This is a question I've asked at the end of our Lent Challenge (to read or listen to the whole of the Sermon on the Mount every day of the 40 days of Lent.) It might be a provocative question, but if it is it was unintended.Throughout the Challenge, some members have spoken of their feelings of inadequacy around living up to the demands of the Sermon, of not coming up to the standard it seems to require. They have seen it as some sort of goal to be achieved or attained. That's not surprising, and it's inevitable, because we tend to think of life generally in terms of achievement; of living up to a standard, to a standard of living, of behaviour, of morality etc.We talk of having life goals and of our personal development. It's the norm in our Western culture. It's the 'way the world thinks' as Jesus put it to Peter.
But what most of us don't understand or are only minimally aware of, is that the spiritual aspect of our day to day life in the world should be seen differently. And we only begin to see it when we realize that Jesus, as well as being a teacher, preacher, healer and exorcist was also a mystic. Again, he gives this away when he says to Peter, 'you think as the world thinks, not as God thinks'. He shows this by telling people what the Kingdom of God is like by telling them stories (parables), so that they can glimpse its presence in the here and now. He says that people look and look but don't see; they listen and listen but don't hear. And that's because we have to think how God thinks if we are to see these things and understand the enormity of what he's talking about.
Now, just to get back down to earth a bit and following on from what I've just said, I would say that all of us who've joined in the Lent Challenge should see ourselves as in the Beatitudes, in fact we are living the whole of the Sermon on the Mount already. We might not be very good at it, but we are living it. To say that its demands are too great is to recognize our poverty of spirit. But we have to be careful there too.
To say that we'll never achieve it, that it's too hard a thing to do, that it's impossible, that 'I'm not good enough', is to think the way the world thinks and not as God thinks. Because we are thinking in terms of worldly goals, achievements and ambitions. And it's just a false modesty, pride, the 'humility' that Dickens's Uriah Heep shows which is merely ego pointing towards itself. It's like saying that you can't get in the water and swim until you've learned to swim, or refusing to learn to drive a car until you can drive it. (If you see what I mean! But don't ask me to explain. Just think about it)
To try and explain this a bit further though; the reason we are here on earth is to 'be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect', to become holy. That means becoming like God, becoming Christ-like or to become 'deified' as they say in the East; to 'become by grace what God is by nature' as an Eastern saint tells us. All of us can say of ourselves at any given moment, in truth, 'I'm not good enough'. But the fact is that God makes us 'good enough'. So, in a sense, we are not entitled to make such a judgement about our self or anybody else, because we are 'saved by grace through faith'. It's nothing we can do ourselves, to quote St. Paul. Furthermore, only God knows how we stand with him. Only he knows how far we are on the path to perfection, how holy each of us is. Nobody else has a clue. And we ourselves haven't much of a clue either.
We do, as individuals and as the Church, make judgements about peoples' holiness, their Christ-likeness, usually based on their good works. But we get in trouble here too. Haven't we been reading, every day, 'On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power (miracles) in your name? Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.' And that just underlines the trouble we can get into when we make judgements, for good or bad.
So, you might ask, how do I know I'm on the right track? Well, you more than likely don't yourself, just like that. As I said, you don't achieve goals in this business. You don't have short term, medium term and long term goals in the development of your spirituality, of your holiness, because who can assess you apart from God? But, nevertheless, as you apply yourself daily to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, study, worship, fasting, almsgiving, your holiness can be, as it were, 'revealed' or 'given away' to the world, in such things as your poverty of spirit, or your mourning for your sin and the state of the world, in your peacemaking wherever that shows up, in your meekness, in your purity of heart, in the way you are living the Sermon on the Mount. And it may indeed be revealed in your good works.
But it's only God who can keep the progress checklist and the record of achievement. If our holiness draws others to God then we might be catching a glimpse of it, because then we might be able to say that we are a light to the world or the salt of the earth. Others may say that and if they do, good. But beware, all the time beware!Throughout the Lent Challenge I've been astonished (but I shouldn't be really) at how members of the Challenge have 'given away' their holiness. Sometimes it's been in the long comments and at other times it's been in the very brief comments. Others have shown their holiness in their silence and their continuing dedication to the challenge in their daily reading or listening and prayer. And by just being side by side with one another day after day, supporting, encouraging, challenging and comforting. And our holiness is nothing to do with how old or young we are or how long a time or short a time we've been going to church or been a Christian. And nothing to do with how we feel about ourself. And nothing to do with whether we go to church or not. Because those things are things the world thinks of and not what God thinks of.
So thank you all, for your company, for your holiness, and your Christ-likeness which makes you ALL saints.
