Proper 9 :: Zechariah 9: 9–12; Psalm 45: 11–18; Romans 7: 15–25a; Matthew 11: 16–19, 25–30
This is the homily given by Fr. Gene Tucker at St.
John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 9, 2017.
“TUG OF WAR”
(Homily text: Romans 7: 15–25a)
For
many years during my childhood, I – like many children do – spent some of my
summers at summer camp. One year, one of the recreational events for staff and
campers was a tug of war. The contest took place on the edge of a small lake,
where there was lots of sand. The campers and their staff were divided up into
two teams, the rope was laid out, and a piece of cloth was tied to the middle
of the rope, where it was laid out on a line that had been drawn in the sand.
That would mark the beginning point of the contest.
Instead
of asking the teams to take hold of the rope, and to be ready to begin the
contest, the teams were told they had a few minutes (I can’t remember exactly
how many) to get ready. Right away, both teams tried to find ways to improve
their chances of winning. The other team (from mine) got down on their hands
and knees and began to dig holes in the soft sand. When my team tried to do the
same, we discovered that the sand where we were was much harder, and almost
impossible to dig in. Immediately, I thought to myself, “No fair!” I was sure
we were going to lose.
And,
of course, when the two teams took up their positions on the rope, and the
strip of cloth in the middle was lined up with the marker in the sand, the
cloth on the rope slipped away from us and toward the other team, whose
stronger and older members were at the back of the rope with their feet firmly
planted in the holes they’d dug in the sand.
This
scene from my youth is a good way to see the back-and-forth contest that St.
Paul describes in our epistle reading from the Letter to the Romans, chapter
seven.
Notice
how he admits to us that he knows the good he ought to be doing, but finds
himself doing exactly those things he knows he ought not to be doing. “Wretched
man that I am!” he says in describing his predicament.
Paul
is like that strip of cloth in a tug of war, finding himself being pulled first
in one direction, then in the other. But, he says, the stronger team often
seems to be the team that represents the “bad stuff” in life.
Paul’s
candor in admitting that he is far from perfect can be a source of deep comfort
to all who walk the path of life. Can we say, with Paul, that “if there’s hope
for him, there’s hope for us, as well?” Yes, we can.
Oftentimes,
we tend to think of the giants of the faith as those who have conquered all of life’s
challenges. We may think that these saints are perfect – or nearly so – in
every respect. We may think that the ups-and-downs of life are now far behind
these holy ones. But the witness of Holy Scripture points us in an entirely
different direction: The majority of the heroes we hold in such high regard are
heroes in large measure because they are deeply flawed human beings in whom we
see God at work, perfecting them, purifying them, so that they will reflect
God’s holiness in the world.
As an
example, let’s take a look at Paul’s life trajectory: For one thing, we notice
that Paul was an accessory to murder, holding the cloaks of those who stoned
the Deacon Stephen to death. (See the Book of Acts, chapter nine.) For another,
we read a little further on in Acts that Paul was on his way to the city of
Damascus to attest followers of Jesus, and to bring them back to Jerusalem for
punishment.
So
Paul has “clay feet”, as do many of the prominent persons in the Bible.
(I
can’t resist saying that, if Paul were applying for ordination today, and if he
were to sit in front of a Commission on Ministry and admit to his past, or if
he were to admit that he knows all too well how to do “bad stuff”, that his
application to be ordained would go nowhere. Not these days.)
Paul
affirms a basic truth about human nature:
That we are sinners, fully-trained sinners, people who know how to do
“bad stuff”, and who need no training whatsoever to be good at it.
St.
Augustine, that hero of the faith who was Bishop in the north African city of
Hippo in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, picks up Paul’s view of
human nature, absent God’s intervention to point us human beings in a different
direction. Augustine deals with the subject of what theologians now call
Original Sin, taking the view that our sinfulness is so complete and so
all-encompassing that our view of ourselves is so obscured by our condition
that we cannot see ourselves clearly at all.
Augustine
is forced to deal with this unpleasant reality because of the existence of an
early heresy known as Pelagianism. This movement, which exerted a very powerful
influence on the Church during Augustine’s lifetime, is named for its main
proponent, a British monk named Pelagius.
Pelagius
maintained that we human beings do not require God’s help in order to save
ourselves. In other words, Pelaguis said that we human beings can “pull
ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps”, no help needed from God.
Paul
and Augustine are united in their refutation of Pelagius’ view of human nature.
Though
we human beings are created in the image and likeness of God (see Genesis 1:
26), and though we are endowed by God with “memory, reason and skill” (as our
Eucharistic Prayer C in the Book of Common Prayer states), we are incapable,
for all of those godly gifts, of improving ourselves.
There
is a strain within Christianity that maintains that complete and total holiness
is possible in this life. Some of those who hold this view are members of what
is known as the Holiness Movement. But if we consider Paul’s honesty about our
condition and our ability to commit sin, then we will have to reject such a
view of our ability to overcome our sinful impulses. Holiness, it must be
stated, always remains the goal of all who follow Jesus Christ. That is a very
beneficial reminder that those who follow the Holiness Movement’s tenets
provide for other Christians. But though this goal must always be in view, the
reality is that we will never fully reach that goal in this life. And, just to
be sure, we also ought to state that that any progress toward the holiness that
God expects of us is entirely due to the Holy Spirit’s intervention in our
lives, and intervention which overcomes our fallen nature to begin the work of
creating within us the light of God which will drive away the darkness of our
innermost selves.
So we
are like that strip of cloth in the tug of way of my youth, which gets tugged
first one way, then the other, as our old nature – which has not completely
died out – tries to pull us in the direction of doing “bad stuff”. Thankfully,
the Holy Spirit intervenes to counteract these impulses, drawing us out of our
helpless condition, toward God.
Welcome
to life’s struggle. It is a struggle that will follow us until we draw our last
breath and until – by God’s grace alone – we come face-to-face with the God who
created us and who loves us with an indescribable love.
No
wonder Paul can affirm in today’s text that God’s way and God’s way can win out
in us. No wonder that Paul affirms that – if we let Him – God will draw us,
inexorably, to Him, delivering us from the bonds of those things that could
separate us from Him.
With
Paul, we can say, “Thanks be to God”.
AMEN.
