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Proper 22C; October 7, 2007
Revised Common Lectionary; Track 2
The Rev. Marion E. Kanour
From the Hebrew scripture: “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?”
--an excerpt from Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
And from the gospel: “The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.’”
--an excerpt from Luke 17:5-10
These two readings together pose the question that has troubled the human soul for centuries: Should we turn to God to fix what we’ve broken; or, has God already gifted us with what we need to fix it ourselves? The question has a long, controversial history within the Christian tradition. Probably the most noteworthy of the controversies is articulated by Pelagius and Augustine of Hippo, both of whom lived in the 5th century CE. Pelagius says human beings are, by nature, good; and that God has given us all we need to resolve life’s problems. While Pelagius acknowledges we’re capable of doing bad things, he says that’s when we’re not acting in ways consistent with our God-given nature. He thinks we shouldn’t ask God to take care of things we’re meant to take care of ourselves. By contrast, Augustine thinks we are, by nature, sinful and depraved. Not that God made us that way, but that early on in human history, left to our own devices, we fell from God’s grace. The fall, Augustine says, forever altered our relationship with God and changed human nature. As the New England Primer says, “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” Augustine says because of our sinful, depraved, fallen nature, we can do nothing good without God’s grace. He believes we must continually repent, seeking God’s favor and mercy. We can do no good in and of ourselves; good is merely a sign of God’s grace working within the repentant sinner.
It would be a different world, I believe, if Pelagius had won the debate. He lost it big-time, though. Pope Innocent excommunicated him in 410 and his teachings were labeled “anathema” twice—in 416 and 418—by the Councils of Carthage. Today Pelagianism is referred to as a heresy by the Christian Church. Instead, Christianity chose Augustine’s bleak view of humanity. Did the first human wrong genetically alter human nature? God made us good, but some folks (let’s call them Adam and Eve) did something awful and doomed the rest of us to lives of sinful depravity. That’s what Augustine and the Christian Church have taught for centuries now. We call it original sin. Actually, that’s a misnomer. It should be called “You Had Your Chance But You Blew It” sin. Original sin would imply God created us sinful, which would say something about God we think we shouldn’t say. So, instead, we say we were created good, but in Adam’s fall we sinned all. That’s where Jesus comes in, according to Augustine and the Christian tradition that followed Augustine’s lead. He believes Jesus is the Second Adam, who atones for our sinful nature once and for all time through his death and resurrection. Through Christ, humanity is back in God’s good grace, though we’re still sinful and depraved. Now, however, God’s unconditional love calls us to continual repentance. This is the essence of the theology of our baptismal vows. As you’ll recall, in those vows we renounce evil and promise to return to Christ whenever evil comes over us. We’re also asked if we’ll do all manner of good things in the world (like respecting the dignity and worth of all human beings). Each time, the response we’re given to say is, “I will, with God’s help.” Pelagius would change that response to say, “I will because I can.” Pelagius would remind us of Jesus and the good he taught and lived. He would say with Jesus, “Go ye therefore and do likewise.” Or, “Take up your cross and follow love wherever it takes you.” Or, “You have free will and all the gifts you need to love and serve the world. God gave you those gifts. Use them!” But, we silenced Pelagius and doomed our Christian selves to a very dim view of humanity. What if we’d listened to Pelagius instead of Augustine? Would we read Scripture differently? Would those who chose the writings to be included in the Bible have chosen differently if they’d sided with Pelagius? Would the world be a different place if all these many centuries we’d rehearsed a different scenario about who we are? Lou May Johnson thought so. She was the woman mother used to take my father’s shirts to before the days when drycleaners began to flourish in Norfolk. Lou May laundered and starched my father’s shirts each week and so, as a child, I got to see her once a week when I went with mother for the shirt exchange. Lou May was a gregarious, good-natured woman. She was responsible for my understanding of the term “belly laugh”. Her considerable girth seemed to share her soul’s pleasure whenever she laughed. Because it delighted me as a young child to see her total body experience of joy, I often provided her with jokes my father had told just to see her laugh. As we left Lou May’s home each week, she’d wave goodbye from her front porch and say, “Remember, child, God is good and so are you.” After enough of those happy encounters and her farewell bidding, I began to notice a contrast between Lou May’s understanding of God and the one I was being taught in Sunday School and church. They taught the “God is good” part alright; but, the “and so are you” part was absent. In its place was the “you’re a sinner in need of baptism and continual repentance.” I mentioned this contrast to my mother who seemed untroubled by the contradiction. My father, however, suggested I ask Lou May what she thought. I knew Lou May went to the Pentecostal church downtown because she always invited us to their revival each year. I figured if their revival was anything like ours, she had to know about repentance and our sinful nature. Did she just keep her real thoughts to herself at church; or, did her church teach something I just hadn’t learned yet? I put those questions to Lou May in our next visit. At first she stared at me as though I were speaking in a foreign language; but, after a moment’s reflection, her stomach started to wiggle and laughter began to ripple through her being. She said, “If your mama has a minute, I’ll tell you a story that’ll make it right in your heart.” Mother nodded and so we sat down on Lou May’s front porch and listened to her story of salvation. She said a long time ago when she was a little girl growing up the country of Surry, Virginia, she began to wonder what she had done to make God hate her so much that he made her poor, black and hungry. She decided all people were white before they were born—all destined to live in big houses with plenty of food. But that some time during the time her mother was pregnant with her, she, as yet unborn, did something to upset God. To punish her God made her black and poor and hungry, just like her mama was. On one particularly miserable day on the farm she asked her mother, “What do you have to do so that God will let you be born white?” She said her mama laughed until tears flowed down her cheeks. Seeing at once her child’s predicament she hugged her and said, “God is good and so are you.” Lou May protested, “Then when are we going to get to be white?” Her mama asked her why she wanted to be white and upon learning Lou May thought that would keep her from being poor and hungry, he mama spoke words that fed the little girl’s soul. She said, “God loves you Lou May. God loves poor black folks just like he loves rich white folks. It grieves God to see us poor and hungry.” “Well, then” pouted the young child, “why doesn’t God give us some food and money?” Her mother smiled and said, “God gave you something better. He gave you the chance to do that for yourself.” Lou May said that wasn’t true for black people. Lou May’s mama said that it would never be true unless Lou May believed it could be. Her mama said it would only take faith the size of a tiny little mustard seed to change things in this world. Which is why Lou May’s mama said, “God is good and so are you.”
Lou May’s mama would have liked Pelagius. Truth be told, so do most of us. What if we lived that truth, instead of believing Augustine’s version? So often we do live as though God and is good and so are we. It can change the world one person at time, if we’ll let it.
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