Not by Works but by Grace

"Not by works but by grace”
Good Works Don’t and Do Work
August 8, 2010: 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Wisdom 18:6-9 Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19 Luke 12:35-38

Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.

Then 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.
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Introduction
Ramadan August 11, 2010

This coming Wednesday, August 11, 2010, Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting begins. During Ramadan Muslims fast from food and drink from dawn until sunset. The fasting is meant to teach Muslims restraint and spirituality. During Ramadan Muslims try to be more prayerful, they beg God forgiveness from past sins, they pray for guidance and they recommit themselves to good works. What Lent is to Catholics, Ramadan is to Muslims. On some issues both of us are on the same page.

Good works work for man.

In the 12th chapter of Luke Jesus tells a parable about a master who puts a servant of his in charge of his household, and then takes off for a wedding party. The servant is a hardworking and reliable man. He doesn’t drink with the drunkards in town. He doesn’t beat up on servants in his charge. He’s kind to them and gives them sufficient food at feeding time. He is vigilant and doesn’t sleep on the job. No matter when the master comes home, whether at midnight or later, he’s ready to open the door as soon as he knocks. Such a servant is blessed; a reward awaits him. On the master’s return home from the wedding, he’s so pleased with his servant’s good work that he dons an apron, spreads a good table, and bids him to sit down and eat, while he gets up and serves. (Lk 12:35-38)

The good work of the servant had the power to literally `turn the tables’: the master seated his hard-working servant down at the table, while he himself got up to serve him. The moral of that parable: good works work; they work for man.

But they don’t work for God!

In the 17th chapter of Luke Jesus tells a parable with an apparently opposite moral. Another hardworking and reliable servant is outside all day long in the scorching heat, dutifully plowing the fields and caring for the sheep. At sunset he returns to the farmhouse very tired but feeling good about the full day’s work he’s just put in. What’s more, he’s expecting a pat on the back from the master. When the weary servant arrives at the farmhouse, to his dismay the master doesn’t thank him, doesn’t gird himself with an apron and spread a good table, and then invite his servant to sit down and eat, while he gets up and serves. Instead, the master says to his servant, “My dear man, remember, you’re an unworthy servant; you’ve simply done what you were supposed to do.” What’s more, the master even says to the tired servant, “Hurry up now, put on your apron, prepare my supper and serve me while I sit down to eat and drink. After that, you may eat and drink.” (Lk 17:7-10)

The good works of the servant had no power to `turn the tables’: the master insisted on himself sitting down first and eating, and then his servant (who has simply done his duty) may eat. The moral of that parable: good works don’t work for God! And that, indeed, is a strange moral!

The gospel’s bias against good works

The gospel has a bias against good works. It’s present also in Jesus’ parable about laborers in a vineyard; some start work at 9 A.M., others at 12 noon, and still others as late as 5 P.M., but all are given the same pay! More work isn’t given more pay, and less work isn’t given less pay! (Mt 20: 1-16) “Foul!” we want to cry. That bias lurks also in Jesus’ parable about the two men who went up to the temple to pray: a Pharisee who brags about his good works and a tax collector who has no good works to brag about, but who asks God to be merciful to him a sinner. Scripture says, “The tax collector and not the Pharisee went home that night justified in the sight of God.” (Lk 18:9-14)

Paul’s attack on good works

St. Paul does not only show a bias against good works, he downrightly attacks them! That attack constitutes the bottom line of his preaching. He writes, “The gospel reveals how God justifies us -- how He puts us right with Himself: it is not through our works, but it is through our faith and trust in Christ to save us.” (Rom. 1:17; confer also 3:24) Again Paul writes, “Christ has freed us from the curse of the Law [with its heavy burden of works].” (Gal 3:13; confer also 15:1)

Luther’s attack on good works

After Paul came Martin Luther (1483-1546). He attacked good works even more fervently than he attacked the corruption of the 16th century Church. Luther, a devout Roman Catholic Augustinian monk was emotionally and theologically plagued by the question of justification: what must Luther do in order to become justified – set right with God? There are other ways to state his problem: What must Luther do to appease God’s anger and make God feel good about him? Or to put it in the bluntest terms possible: What must Luther do to buy God off? He thought the answer to his urgent problem was to simply launch off into a sea of good works. So he tried to be as scrupulous as possible in his monastic observance. He subjected himself to arduous praying, strict fasting and bodily scourging. But to no avail! Despite his intense regimen of good works, he ended up with a terrible gnawing doubt: Had he performed enough good works, and were they good enough to buy God off? At the end of the day, Luther discovered that his good works hadn’t worked for him! At the end of the day, he ended up terrified not only by his vices but now also by virtues.

But faith works

What pulled him out of his sea of terror? 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 reveals how God justifies us -- how He puts us right with Himself: it is not through our works, but it is through our faith and trust in Christ to save us.” (Rom. 1:17) At that moment, Luther tells us, he rediscovered the gospel which the Roman Church had lost: the good news that our good works don’t work, but only faith in Christ’s good work on the cross works. At that moment, Luther tells us, all heaven opened, and a deep peace came upon his terrorized soul. God wasn’t a terrorist but a loving Father who, in His Son Jesus, did for Luther what he frantically tried to do for himself but couldn’t

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God the terrorist alive and well

God, the terrorist, doesn’t die easily in religion, whether Judaic, Christian or Islamic. In pre-Vatican II days Catholics were terrified of God because they were divorced and remarried, and were `living in sin.’ Or they were terrified of God because they had entertained some sexual thought or had performed some sexual act and had not confessed it. Or they were terrified of God because they were practicing birth control and weren’t feeling sorry about it or confessing it. Or terrified of God because they were in a gay or lesbian relationship. Or terrified of God because they had eaten meat on Friday, never confessed it and went to Communion anyway. When some Catholics today refer to themselves as “recovering Catholics,” that’s what they’re talking about. Those who didn’t want to put up with a terrorist God left their Catholic faith and turned to another or no religion at all. Others simply decided to stay put in the Church they love, and to believe with Luther in a God who wasn’t a terrorist.

Lutherans are right!

Good works don’t work for God, and that is good news. It’s good news because it frees us whose pockets are empty from the terrorizing thought that we have to buy God off. We don’t have to buy God off. We can’t buy God off. He’s for free. That’s the profoundest meaning of “grace.” That’s the wonderful good news which the Reformation sang about in its hymn “Amazing Grace.”

Good works don’t work for God. That’s good news also because it introduces us to a brand new kind of God who doesn’t transact; He doesn’t reward more work with more pay and punish less work with less pay. He doesn’t hate us because we’re bad and doesn’t love us because we’re good. He loves us, period! Again, good works don’t work before God! That’s not only good news, it’s also strange news, for from mother’s milk our elders and our religion have always admonished us to “Be good, and God will love you!” At the end of the day, Lutherans are right: good works don’t work for God. And that, strange as it at first might seem, is gospel – mighty good news!

Catholics also are right

But good works do work for us. In today’s parable they worked for the hardworking and reliable servant; his master was so pleased by his servant’s good work that he donned an apron, spread a good table, and bade him to sit down and eat, while he got up and served.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan’s good work on the road to Jericho didn’t work for God (who doesn’t transact) but it did, indeed, work for the poor man waylaid by robbers. It lifted him onto the Samaritan’s donkey, carried him off to the nearest inn, and paid for his care and cure. But more importantly, his good work worked especially for the Samaritan himself who needed his good work even more urgently than the victim. It turned him into a great human being. It turned him into the immortal Good Samaritan of all ages.

Good works do work for us; Jesus said they do. At the last judgment He the judge will say to those lined up before Him, “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, therefore, you blessed of my Father and take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of creation.” (Mt 25:33-40) At the end of the day, Catholics also are right: good works might not work for God, but they do work for us.

Conclusion
Freedom from & bound to good works

After all is said and done, good religion frees us from good works which God purportedly needs in order to be bought off. At the same time, good religion binds us to good works which our neighbor needs, and which we need even more in order to become great humans like that immortal Good Samaritan.