Long ago there was Monk, he spent some time thinking and came up with an idea… it turns out it wasn’t one of his best. The monks name was Pelagius and he thought that humans could achieve perfection without the aid of God. We were perfectly capable of not sinning in our own strength. We just had to choose not to! Simple eh? This obviously caused some issues with the rest of Christian doctrine, what was the crucifixion about if we could save ourselves? How come so few people, like none, ever managed to lead sinless lives? There were some very heated discussions and the church in her wisdom threw the idea out as nonsense. In fact more than nonsense, it was labelled a heresy. Sadly not before a fair few people fell into the trap of thinking they could lead sinless lives without the aid of God.
Heresies always have a starting point of truth, Years ago I took flying lessons and had a very simplified understanding of how things worked. The navigational aspect seemed incredibly clear to me in that if I took off and pointed the little Cessna in the direction I wanted to go, I would arrive there by a straight line. What I had yet to learn was that there are other factors to consider, namely the wind. If I didn’t take into account the strength and direction of the wind I would in fact still be facing East but being blown totally off course. The landmarks I would expect to see would become fewer and fewer and eventually I would be very, very lost, I would never reach my destination, quite a problem in a plane, even more of a problem when we are supposed to be heading for heaven.
The same situation arises when we don’t look for the landmarks that scripture and church teaching give us. A small error starts a trajectory that takes us off the path of truth, and we arrive somewhere wholly different. Our conviction we are right can also convince others with less confidence that we have the route safely mapped out and are safe to follow. The lack of landmarks is put down to the errors of others, because we can’t be wrong can we? You may be acutely aware of your need for God in everything. But this Heresy can live on in a subtle and undetected way. It continues to rumble along in the belief we earn Gods love. We are so conditioned to this being how all things work we can easily transfer the ways of the world and project them on to God.
In our earthly world, if I am nice to you there a good chance you will be nice to me. If I work hard on “this” then the more reward I deserve. I give you something you give me something in return, even if it is a nod of gratitude. But Gods ways are not our ways. He gives us everything and we can choose to offer some of it back. Whether we do or not does not alter the depth of love He has for us. How incredible is that? And how difficult is it for us to really understand that level of gift?
Have you ever met up with a friend to find they have brought you a beautiful gift and you stand in front of them shame faced and with uncomfortably empty hands? I have, its horrid and what’s more is I know I will never be as thoughtful as the person in front of me. They have this special gift of loving well. Far worse is that you fail to truly appreciate the gift you’ve been given due to the remorse of not having anything in return. If we are honest this level of generosity doesn’t sit comfortably with many of us. It is dwelling in a domain of debt and to our wounded hearts this means we are not in a position of strength or control. We estimate the cost to be our freedom, that there has to be a catch. As we have said His ways are not our ways, it is precisely our freedom that we are being given.
Earning Gods love
Martha and her siblings were close friends of Jesus. There is nowhere in scripture that illustrates what Jesus requires of us more clearly than in their story here in Luke.
Luke 10:38-42 (NIV) “At the Home of Martha and Mary 38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
I can’t help but wince at the discomfort those words must have brought to Martha’s servant heart. In her mind she was showing love by providing food and hospitality to Jesus and the disciples. Good works were Martha’s love language and probably how she had given all her life. But here, Martha has a resentful tone, Martha is no longer serving out of love today she is serving out of duty and duty without love can be the killer of faith. Our good works are not what makes us Christians, our good works are a fruit of our love for Christ. If we haven’t loved first all our efforts come from a place of needing to be loved, a place of earning approval, recognition, worth. Whilst this is a very human condition if we have sat at His feet before we prepare to feed the hungry, we ourselves have first been fed.
Our good works are coming from a place of love, a place of strength, coming from Him. Haven’t we all rolled our eyes at a colleague’s inactivity and growled inwardly “well someone has to do it”. This is of course true, work is essential but not more so than very reason we do it. Had Martha not prepared the meal that evening and joined her sister at the Lords feet what would have happened? I can imagine several scenarios
- After Jesus had finished teaching everyone would have got up and helped together, the labour would have been shared and no resentment going on and Martha too would have been fed by the teaching.
- Jesus, who had raised her brother Lazarus from the dead would have done a multiplying of bread and fish deal again, everyone would have been amazed and praised God for His providence.
- They would have just eaten a little later than planned, and as everyone was listening to the teaching of Jesus, they would have fully understood, or even if they hadn’t Jesus would have been rebuking them because in this scenario Martha and Mary would have chosen the better part.
“Oh” I hear you cry “but Martha surely just wanted to serve Jesus the best she possibly could”, but as we see here it’s how Jesus calls us to serve is the best way to please him.
The God of works
In his book “The Soul of the Apostolate” Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard writes predominantly for those living a religious life such as priests, monks and nuns. It’s true that whilst you are serving especially in ministry it is very easy to stumble backwards into the bear trap of finding your value in your work. His book however has something for all of us. Chautard refers to this condition as the “Heresy of good works”. The dangers of an active life without the attention to nurturing that of the interior. It leads us into a belief that God is depending upon us, rather than our total dependence upon Him. Eventually the very principle of the work disappears, in fact the principle motivation and reason for all work. The work of God takes precedence over the God of the work. This is at its worse Idolatry, and any loving parent will do their utmost to draw their beloved child back into a place of balance and rightful worship. There are varying outcomes to this if left unfettered, one as we have seen can be resentment, another is that we burn out unable to carry the weight of our tasks.
When Jesus tells us “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” he is referring to the work He has given us, not all the other yokes we have chosen to pick up along the way, supposedly in His name. I am very aware that I have, in the past worked myself into the ground, to a point of exhaustion, where I have barely had the strength left in me to cry out to Him or anyone for help. This is not what we are called to, the amount of work may very well be equal, but the strength and passion to fulfil it will be given to you from His vast bank of grace if it is indeed what He is asking you to do.
Our own resources are very quickly depleted in times of hard labour, mentally, physically or emotionally. Corrie ten Bloom, an amazing evangelist is quoted as saying that “If Satan can’t make you bad he will make you busy”
Finding our value – For some time in the early days of coming to faith I seemed to be weekly in groups where the first thing we would have to do is introduce ourselves. It is cringy but necessary to break the awkwardness of sitting face to face with complete strangers. “Hello my name is …and I …..” For the first few months I described myself by what I did. “Hello my name is Xanthe and I am a gardener” I loved my work as a gardener, I had my own small business, I was passionate about it. But it wasn’t who I was, it was what I did. Others described themselves by their occupation, others by their vocation.” I am Sarah; I am mother to Hugo and Emily” “My name is Mike, I am an engineer” and so it went on. It struck me after a fair few times of these Christian versions of a therapy session that none of us identified with who we actually were. We all related to ourselves by what we did during our day. If I had at the next parish meeting I attended declared “I am Xanthe and a beloved child of God,” would I have received a round of applause? Or is it more likely that people would have raised their eyebrows with a little alarm, or masked a small giggle with a cough? Imagine if I had concluded by adding that I am anointed as Priest, prophet and king! We can see though from this very small example just how much our identity and our worth is bound up in our works.
This I think works very well for us when we have something we are proud to be, a career or an act of service we do well, excel at. But when any of this fails so does our sense of worth, our self-esteem and our very identity seems lost. I believe that many times a failure can be our loving Father shouting “Just stop”. To bless the work we are using to define ourselves is to permit us to wander away from the truth of our Identity in Him. Who we think we are becomes apparent, is built on sand and the Lord in His goodness will bring a storm to raise it to the ground. We can then focus on rebuilding on the rock of solid understanding.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light” 1 Peter 2:9
So who are we?
It seems only fair that we spend some time discussing what we are just as much as what we are not. We only really discover this in a heart way rather than a head way by taking the better part, like Mary, Martha’s sister, sat at his feet. If I am made in the image of God and I want to discover who I am it is natural that I should seek Him in whose likeness I am created. I wish I could give you that in the pages of this book but that is a journey to be made by between you and Him, so even if I was gifted enough to do so it would be at the cost of your own personal encounter. I can tell you what he has said of you in scripture though. This I can share and hopefully it will serve to inspire you to sit a little longer seeking to know Him and as a consequence yourself more fully. It is here, only in this place you are fully known[1].
Who we are in Christ fills many a page of scripture as we read and reflect on each person’s journey recorded so we can see something of ourselves and the relentless pursuit of a Father after His children. Let’s just cover a few here, and please spend some time meditating with the scripture references listed below. There are more the deeper we wander into this love story. We are at once, child, beloved, body, friend, chosen creatures created by love for love. And it will take each of us a lifetime to unpack that.
There are many aspects of our nature that reflects our creator, and many that don’t. Our journey of faith is revealing those that radiate His light, whilst He helps us to shed those aspects that bind us and keep us in darkness.
How does failure show our true value?
Firstly I think there is a tremendous gift in knowing that we can’t lose the love God has for each of us by failing. This is a rock we can place our hope upon. It is unfailing love even more so for the failing. We can never experience the depth of this until we have fallen flat, face down, especially when it is our own fault. All our best lessons are those that we have lived through and experienced, the lessons that have penetrated our hearts with either sorrow or Joy. Here we truly discover the meaning of unconditional.
Nothing will ever match being stripped of all we thought we had to bring to the feast, and in that real awareness of our poverty, can the truth of our worth be validated. When I have monumentally failed through stupidity or through pride and still find God blessing me, still waiting to receive me with His arms open wide on that cross that I know this is an unshakeable love. Before I fail this is merely a nice theological theory. I once had a graced conversation with a girl in her mid-twenties, she had just returned to her faith after sometime living as the world so often does, as I had too. We were sat facing onto a large group of teens who for the most part had not yet made those life choices that we both had, but regretted.
“Don’t you think God looks at these young people and loves them so much more for their innocence and purity?”
she said, with a palpable heartbreak in her voice. I knew very well those feelings of shame and regret.
“How do you deal with knowing you’ve lost that in Gods eyes?”
It took me a while to reply, because although I had lived the journey of discovering the answer, I had never articulated it for anyone before that moment.
“I know in a way the depth of God’s love that they won’t just yet, Jesus came and found me despite all my sin, despite my choices and self-centred life. Right now these young people have only encountered Him from a place of conditional love, forgiveness for small errors that are a part of growing up. I have been blessed to know the depth of the unconditional. That is a gift. Whilst I regret my earlier choices in life, He has given me an understanding that is priceless and precious”
I know from my failings I can always come home. We also receive that inner knowing that our results don’t equal our worth; I can no more earn Gods love than I can earn the world and all that’s in it. With this brings a gift of putting down those burdens we are not being asked to carry, as well as a deeper reliance on Him for the ones we are. This is freedom my friend, its liberating to discover that it doesn’t all depend upon you. What a blessed relief that the world has a saviour, and that it’s not you. His yoke is in fact very easy and His burden is light because He walks right beside you taking the weight. If it is too heavy then maybe it’s not a burden you are supposed to be carrying. Spend some time asking why you are carrying it and just who are you carrying it for. The answer may be uncomfortably revealing.
One more gift is to be pulled up short for placing the work of God before the worship of God. Our Lord doesn’t require us to sit as His feet to feed a raging ego, remember He is the one who washes feet. This time is predominantly for our benefit. If some situation has failed then you will need support, encouragement and healing, this place is where it’s found. He calls us back to restore what is broken, to restore a rightful order of our values and priorities. Embrace the gift as it’s given. Allow him to gaze upon you as a beloved Child, permit him the time to show you, that is who you truly are.
John 1:12- Child
John 15:16- Chosen
Genesis 1:27- Image of God
Jeremiah 1:5- Prophet
John 15:15 – Friend
Romans 8:37 – More than Conquerors
Psalm 139:14 – Wonderfully made
[1] I Cor 13:12