Third Sunday after
Trinity
Benjamin Lee
July 2 AD 2006
1 Peter 5:5f St.
Luke 15:1-11
“All of you be subject to one another, and be
clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace
to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of
God, that he may exalt you in due time; casting all your care upon
him, for he careth for you” (I Peter 5:5-6).
A principle we need always to keep in mind this
Trinity Season, is the Church’s insistence that we are at once justified
and sinners, simul iustus et peccator: in Christ, and by his
blood, we are justified, that is to say, Christ himself is our
righteousness, and we are given the grace of our justification before
God in our baptism, and receive this grace anew each time we partake of
communion: “That our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and
our souls washed through his most precious Blood, and that we may
evermore dwell in him, and he in us” (BCP p. 84). And yet, we
are nevertheless justified sinners and continue to offend against
God’s holy laws. Because of this fact, in this Trinity Season we would
join with Dante and ascend the mount Purgatory, to examine the roots of
our sinfulness, the bad habits of heart, mind, and body from which all
our sinful behaviour springs. Thus, the way of sanctification is a
difficult, strenuous and often painful climb upwards, in the hope that
our love may be purified, converted, and reformed, so that our vices may
be transformed into virtues, and so that our wills may be made fit to
see God in his holy presence.
But the way upwards, crucially, requires a turn
inwards: so that the sicknesses and infirmities of our soul may be
healed, we must repent of our sins; but such repentance, requires
confession of our sins; but such confession, requires sorrow for our
sins. . . and so, you see, if we are to repent from our actual sins,
and make a real amendment of our life, we must have a true knowledge
our sins—not merely of some vague state of sinfulness, but our actual
sins and their causes. Hence Trinity Season is at once a movement of
upwards and inwards. If we want to know God, we must come to a
knowledge of ourselves as God knows us.
Today this inward conversion of our souls back upon
itself, in self-examination, brings before us what is often called the
root of all sin: that is, pride. “For God resisteth the proud, and
giveth grace to the humble” (I Peter 5:5).
Pride is our presumption of usurping the place of
God: it is our dependence upon ourselves, looking for our salvation in
our own powers, gifts, and strengths. In pride, rather than trusting in
God’s wisdom, providence and love, we rail against our status as
creatures, and refuse to recognise our dependence on God for our very
existence. Pride is a form of presumption, a self-sufficiency, clinging
to one’s self rather than divine grace, the neglect of God’s sacraments
and prayer. Thus, in so far as we put our confidence in ourselves and
our own powers, as Dorthy Sayers puts it, “the devilish strategy of
Pride is that it attacks us, not on our weak points, but on our strong”
(The Other Six Deadly Sins). Pride is like a parasite: often
difficult to spy, it so often goes long undetected, slowing eating away
at our strengths and virtues, allowing us to think we are doing good and
well, making progress, and enjoying success, when in fact we are drawing
nigh to our destruction. So long as the fierce beast of pride resides
in our breast, we cannot be free from all kinds of evils. Indeed, pride
in us distorts and twists our reason, contriving many and various
excuses for our refusal of God, justifying our sinful behaviours,
distorting our judgement so that we suppose our sins are insignificant,
natural, inevitable, or not even sins at all! And so pride leads to our
disregard for our sins, chaining us to them in our refusal to repent.
Proud reliance upon ourselves rather than God is therefore premised on a
fundamental self-deception: for it is a refusal to recognise our
creaturliness, finitude, the weakness and frailty of our human nature.
In pride, we cannot recognise the weakness and wretchedness of our own
souls. And so “God resisteth the proud,” yet it is also the case
that we, in our pride, resist God.
But how then can we come to know ourselves when we
are so utterly self-deceived? Thankfully, our weakness is known
to God. If we seek to know ourselves as we are known by God, we need
the help of the God who alone truly knows our weakness. The secrets of
our hearts shall remain closed to our understanding, unless they be
opened by the keys of Christ’s cross. St Peter teaches that God “giveth
grace to the humble” (I Peter 5:5). Humility and grace are surely
what is most needed for our repentance. Our journey up Mount Purgatory
can only be undertaken by God’s grace. If we acknowledge the miserable
poverty of our spirit, that we cannot improve ourselves of our own
accord, that a lost sheep cannot find its own way back to the fold, then
we look to God’s mighty aid, and so cast all our cares upon him and his
love. The purgation of sin is a painful process, and involves
suffering. Coming to terms with our pride entails soberly acknowledging
our real abasement and poverty, it means knowing oneself as the sinner
for whom Christ died.
But once pride, the root of all sin, is purged from
our souls, once our cold, stubborn and hardened hearts have submitted to
humility, we shall experience freedom and lightness in our pilgrimage up
the mountain of purgation, and our pace up the mountain shall quicken.
This is why, once Dante has passed through the ‘Circle of the Proud,’ he
asks his guide, “Master, what heavy load has slipped from me, so that I
walk with ease, and scarcely feel fatigue upon the road?” (Purgatorio,
Canto 12). With the overcoming of pride, the rest of the ascent is made
easier, for the chains which enslave us to our other sins are thereby
partly loosened.
It is “the God of all grace . . . [who] shall
himself restore, stablish and strengthen you” (1 Peter 5:10). In
prayer, we call upon God for his grace. So many of our ancient Collects
educate our invocations, teaching us that prayer is the act and posture
of humility par excellence, and thus a most excellent remedy for
pride. Today’s Collect is no exception:
O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us;
and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray,
may by thy mighty aid be defended and comforted in all dangers and
adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (BCP,
p. 221).