how could they have done that? How could they have been so inept, so ungrateful?
The gospel reading for today provides us with a second example of the very same action. Therein, we find the Parable of the Prodigal Son, a story we have all heard, but perhaps take many aspects of for granted. For our purposes, the latter part of the story provides a nice complement to what has already been discussed. At the end of the parable, we find the prodigal having returned home to the open arms of his father. A happy ending before the focus turns to the elder son. The elder son does not share his father’s sentiment, and at the very same moment that all celebrate the re-establishment of the relationship between father and son, the elder son turns his back indignantly, angered by his father’s welcoming of his prodigal brother (Luke 15:25-20). We say to ourselves, what a jerk! How could have been so cruel to his brother, to his father?! How could he have been so cold-hearted!?
What is interesting is that the two stories produce very similar reactions within us (if we are paying attention). We are repulsed by the actions of the people and the elder son, and rightly so, for the two are stories of the rejection of love. Perhaps this is because we don’t take the time to consider that the actions of the people and the actions of the elder son are our actions, or perhaps it is precisely because we realize that they are. Whatever the case may be, it seems to be a sad aspect of our fallen status that we reject God’s love right as we experience it. Consider for a moment, how often aren’t you at church and your mind starts to wander, instead of considering the beauty of God’s salvific work you critique the clothing of another, or consider their misdeeds. And, if we are lucky enough to make it through service without being distracted from the love before us, quite often by the time we are in the parking lot we are either gossiping or arguing with one another. And this is just one setting. The list goes on and on, before too long we could add up enough times within the last day where we have fallen short of the love that we have received to make any attempt to live up to it feel hopeless! However, we need not despair.
My friends, to say as Paul does today in his first Letter to Timothy, that we are the foremost of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), that we have fallen short of what we have been created for, is at one and the same time to say that we are in desperate need of the merciful love of our God! This is where the life of a Christian begins: the recognition that things are not as they should be and the only way to make them so is to allow the merciful love of God to penetrate our lives that the power of that love may become evident and transformative in the lives of all around us, just as it did for Paul (1 Timothy 1:16). We live in a messy irony, and it’s precisely the recognition that we live in such a state that allows us to recognize that yes, we are fallen, but our God does not wish to leave us there. He wishes to envelop us with His merciful love, that we, together with all of creation, may experience eternal life in him. Today, allow your fallenness to drop you into the merciful arms of the Redeemer that He may continue His work of love within you and through you to all you meet!
Your servant in Christ,
Tony Crescio is the founder of FRESHImage Ministries. He holds an MTS from the University of Notre Dame and is currently a PhD candidate in Christian Theology at Saint Louis University. His research focuses on the intersection between moral and sacramental theology. His dissertation is entitled, Presencing the Divine: Augustine, the Eucharist and the Ethics of Exemplarity.
Tony’s academic publications can be found here.
The theory of compatibilism is really just an exercise in semantics. It is an attempt to reconcile determinism with the free will, which is essentially a contradiction of terms. In short, it holds that humans have free will, but not with respect to anything that holds any ontological import. This is given away by your last paragraph, “it was never my choice it was all God’s plan.” Moreover, you quote Augustine, who most vehemently held that man indeed had a free will, and would have proved that you ultimately hold that you did not until God usurped your will in order to save you. In other words you could not seek the good until that time which God controlled your will via grace in order to do so, this is essentially to put the onus on God for the time prior to that to which he predetermined to “save” you. This is essentially a contradiction of grace, in that grace is a share in the life of God and is love, and thus, ultimately to blame God for evil. The quote taken from Augustine cannot be taken piecemeal but must be read in light of the entire document, where you will find many references to scripture which Augustine utilizes to demonstrate that God’s commandments would be in vain if man had not a free will to choose to do good and not do evil, a position incompatible with the main thrust of your comment.
God does not attempt he does or doesn’t to say he attempts would suggest he fails. Romans 9 says He saves whom he wills and has mercy on whom He wants.
Theres other many points I would point out, but main one is that above.
Thanks.
The word “attempt” here does not indicate a failing on the part of God, but rather a lack of complete/perfect response on the part of those with whom He initiates the covenant. Are the actions of God efficacious for salvation, absolutely. However, God does not save against human free will, just as He mediates salvation through human actors (in both the case of Moses and in the Hypostatic Union), so too does he ultimately save in cooperation with the free will of any given individual. To say otherwise is to eliminate the free will in any sense. God does what is necessary that we spend eternity with Him because He loves us, He forces no one to love Him. Ultimately this leads to a discussion on predetermination vs. predestination, and to say that God has created people with the intention that they spend eternity deprived of His love (whatever that may look like) is quite an unbecoming speculation of Him Who Is Love.
Man has free will in that he is a free moral agent and makes real choices that will have very real consequences, but he is limited by his fallen nature. God desires from man a worship that comes not ultimately from compulsion, but from love and desire. Man’s will is never coerced by God (James 1:13-15). It always flows from his spiritual nature and the desires of his heart. But in his fallen state man cannot discern spiritual things, please God, or trust in Christ (Romans 8:7, 1 Corinthians 2:14). Man is free to will what he most desires, but, until born again, his heart is in bondage to sin. Furthermore, his will is ultimately subordinate to the providence and sovereignty of God. This may be regarded as a “compatibilist” view of free will which sees man’s free choices as compatible with God’s absolute sovereignty. As Augustine put it, “the human will does not obtain grace by freedom, but obtains freedom by grace,” (On Rebuke and Grace to Valentinus).
Reading Romans has made my perspective and ultimately given God the glory for allowing me to be saved, it was never my choice it was all God’s plan. Just as Jesus told Lazarus to come alive again Lazarus had no say in that, nor did we have a say in coming to life. Our will is limited to what our minds can comprehend.