10th Sunday after Pentecost 9.8.09 Grace
Our Lord said, If you do good only to those who do good to you, well, even the pagans do that much. He is saying that to be His disciple we have to rise somehow above just the natural response. It is easy to love sometimes and when it is easy there are no medals awarded.
The Epistle today speaks of the Holy Spirit giving gifts to us, and the Gospel of the limits of natural goodness. The pharisee thought himself good by his own efforts, but he was only deceiving himself. We can go some distance with natural good works, such as loving our parents, but without supernatural help we cannot do the more demanding things, such as forgiving enemies, and these things also we are required to do.
The gateway to those higher acts is to admit our inadequacy at the natural level – thus to repent, which the pharisee - too satisfied with himself - was unable to do.
It begins with repentance, admitting that we cannot do it by ourselves. If we open our hearts to God He will give us mercy, and over and above that the grace to do better things.
We will be able to live in His Spirit. And continuously so, not just a once off, here and there, but an abiding state which will last as long as we remain humble and return to Him asking forgiveness for whenever we have failed.
We are in a covenant relationship; and in a dependent state. It works as long as we keep in right balance with Him.
How shall we see ourselves? Are we worthless worms, incapable of good; or are we unique, precious beings greatly loved by God and incapable of evil? Neither view is fully correct; both have some truth.
If we understand our relationship with God as a covenant partnership, with Him being the superior partner, then we see that we are greatly loved by Him and each of us is very important, but also we see that we are capable of sin, and probably do sin quite often.
When we sin we do not become worthless; we still have the basic dignity that God has invested in us, but we are out of union with Him and greatly need to restore that union. So we confess our sins and resolve not to sin again, climbing back into the proper relationship, and able to feel right again.
But our ‘feeling right’ must never become complacency, using God’s love as a licence to do whatever we please.
If we remember our dependence on Him we will be less likely to step out of line.
Independence is a much desired quality. It is nice to have own house, car, health etc. but spiritually it is not possible to be independent of God.
We are inferior to God yet loved by Him. Provided we acknowledge He is in charge things will work fine. He will bring forth fruit from the branch; otherwise we are as useless as a branch lying on the ground.
Even our natural goodness will fall apart after a while, as we move further away from the Source of goodness. The pharisee in the parable would have committed sins, we may be sure, because he was not right with God.
And if genuinely repentant God will fill us with grace, so good must follow.
Thus if we humble ourselves, simply recognize our true status before God, we will be exalted; we will glorify God and do the best for ourselves by becoming what we are, truly children of God.
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