by CCW | 6 April 2011 06:22
This is the fourth and final Lenten meditation on original sin. The previous meditations are posted here[1] and here[2] and here[3].
It is, as we suggested on Sunday, a rather powerful statement about the nature of human redemption. It appears in the Eucharistic gospel for the Fourth Sunday in Lent and may serve as our final word in this little series of reflections about the meaning and nature of original sin.
We are in the wilderness with Jesus. That makes all the difference in the world, all the difference in heaven and earth, we might say. In the earlier gospels of the Sundays in Lent, Jesus has been in the wilderness of our temptations, our sorrows and anxieties, our desolation and despair. It is as if we are more or less like on-lookers or spectators; somewhat passive in relation to what is unfolding before us and yet is something for us. We contemplate the theological aspect of the justifying righteousness of Christ for us.
On the First Sunday in Lent[4], he is in the wilderness alone, tempted by the devil, having been driven there by the Holy Ghost (and not in some sort of fancy chariot), and only after overcoming the threefold temptations is he attended by angels. On the Second Sunday in Lent, Jesus encounters the Canaanite woman, the non-Israelite, who serves to remind us of our sorrows and anxieties about our children and, even more, about the truth of God that is for all people. The encounter recalls at once the vocation of Israel as the holy people through whom “all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” as well as suggesting the fulfillment of that vocation in Jesus Christ. Somehow, as this amazing woman senses, even “the little dogs” from outside of Israel are fed from “the crumbs which fall from their masters’ tables.” How much more are we fed from what is left-over from the wilderness banquet of God’s redeeming love!
The Third Sunday in Lent[5] presents us with the dark picture of human desolation and emptiness when we have forgotten our desire for God. To be aware of our need for God is part of the message of original sin. To know that things are not right with us and our world and to know with a fall of our own hearts that “the heart is deceitful above all else” is part and parcel of the legacy of original sin. The good news is that such an awareness opens us out to God, to our desire for God and to the divine will which seeks our good. In this gospel, God is with us. It makes all the difference.
Original sin is named in our Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion[6]. It is even given its Greek term, Φρονημα σαρκος, for this “infection of nature” is “the lust of the flesh.” It is further named in the service of Holy Baptism. And, as we have been suggesting, it is constantly implied and explicitly understood in a myriad of ways throughout the liturgy of the Prayer Book. “We do not presume to come to this thy table trusting in our own righteousness.” The Prayer of Humble Access is a strong reminder that we do not have a principle of moral goodness simply in and of ourselves, as Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum supposed. Original sin awakens us to the need for God’s redeeming grace. And his sustaining and sanctifying grace, too, we might say. Which is what brings us to the wonder of this gospel story of the feeding of the five thousand in the wilderness.
For here we are with Jesus in the wilderness. And we are here intentionally, deliberately, we might say, in the positive purpose of wanting to learn from him. We have followed him into the desert places, the places of solitude, the places that are removed from the benefits and provisions of the human city. We are simply with Jesus.
And here he provides for us with both the spiritual food of our wayfaring and food for our bodies to sustain us in the way of pilgrimage. It is an amazing scene. Our lack is clearly noted. “They have no wine,” Mary said to Jesus at the wedding feast of Cana of Galilee. Here in the wilderness, we do not have enough money to buy enough bread that would be sufficient for all or any of us. There is, it seems only five small barley loaves and few small fishes. We lack the means of sustenance. We, literally, can’t get any satisfaction, at least not on our own.
The problem is far deeper than we realize. For the lack or insufficiency or dissatisfaction here is about more than the physical and the material. We lack “the true bread from heaven” that alone can satisfy our souls. And yet, Jesus is with us and that makes all the difference.
Notice, though, that our need and our lack have to be named. There is not enough money to buy enough bread; there are only five small loaves and few small fishes. This recognises our own lack and incompleteness. It is a significant vestige of original sin. We are pretty far gone into the wildernesses of our lives. It is as if Jesus wants us to be aware of our insufficiencies, our emptinesses and our dissatisfactions. Only then, can we begin to be fed spiritually and physically.
This, it seems to me, is a tremendously important feature of the doctrine of original sin. We are in ourselves “very far gone from original righteousness,” as the Article suggests, and yet, to know this and then to be fed by Jesus is absolutely wonderful. We are with him here in a different way than on the other Sundays in Lent. We contemplate, we might say, the theological aspect of the sanctifying righteousness of Christ in us.
Twelve baskets of crumbs from the master’s picnic are gathered up. In John’s gospel this signifies the twelve tribes of Israel, the bread of the children, you might say, but it also signals the twelve apostles, the foundation of the Apostolic Church. With the gathering up of the fragments, we are provided with the spiritual food of our wayfaring. What falls from our gracious master’s table is more than enough to feed the Church in all times and all places. But only if we realize that we need to be fed! It means to appreciate the provisions which God makes for us in the wilderness journey of our lives.
Which is what the teaching of original sin is actually all about. The awareness of our need for God in the soul of our being and in the souls of our communities is the counter to the soft sentimentalism that refuses to acknowledge the darkness of the human heart and its propensities and proclivities to sin. We are, simply put, pretty far gone. We are an unrighteous mess, let’s be honest! Each of us is “of his own nature inclined to evil,” as the Article puts it, and buttresses it with a scriptural foundation, for “the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit.” Such is “the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man.”
To know that is the good news of original sin for we are reminded of the provisions that God makes for us and that he wants to be in us through his sanctifying and sustaining grace. And all to his glory, the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father. Here we are with him and he with us, “he in us and we in him”, as our Liturgy puts it. Somehow the doctrine of original sin belongs to the nature of our incorporation in Christ. It belongs to the pilgrimage of our souls to God and to our fuller participation in the life of Christ.
Fr. David Curry
Tuesdays in Lent, 2011
Original Sin IV
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2011/04/06/lenten-meditation-original-sin-iv/
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