Day: June 16, 2013

“Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness”

It is a tough saying, one of the toughest and, yet, one of the truest. Forgiveness is there for all who want it but if you deny the very possibility of forgiveness then that is to ‘blaspheme’ against the Holy Spirit. The unforgivable sin is about denying the power and the possibility of forgiveness. Nothing captures so completely the Christian sense of the incredible power and dignity of the human will. It is this passage that makes possible Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost and the whole power of Goethe’s Dr. Faustus. Our bond with the deceiver is captured in the denial of the possibilities of forgiveness. It is dogmatic and coercive. It means the rejection of any sort of realization of our own weaknesses and shortcomings; for to acknowledge sin is to recognize grace. But even more, it belongs to a denial of the possibilities of God’s grace. It denies God’s grace entirely! It denies to God what alone belongs  truly and properly  to God – mercy and forgiveness. This is actually the great insight of the Christian religion.

While it provides an insight into the nature of God, we might say, it also points to the radical nature of human freedom. We are free to condemn ourselves, to will our complete and utter separation from God. In other words, Hell is us precisely because we get what we want but deny what God wants for us. Heaven – a state of blessedness – is only possible through the grace of God. This, too, is a deep truth of the Christian religion. Hell is entirely our doing.

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“Rejoice with me”

Humility is the condition of our rejoicing, the condition of our redemption in Christ. Luke presents us with a very powerful message about the nature of humility as the counter to human pride and about the divine redemption of our humanity. The context is animosity and hostility. Publican, that is to say, and sinners, the despised and the outcast of the world, draw near to Jesus; Pharisees and Scribes, religious leaders, proud and self-righteous, murmur in contempt because of the company which he keeps. They are scandalised. Doesn’t he know with whom he is associating? How can he be a true religious teacher? Jesus response is revelatory and transforming. He tells two parables – actually, three. We have in today’s reading two of the three, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. The third parable is the tremendous parable of the prodigal son.

The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke comprises these three parables, each told in sequence. It is a most powerful illustration of the message about redemption and humility. Humility is the counter to our pride which pretends to our self-sufficiency, on the one hand, and our self-centredness, on the other hand. Either we have it all and need nothing outside ourselves or we presume to think that we deserve or are entitled to what we desire. The gospel of humility is the counter to our pride.

The lost sheep, the lost coin. What do they teach us? Simply this. They teach us the humility of God which is given to shape our souls in the love of Christ. The lost sheep is precious; the lost coin is precious. The shepherd and the woman seek diligently – lovingly – for the one that is lost. Without them the community is incomplete; our humanity less than itself. God seeks the lost. In him we are found.

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