GRACE, WORKS AND THE ANGELUS
A sermon for the 4th Sunday of ADVENT 2020.
The gospel for today is the story of the “annunciation”. It’s the story summarized in the prayer known as the ANGELUS which is recited every day at 12 noon (and, if you’re really keen, at 6pm as well before you crack open the gin and tonic).
In a nutshell (without the Hail Marys):
The angel of the Lord brought the tidings to Mary. And she conceived by the Holy Ghost.
Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word.
And the word was made flesh. And dwelt among us.
What the Angelus doesn’t contain is the bit where the angel Gabriel tells Mary that her cousin Elizabeth, reputed to be barren, is now with child in her old age. BECAUSE NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.
That is to say ““Nothing is impossible TO God or FOR God or WITH God.”
All these translations are possible from the Greek. Whether it’s TO FOR or WITH, as long as God is involved we must be talking about God’s grace. Nevertheless, WITH God makes the best sense. As I’ll explain in a moment.
But first, let me entertain you with a little tongue-in-cheek trip through church history.
By the time of that great split in the 16th century called the Reformation, attitudes to “grace” had polarised into two extremes.
The official established Roman church had come to see salvation in terms of human effort, or what they called “works”. These saving “works” could mean either giving direct, practical help to your neighbour OR giving indirect cash donations to worthy causes. And what, gentle and gullible people, more worthy a cause than (surprise, surprise) the church itself, conveniently ignoring its great wealth in those days.
So giving money to the church, it was said, was a worthy act of Christian charity which would count in your favour, perhaps getting you on the fast track to heaven during the dreaded and ill-defined period after death of purgatory.
And from there of course it was only a short step – or slippery slope – to the ridiculous and corrupt practice whereby bishops or priests “sold” indulgences i.e. peddled officially stamped promissory notes of 1000 or 10,000 or whatever number of years knocked off your sentence in purgatory for good behaviour according to a fixed tariff of prices.
This preposterous business simply could not go on unchallenged and soon Martin Luther and other protesters (or protestants as they have come to be known) started to ask what in heaven had become of the precious free gift of God’s grace in all the church’s money-grubbing flummery.
But the trouble was – and this is so typical of history, isn’t it? – that the protestant thinkers got carried away and lurched too far in the opposite direction.
Their message started to sound as if human effort, or “good works” counted for nothing. You just threw yourself on God’s mercy, said out loud that you believe in Christ (or in modern American parlance “accept Him as your personal saviour”) and then put your feet up saying “Phew! That’s alright then. I’m saved!”
And then when you died, you’d either go straight to heaven if you’d said the magic words or straight to hell if you hadn’t.
No reliance on good works, on your behavioural track record, thankyou very much. None of that speculative nonsense about purgatory, about being gradually purified in preparation for finally being able to stand the dazzling light of God’s presence.
OK so who was right? The extreme Catholics or the extreme protestants? Neither, of course. We should know by now that extremists in any argument have a skewed vision, distorted by their own agenda.
The truth, as always, lies in between.
I have never heard the true doctrine of salvation and the part played in it by God’s grace and our own efforts expressed better than by Ronald Knox who said Grace is the supernatural co-efficient of human endeavour.
Like you perhaps, I know zilch about the laws of physics but I can see immediately why Knox chose this metaphor: God’s grace is there for the asking but we have to cooperate with it in order to create the energy, to get up steam, for HIM AND US to get things moving.
Now you see why I prefer the translation “Nothing is impossible WITH God.” Back to the Annunciation scene. Look at Mary.
- God wants you to have His child.
- How can I? I’m still a virgin.
- Don’t worry. Nothing is impossible with God.
You see? It needs the two of them. God and Mary. Believe it or not, the Lord God Almighty, the creator of the universe, is holding His breath as Gabriel waits for Mary’s decision. Because, you see, in His infinite love and respect for His creatures, God gives every human being – including this poor little Jewish teenager – freewill. The freedom to cooperate with Him or not, as we each choose.
So what’s it to be? Will God’s plan go ahead or not? “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let what you have said be done to me.”
“Can we take that as a Yes?”, the angel Gabriel might have pressed, if he’d been a pushy media interviewer.
Well, luckily, we can.
And what a brave and trusting “yes”. She must have been terrified, confused, dreading the scandal of the pregnancy, not daring to imagine the spooky mechanics of the whole thing, anxious about where it would all lead later.
But her faith and courage at that crucial moment have given us God on earth, the resurrection and the ascension. Hail Mary – you are most certainly full of grace!
Nothing is impossible WITH God, provided we cooperate. It is a frightening thought but the gift of freewill has cost God dear. At one point it cost Him the death of His only Son. And still He cannot achieve what He wills on the very earth which He Himself made if we turn our backs on Him.
What if Mary had panicked, or been stubborn, and said No?
Well then quite honestly, it’s anybody’s guess what would have happened. I suppose God might have looked round for another suitable candidate to bear His Son, or He might have abandoned His plans for the Incarnation as we know it altogether and looked for some completely different method of saving us from ourselves.
But what is quite clear from how S.Luke describes the situation is that God gave her a completely free choice – He didn’t pre-programme Mary or twist her arm.
And what is true of Mary is true of you and me. We can always say NO to God and paddle our own canoe and take our chances and wrong turnings and end up making a total mess of things.
Or we can swallow hard, dare to say YES, Lord, be it done to me according to your word and take a leap in the dark, hoping, praying and trusting that we will end up not in the abyss but in God’s arms.
God invites each of us to make that leap. And while we are considering our options, He holds His breath, waiting and hoping that each of us – like Mary – will say “Yes”, will return Him love for love, take the grace which is there for the asking, and try to do His works.
He looks at you and me as He looked at Mary – thinking “My child, you and I would make an unbeatable team. With the pair of us, nothing would be impossible.