In Order That You May See

The comments are still going on over on that How Can You Know If You’re A Christian piece of two weeks ago. Here is one that popped up yesterday that I think can be very easily answered by the lections apportioned for this Sunday:

I see no grace in this piece. At all. And it places the Bible above everything else. I see idolatry.

There are several things I like about this pithy critique. First of all, the commenter uses the words, “I see,” which are very useful. Indeed, “I see” gets to the heart of the problems so many people are having, one with another. Christians—and many other kinds of religious people, but let’s stick with Christians—admit to the great limitation of being able to say “I see.” The problem is that I, and thou also, do not “see,” not as we should. “I see no grace in this piece” admits something essential. The human person is blind and needs help to see. The human person cannot perceive the way things really are without help. Look at the way Isaiah makes this point:

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
 let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

This is one of the canticles that Anglicans pray in Morning Prayer, day after day after day. It is “especially suitable for use during Lent,” that great season whereby the sinner humbles himself before God and admits the great insuperable cavern of sin that separates him from the grace he needs and the glory he longs for. And yet, he knows and trusts that, when he seeks God, God will “have compassion on him,” that God will “abundantly pardon.” This pardon and compassion will bring him to the cross where his sins will be forgiven, where the lack he suffers—the need for oil and wine and bread and hope—will be met by God himself with his own body. “Come” cries Isaiah at the beginning of the chapter, everyone who thirsts and who has no money, seek God. He will save you.

Now look at Paul, who has such a different inflection when saying mostly all the same things:

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Your thoughts, your mind, are not only not those of God, they are hostile to him. They are opposed to him with all the fury and vigor you possess. When you are looking for grace, if your mind is set on the flesh, you will not be able to see it, no matter how hard you peer at the page or the screen or the cosmos. If you want to please God, however, if you seek after him, then:

…although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Where you had death before, if you give yourself to Jesus, the Spirit makes you alive. You will have life not only for your mind which was so hostile before, but also for your body, for eternity.

But now let’s look at the second part of the comment, which is also essential. The commenter says this:

And it places the Bible above everything else. I see idolatry.

If anyone ever set out to pay me a compliment, especially about anything I’ve ever written, this is the best one I have ever received. If you read what I wrote and saw in it that the Bible came out in that supreme place, I can die happy. And why would I want it to be so? For one reason only. I myself have no way of knowing where the grace is, where the life is, where the joy and hope are without the Bible. And not me only, but everyone who would seek after eternal life. Look at the way Jesus talks about it in this morning’s gospel:

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.  As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.  As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.  As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

Jesus is talking to his disciples here, alone. They, after hearing the parable of the sower, still do not understand. Jesus has ceased talking openly. Enough people have rejected his plain call to repent and come to him that he now speaks in parables on purpose so that the crowds will not understand. His thoughts, in other words, are very far away from those of the crowds. And what he says is so obscure that even those who accept him do not understand and need an explanation.

If you read what he says here, and then go back to the end of the chapter in Isaiah, you will see a couple of things. First, the Word is efficacious. It does what it is going to do. No human can control or shape or manage it. If you cry out to the wide world the good news of God in Christ what happens as a result of that cry is not up to you. God is in control. Second, one of the things that the Word does is alienate some people. The efficacious work of the Word means that rocky, hard soil is sometimes illuminated for what it is. Some believe and see the grace and mercy offered, others become harder and go farther away.

If, then, you do not see grace, but instead see, as the scripture is exalted, “idolatry,” I would implore you to run to the mercy of God this morning. Because the text is the way that God opens up the eyes of the blind, the way that hungry people are fed, the way that thirsty people take a long, everlasting spiritual drink. This is so because the text is outside of you. It’s not something you look inside yourself to find. Discovering that you are blind, you let someone else’s light—Jesus’—push away the dark shadows. Discovering that you are dry and hungry, you let someone else—Jesus—feed you. Discovering that your heart is hard, you let the word of God, like a seed, fall into your mind and soul to make you alive.

This is the opposite of idolatry. You are not worshipping the text. You are letting the abundant power of God—the Word—make you alive by cutting away the choking weeds of self-love and self-adulation.

Look at what happens when you put your thoughts, your judgments, your measures to one side, and take those of Christ. Here is Paul:

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

If you don’t go to the text, you will never discover how this can be. The Spirit will never cry inside of you to God, making you not a slave, but an adopted child. Seek him this morning, for he wills to be found, call upon him for he is near, forsake yourself, and catch hold of him.