| Whenever the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism are enumerated, one of the most common items on the list is “Faith and Good Works.” The role of good works in human salvation was one of the crucial issues of the Protestant Reformation of 1517. Martin Luther went so far as to interpolate his own spin on the issue right into the Bible text. The issue was “justification” and the question was “How is the human person justified before God?” By what means does he or she stand righteous before Him? For the Reformers, the answer was clear: sola fide – we are justified by faith alone, by our believing, by our following the precepts and commandments of Christian teaching that ultimately come from God. The Catholic establishment asserted, on the other hand, that “doing good works” afforded the person justification. He stood righteous insofar as he did what was written in the pages of Scripture – not simply intellectually believed what those pages said. The question of justification emerges in Sunday’s Gospel passage from St. Luke (10:25-37). A clever lawyer approaches the Lord seeking to know how to achieve eternal life. “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And He said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.” The matter seemed clear and closed. The love of God is intimately bound up with love of neighbor. The next verse gets our attention: “But he (the lawyer), desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Biblical scholars are in general agreement that the crafty lawyer already knew the answer to the question he just asked, but that he found an opportunity to “trip up” the Lord, to stump Him, as was customary of the synagogue officials and opponents of Christ’s message. Jesus proceeds to relate the parable of the Good Samaritan, known well to all of us. However, it is the bold stance that the lawyer took in “justifying himself” that will form the theme of this present reflection. The late Professor of Scripture at the Catholic University of America, Fr. Josef Zalotay, remarks about this passage: “Jesus use of this scandalous image of a despised Samaritan wasn’t so much about teaching a lesson regarding doing nice things for others, as it was a slap in the face to wake up a people in the grip of a consuming religious and nationalistic pride. They used their privilege of being God’s chosen to exalt themselves above others, while at the same time depriving others of relationship with the true God.” The lawyer’s attempt to justify himself before the Lord was an assertion of pride, of an elevated ego, of a self out of control and far from the humility that the Lord intended him to hear. Long before the Reformation, the lawyer relied on his own personal justification as part of the Jewish faith to assert his own moral integrity. He took a strange comfort in being part of the “in crowd.” He was certain, however, that the spiritual “fix was in.” St. Clement of Rome (+101 AD), the first successor to St. Peter as Bishop of that city, wrote of justification: “And so we, having been called through his will in Christ Jesus, are not justified of ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety, or works that we have done in holiness of heart, but through faith, by which the Almighty God has justified all who have existed from the beginning; to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen” You and I stand righteous before God not through any efforts of our own, but because of His grace in our lives. If we take comfort at our own moral righteousness, we must also affirm that it is because the Lord makes us so, leads us there, sees in us genuine goodness and god-liness. While we are called to DO the word of God, not simply hear it (James 1:22), we must be clear that holiness is the work of the Lord that goes on within us. Psalm 127:1 reveals this clearly: “Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, in vain does the guard keep vigil.” If pride is at the root of our justification of ourselves, what causes it? Why might the chief of the passions take over our moral self-perception? One possible explanation for this is that we often confuse faith and religion. His Eminence Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos has written: “One of the greatest problems of Christianity – and of many Orthodox believers also – is that they have ‘religionized’ Christianity and have turned the Church into a religion. In this way, they cultivated fundamentalisms, hatreds, divisions, a magical perception and relationship with God, also a competitive disposition of one towards another, a self-centered view of life.” The lawyer in Sunday’s Gospel revealed to us the fatal flaw: he lived a minimalist faith and he relied on that minimalist faith to justify himself. He had kept the commandments, undoubtedly kept the prescriptions of the Jewish dietary laws, most probably attended synagogue regularly and knew well the Torah. He figured that he had it made. What he had done was take what was an interior living experience (faith) and reduce it to a series of rules and regulations that he ostensibly kept, drawing a certain satisfaction (read: pride) from keeping them. Such is what happens when faith turns into mere religion, when the movement of God within the human heart changes into a rote observance of the bare minimum required of belief. It brings to mind the correction of our holy father St. Ambrose of Milan: “I have nothing, therefore, whereby I may glory in my works; I have nothing to boast of, and, therefore, I will glory in Christ. I will not glory because I am righteous, but because I am redeemed. I will not glory because I am free from sin, but because my sins are pardoned. I will not glory because I have done good to anyone, or any one has done good to me, but because Christ is my advocate with the Father, and because Christ’s blood was shed for me.” Our lives are created as “Christo-centric.” From the pages of Luke’s Gospel, to the Protestant Reformation, to the present day, the issue of personal justification persists. The lawyer’s question to Jesus might well be re-phrased: “What must we do to inherit eternal life.” Another way of addressing the issue comes from Psalm 166:12 — “What shall I return unto the Lord for all He has given to me” What indeed? Do we give our all to Him or do we give only the leftovers of our time, our energy, and our good works? Do we find ourselves taking satisfaction in the fact we attend Divine Services now and then, rather than make it the regular practice of our lives every week? Are we happy because we can perhaps find no “major” sins in our lives, allowing the parade of smaller sins to grow and multiply without the healing of the Sacrament of Confession? Has our faith become a minimalist faith, whereby we portion out to God a percentage of reverence, praise, and service rather than surrendering our entire selves to live FIRST as Orthodox believers and only then, as active citizens of the “city of man.” Is our Orthodox faith an espoused value (in our minds) or a lived value (in active practice). That single verse from St. Luke’s Gospel ought to set off spiritual alarm bells in our hearts and souls: “Desiring to justify himself (“myself”)….” That is the call of religion not the summons of authentic faith! The late theologian Father John Romanides, considered by many as a contemporary Father of the Church, reminds us, appropriately, as our Nativity Fast begins this weekend: “The incarnation of Christ was considered and was celebrated by the Fathers of the Church and the worshipping ecclesiastical community as the abolishing of religion and its transformation into a Church. In fact, the most categorical way that Christ became human, was in order to free us of the illness of religion.” Give your all to God! Hold nothing back. Keep nothing from Him. Remember that no matter how much you have going on in your life, He must always be at the center. He asks only that you give yourselves to His love completely and totally. Above all, guard against your authentic faith turning into mere religion. We would hate it if we learned that God would only give us “some” love rather than all the love of His heart. It is the same for Him – He looks for all our love, all of us. Let us never settle for giving Him just some of who we are. I pray that each of you remain firm in this commitment! Faithfully in the Lord, |
