What is it that makes us such creeping
Christians? Where is the courage to step
out boldly in complete surrender? In
reflecting on his struggle to surrender to the grace of God, Augustine says, “But
I was pitiable then, . . . at youth’s outset, when I used to pray for chastity,
saying, “Give me chastity and self-control, but not just yet.” I was afraid you would hear me too soon, heal
me too soon, from my sick urges which I wanted intensified rather than
terminated.”[i]
It is easy to be mildly amused at Augustine’s
youthful prayer, but see what lies behind it.
As he approaches the moment of surrender he says, “But where I was going
no ship or carriage or walking could take me, though where I was going was not
even as far as I had come from the house.
Not only going but arriving there was simply a matter of willing it—but
willing it with a strong and unified will, not a partial and wounded will, one
jerking and lunging, part sinking.”[ii] The problem that he was facing was
half-hearted surrender, and until he made a whole-hearted of surrender of his will there was no stepping forward. Yet the surrender of the will is in itself is
an impossibility apart from grace.
What holds us back from stepping out in faith if
not the very things to which we have long been accustomed? He says, “The
triflingest of things, the very hollowest things of the hollow-headed, had
stalled me . . . they no longer flaunted themselves before me on my way, but
were tittering behind me, as if furtively picking at me while I pulled away
from them, trying to make me look back.
And held back in some measure I was, not willing to break off, to reject
them finally, to cast myself forward to what was calling me.”[iii]
We are sown among thorns. In our culture the cares of the world and the
delight in riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. The inimitable Archie Bunker, as he so often
does, nails American culture, “There’s about three great moments in a man’s
life: when he buys a house, a car, and a new color TV. That’s what America is all about.” Do we really believe that people are more
important than things, or even that God himself is more important than these
trifling things, these hollow things? It
is often a matter of the re-adjustment of priorities. Augustine confesses to God, “For no one loves
you well who loves anything else except because of you. You, my love, who burn forever without
consuming, set me on fire, for the charity of God. You impose self-discipline, require anything,
granting what you require.”[iv]
You know that saying in a more popular form, “Give what You command, command
what You will.”
This surrender of the will is not a surrender
once for all time. There are always
fresh surrenders. The Dominican preacher
Henry Suso tells us “no matter how much one abandons oneself, one repeatedly
finds more of oneself to abandon.”[v]
It is only those who have discovered by vivid experience that they cannot
surrender by the force of their own unaided will who are in the place to
receive that grace to make their surrenders complete.
Each of today’s surrenders is built upon all of
our past surrenders. While it is true
that if our past surrenders have only been half-hearted, we may have much work
to do; on the other hand the probability is that each of us has made
significant surrenders in the past, and surrender is not new to us. Often these surrenders have come in such
fashion that our essential helplessness, apart from grace, has become
abundantly clear. Those moments may not
have been comfortable, but they are no bad thing. They are in fact a gift. Augustine, in exploring the relationship
between grace and free will, tells us, “We can, however, ourselves do nothing
to effect good works of piety without Him either working that we may will, or
co-working when we will.[vi] There are two sides to this. It is only the discovery of our need that
releases His grace in our lives, but at the very moment of that discovery grace
is offered; and not only so, but His
grace co-works with our will when we will do the thing that needs to be
done.
Not all surrenders are earth shaking surrenders,
but rather the small surrenders in everyday living, in the care for others, and
even in the necessary care for ourselves in matters of diet and exercise; not
just chocolate bars and jogging, but our spiritual and intellectual diets and our
willingness to think through the sometimes difficult and challenging things
that are necessary to spiritual growth.
There are three kinds of grace, initiatory grace,
infused grace, and acquired grace.
Initiatory grace is that first sweet touch of grace that comes unbidden
to many at the beginning of their walk with Christ. Infused grace is the grace that often comes
as a gift not consciously sought, perhaps even unexpected, in prayer and
worship. Acquired grace, while purely
gratuitous, is that grace that comes in answer to the exercise of our will in
spiritual discipline. An old hymn
testifies to this gift of acquired grace, “I sought the Lord and afterword I
knew, that it was He who sought me seeking Him.”[vii]
One of the difficulties that is often faced is that we
are tempted to rely on highly charged spiritual experiences to keep us in the
Presence of God. For some that may be our initial experience of God’s grace and
love, for others a Retreat or a Conference with a gifted teacher, or a
sparkling very conscious moment of worship, or for others even a period of
significant challenge in life.
Diadochus of Photiki tells us of this initiatory
and acquired grace saying, “If we fervently desire holiness, the Holy Spirit at
the outset gives the soul a full conscious taste of God’s sweetness, so that
the intellect will know exactly of what the final reward of spiritual life
consists. But later he often conceals
this precious and life-creating gift. He
does this so that, even if we acquire other virtues, we should still regard
ourselves as nothing because we have not acquired divine love in a lasting form
. . . It is therefore necessary to work upon the soul forcefully for a while,
so that we may come to taste divine love fully and consciously . . . Those who
have advanced to perfection are able to taste this love continually, but no one
can experience it completely until ‘what is mortal in us is swallowed up by
life.’ (2 Cor. 2:4)’”[viii]
Many of the Collects confess at once our
responsibility to will to do the things that God calls us to do, and at the
same time our continual need of His grace in both the willing and the doing.
A Collect for Grace:
Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede
and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now
and for ever. Amen.[ix]
[v] Henry Suso, The
Exemplar, Classics of Western Spirituality, (New York: Paulist Press,
1989), p. 372
No comments:
Post a Comment