A Brand New God

 

August 12, 2007:  19th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Wisdom 18:6-9     Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19     Luke 12:35-38

 

 

To the church in the diaspora[1]

& to the church of the unchurched[2]

 

Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.

Glory to you, Lord.

 

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be ready for action with belts fastened and lamps alight. Be like servants who wait for their master’s return from a wedding party, ready to let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake and ready when he returns. He himself will seat them at table, don an apron and will serve them. And should he return at midnight or even later, and find them still awake and ready, blessed are those servants.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

 

 

Introduction

An age-old battle

The question of justification is an age-old battle in the Christian church. It asks what is it that justifies us -- puts us right with God? Is it good works or is it faith? (Faith is distrust in good work, and it is trust instead in the cross of Christ.) The heavy theological question of justification no longer exercises us as much as it used to in centuries past, but there’s use for ourselves in revisiting the old debate.

 

Good works don’t work for God (Lk 17)

In the 17th chapter of Luke Jesus tells a parable about a faithful and hard-working servant. After dutifully plowing the fields and caring for the sheep all day long, he heads for the farm house at sunset, feeling good as a dutiful servant.  But when he arrives, the master does not thank his servant for his dutiful labors. He does not reward him. He does not don an apron to prepare a good table, and then seat his hard-working servant down to serve him as in today’s gospel. Instead, the master says to him, “Hey man, you’ve only done your duty. Now hurry up, put on your apron, prepare my supper and serve me, while I eat and drink first. After that you can eat and drink” (Lk 17:7-10).  The servant’s good works didn’t work for him! They didn’t move his master!  The parable bears a strange message (which at first miffs us) that good works don’t work for God! That’s strange because in human transaction good works usually do work for us. They do have the power to move people.

 

A New Testament theme

That strange message that good works don’t work for God is woven throughout the New Testament. It’s in the parable about laborers in a vineyard who worked all day long in the heat but at sunset receive the same pay as those who came much later (Mt 20: 1-16). It’s found also in the parable about the two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee who got up to pray and told God about his good works -- how he fasted twice a week and paid tithes on all his income. The other was a tax collector who had no good works to show for himself. He simply bowed down to the ground (where humility gets its humus) and asked for mercy. When the sun set that day, the tax collector, not the Pharisee, went home justified – set right -- in the sight of God (Lk 18:9-14).

 

St. Paul was the Attacker Extraordinaire of good works. He made that the heart and soul of his preaching. He distillated his stand on good works with one simple phrase: “We are justified [put right with God] not by works but by grace” (Rom 3: 24).  

 

Luther’s terror

After Paul came Luther (1483-1546). He attacked good works much more soundly than he attacked the corruption of the sixteenth century church. For Luther personally the more burning issue was the Question of Justification. It asks what must we do to be justified, i.e., to be put right in God’s eyes? There are less lofty ways to express the question. For example, what must we do to humor or appease God?  In the bluntest terms possible, what must we do to buy God off?  Even that! To that question, however stated, all religions (Judaic, Christian and Islamic) never seem able to resist the temptation (yes, temptation it is) to answer, “We must do good works!” To humor or appease or to buy God off we must do good works. 

 

That characterized the general piety in the church of the sixteenth century.  Martin Luther, a devout Roman Catholic Augustinian monk, was a very scrupulous example of that piety. He worked himself to a frazzle trying to get God to feel good about him. In trying to buy God off he spared nothing. He scrupulously performed all the monastic observances. He subjected himself to an arduous regimen of praying, fasting and scourging his body, only to end up feeling that his good works hadn’t worked for him. At the end of the day, it terrified him to think he hadn’t succeeded in buying God off. Now he was terrified not only by his vices but also by his virtues! Luther spoke very emotionally about his terrores conscientiae (his terrorized conscience) which afflicted him in that period of his life. 

 

Luther’s solution

Many say the Reformation began on October 31, 1546, when Luther nailed his 95 Theses (against the pope’s sale of indulgences) to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Others say it began at  a different and very privileged moment in his life. One day as he was studying St. Paul’s Epistle to Romans in his heated study in the tower of the Black Cloister in Wittenberg, he came upon the words, “The gospel—the good news-- tells us that God makes us right in his eyes  when we put our faith and trust in Christ [not in our works] to save us” (Rom. 1:17). At that moment, Luther tells us, he rediscovered the gospel and all heaven opened for his tormented soul. That rediscovery is often called Luther's great “tower experience.”

In a privileged moment of revelation Luther, who was frazzled trying to buy God off with his good works, discovered the wonderful good news (the gospel) that God is for free. The price that Luther couldn’t pay to buy God off Christ had already paid for him by his death on the cross.  What incredibly good news! Luther doesn’t have to pay a penny! Salvation is free. Salvation is grace. That wonderful good news freed Luther from the impossible task of having to buy God off. It freed him from a God who till then terrorized him!

So wonderful was that good news that he carved it out with two words into the cornerstone of his movement: Sola Gratia, By Grace Alone. To this very day we see those two words chiseled either in English or Latin into the cornerstones of older Reformation churches. Sola Gratia, By Grace Alone. So wonderful was that good news that it gave birth to the Reformation’s mother of all hymns: Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace! We don’t have to buy God off. Amazing Grace! Christ has bought God off for us! Amazing Grace! God no longer is a terrorist.

God the terrorist[i]

God, the terrorist, doesn’t die easily in religion, whether Judaic, Christian or Islamic.  As I look back over many years of priesthood I now see how much of my effort was spent on ministering to people whose God was a terrorist. Of course, I had to first get rid of my own terrorist God before I could be of any help to others. In those days people were terrified of God because they were divorced and remarried. Terrified of God because they hadn’t confessed their sins to a priest or hadn’t confessed them correctly. Terrified of God because they were practicing birth control. Terrified of God because they were gay or lesbian. Terrified of God simply because of a typical unremarkable list of human sins which brings us all down.

 

Those who didn’t want to put up with a terrorist God simply left the church for another church or for no church at all. Others simply decided to stay put where they were and to believe with Luther in a terror-free God of their own.

 

A brand new God

Good works don’t work before God. That’s good news because it takes the terror out of God. That’s good news because it frees us penniless people from the burden of having to buy God off. Good works don’t work before God. That’s not only good news, it’s also strange good news, for from mother’s milk our elders and our religion have always been admonishing us to “Be good, and God will love you!”

 

In a letter my mystic friend writes,

 

In the bus the other day, there was a little child chanting, “When you are good, I love you.  When you are bad, I hate you.  When you are good, I love you. When you are bad I hate you. Etc., etc.” He went on and on like that. The mother just sat there and didn’t say a word. Finally the child got confused and said accidentally, “When you are good, I love you. When you are bad, I love you.”  When he realized his mistake he broke into a delightful laughter.  There was something so innocent and pure in that laughter that it seemed to transform the world around us for a moment. A child had accidentally spoken the truth and had announced the gospel—the good news. A child had corrected our elders who had taught a terrible falsehood:  “Be good and God will love you!”

 

A brand new God

Good works don’t work before God. That’s strange good news, because it introduces us to a brand new kind of God. A God who does not hate us because we are bad. A God who does not love us  because we are good. A God who loves us because He is good!  Good works don’t work before God. That’s strange good news because it introduces us to a brand new kind of God who does not transact as humans do.

 

At the end of the day, religion is confronted with a very profound challenge. It is challenged to stop thriving on a God of terror. That’s a temptation hard to resist, especially when religion is  bankrupt and has nothing better than terror to offer. On the other hand, religion  which is rich and abundant flourishes on a God of love. 

 

 Good works do work for us (Lk 12)

After a theological and scriptural  deflation of good works, it’s time now to inflate them. It’s good news that good works don’t work for God. That frees us from a terrorist God we have to placate. But it’s also good news that good works do work for us. That’s the message of today’s parable from the 12th chapter of Luke. A master puts one of his servants in charge of his fellow servants and then takes off for a wedding party. The servant in charge is a good man. He doesn’t eat and drink with the drunkards in the house. He doesn’t beat up on the other servants in his charge.  He’s kind and gives them food at feeding time. He doesn’t sleep on the job. He’s vigilant and wakeful. No matter when the master comes home, whether at midnight or even later, the servant is ready to open the door as soon as the master knocks.

 

When the master returns from the wedding party, he’s very pleased and rewards the good works of his servant. He dons an apron, prepares a fine dinner, seats his servant at table and serves him (Lk 12:35-44). That, indeed, is turning the tables. The master serves the servant, and the servant is served. That’s a parable about good works which work!

 

Good works do work.  Jesus said they do. “I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. Come you blessed of my father and take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of creation” (Mt 25:33-40).

 

Our good works don’t work for God, but they do, indeed, work for us humans. A Samaritan on the road to Jericho came upon a man waylaid by robbers and was left half-dead. He stopped and poured the oil of compassion upon the poor man. His good work didn’t work for God (who doesn’t transact), but it did, indeed, work for the poor man who desperately needed it.  It carried him to the nearest inn where he was cared for and restored to health. More importantly the Samaritan’s good work worked for the Samaritan himself. He needed his own good work even more urgently than the victim. It turned the Samaritan into the great human being that he was. It turned him into the immortal Good Samaritan of all ages.

 

Conclusion

Dismissal to a brand new God

The history of religion proves many times over that the God of terror  dies hard. Every Mass has its dismissal. Ite Missa est. Go the Mass is ended.  Go and let go of your God of terror. That’s not easy.  Go and let go of religion which feeds and thrives on your fear and guilt. That’s not easy.  Go in search of a brand new God who doesn’t hate you because you are bad, and who doesn’t love you because you are good.  Go in search of the God who loves you because He is good, and who commands you to love as He does.


[1] Diaspora is a Greek word meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile. It’s now come to mean the migration or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland or parish!

[2] By “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!