Original sin

One of the first things we notice in this life is that it is much easier to do wrong than to do right.  It is easier to say one’s prayers badly than to say them well, and easier still not to say them at all.  It is easier to lose one’s temper than to keep it, to tell a lie sometimes than to speak the truth, and so on.  Don’t think that, as we grow up, it becomes any easier to do what is right.  If anything, it becomes even more difficult because the older one gets the more opportunities one has of doing wrong and of committing sins.

The reason for this is that we were all born with something wrong with our souls, a kind of spiritual disease, which makes it impossible for us not to sin.  Now, we know that in the end only those whose characters are like God’s character will be able to live with him in Heaven.  Heaven is where God is seen, and Jesus has told us that it is the pure in heart who shall see God; and pure in heart means completely holy and spotless like God himself.  And only God can make us like himself.  Without his help you and I would never be fit to spend even half a minute in Heaven, let alone live there for ever.

Grace

It is very important to remember that all goodness comes from God.  Every single good thing that people think or say or do is the result of God’s goodness working in them.  We have no private source of our own.  Think of it this way.  All plants have a certain amount of juice, some more than others, like the orange tree with its juicy fruit.  But the plants themselves cannot produce juice unless they get water from the ground, because no plant can grow without water.

In the same way, whatever goodness we may have, we have drawn from God.  That is to say, it is the Holy Spirit of God who helps us to think and do what is right, and he gives himself to us for nothing – we do not have to pay.  This free gift of God the Holy Spirit we call grace.  And so the Collect for the First Sunday after Trinity includes these words:

“O God…
…because through the weakness of our mortal nature we
can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed…” (1)

We can think of the difficulty of doing right as being like climbing up a slippery bank and needing a helping hand.  And do you remember the time when there was a storm on the Lake and the disciples’ boat was battered by waves?  They saw Jesus walking towards them on the water and Peter tried to walk towards him.  But Peter became frightened and beginning to sink he cried out, asking Jesus to save him.  And “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him…” (NRSV, Matthew 14:22-33).  That helping hand now, for us, is grace.

The Church and sacramental grace

Of course, everyone is given grace by God, but in order to become perfect and to have a character like Our Lord’s, we need a lot of grace and we must be able to get it whenever we want it.  This is exactly what we can do when we belong to the God’s Church.

Let me give you an illustration.  All the corn and fruits in Egypt grow in that part of the land which is watered by the River Nile, and from space this part looks like a long, green ribbon stretching the whole length of the country. (2) But away from the river, apart from a few scattered oases which have a spring, there are no plants or palm trees at all – only small, dry bushes called scrub.  The reason is, of course, that the plants near the river can have water all the year round, but those out in the desert only when it happens to rain.

Now, just as the Nile supplies the land on either side of it with the life-giving water, so God the Holy Spirit supplies his people, the Church, with grace.  Those who belong to the Church can have all the grace they need; those who do not belong have only what happens to come to them at odd times, like the showers of rain in the desert.

How, then, can we get grace, this gift of the Holy Spirit of God, which can make us fit to live with him in Heaven?  Well, we are given grace when we pray and mean what we pray.  But God has also provided some special ways so that we can be sure of having grace when we particularly want it.  The land along the Nile is supplied by water by means of channels and canals which carry the water from the river itself to the plants in the fields.  So the Church is supplied with grace by means of special ways called Sacraments, like Baptism, Confirmation, Confession and Holy Communion, and these bring to its members the grace they need.

Penitence and love

Many people in England have been baptised.  How is it, then, that although they have been given grace, so many of them are anything but godly and many lead very sinful lives?  The answer is that grace makes only those people like Jesus who really want to be like him.  It will not make any difference to those who like dong wrong, who are not sorry about it afterwards and who do not love God.  You know as well as I do that nothing much will grow if the ground is hard and solid as a stone, however much you water it.  You have to break it up first.  In the same way, grace will not make people grow like Jesus if their hearts are hard towards God and they do not care.

If then, grace is to make any difference to us, our hearts when they get hard must be broken by sorrow for the wrong we have done, and we must show our love for God by making up our minds to do better with the help of God’s grace.  And if we keep on like that all through our life, we shall find that our characters will, little by little, become more like the character of God.

SUMMARY

1. Only God can make us holy like himself.  The free gift of the Holy Spirit of God is called grace.

2. As plants by a river have all the water they need, so members of the Church can get all the grace they need by means of the Sacraments of the Church.

3. Those who do not belong to the Church and have not the Sacraments can get grace only at odd times, like desert plants which are watered only by occasional showers of rain.

References

1. ©The Archbishops’ Council (2000) Common Worship.  Collects and Post Communions for Sundays, Principal Holy Days and Festivals.  Trinity and Ordinary Time.  Available from:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/collects/contemp/postwhit.html  (Accessed 23 August 2010) (Internet).

2. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2008) Egypt, Nile Delta and Sinai from MODIS.  Available from:
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/54000/54842/Egypt.A2000060.0855.900x1175.jpg (Accessed 14 April 2012) (Internet).