GRACE, NOT MERIT

Fr Jim Cogley

In this week’s reflections a number of Gospel passages will be explored that reveal a truth that is central to Christianity. This is one that the vast majority of believers have never grasped or more likely never even been taught. Yet it is foundational and what is necessary to open the door of grace and allow the experience of God’s love to become a reality. Many live with the erroneous belief that if they lead good lives that God will love them and this will eventually get them into heaven. The Good News is in fact the opposite, that it is because of God loving us that we can be good and be saved. A key teaching in the Gospels is that the idea of merit in the sight of God is directly opposed to the idea of grace that this is utterly a free gift. We tend to so hear the Gospel stories with the jaded ears of familiarity and cliched interpretations so that what they are really saying no longer surprises or challenges us.

The parable of the vineyard workers is surely one of the best examples of the idea of merit being turned on its head. A man goes out in the early morning to hire workers for his vineyard. They agree the wages to be a denarius a day. Later in the morning and again at noon he hires more workers offering them also a denarius for the days work. Again, towards evening he hires yet more workers and surely to their utter surprise he offers them a denarius for their time even though it is quite short. The essential truth in the parable is in the twist where he calls in the last enlisted workers and gives them what he has agreed. This move aggrieves the earlier workers who feel entitled to much more having worked through the heat of the day. This prompts the master to say to them, ‘why be envious because I am generous’. It is obvious that the mentality of earning a reward falls far short of trusting in the masters’ generosity and receiving the free gift of grace.

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector is a wonderful example where in very graphic terms merit is contrasted with grace and mercy. Two men go into the Temple to pray. Only one is entitled to be there, that being the pharisee. The tax collector because of his profession was officially excluded but he still found his way in. The pharisee goes to the front and basically tells God how good he is, fasting praying, almsgiving. Then he makes the fatal mistake of contrasting his life and virtues with those of the tax collector who sitting at the back is simply praying, ‘God I am not good enough, I have nothing to offer, I know that I have messed up, please be merciful to me a sinner’. The first we are told prayed not to God but ‘to himself,’ while the other went home feeling justified. He knew his prayer was heard and it was now just as if he had never sinned.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is usually interpretated in a superficial and moralistic manner as a teaching about how we should treat our neighbour. However, it also contains a profound teaching that contrasts merit and grace. The man is on the road from Jerusalem towards Jericho. It’s a road of life and he is going in the wrong direction, away from the light. He meets the robbers who rob and strip him of everything, leaving him half dead on the roadside. His lifestyle has been his downfall and now he has lost his dignity and self-respect. He is beaten by conscience and his self-worth is gone. Looking for help he sees a Priest and a Levite enroute to Jerusalem come his way. He thinks surely what they represent, religion and better moral conduct must save him; these have always been pointers towards God. Yet they pass him by. Then, along comes a Samaritan, a despised one who should not be speaking to any self-respecting Jew. He is the one who comes to his aid. He brings him to an inn and pays the price for his recovery. Here we can see Christ as the Samaritan with the core message of the Gospel being that Salvation is found in him alone.

In the Transfiguration passage Christ takes with him his three closest companions, Peter, James and John and they ascend a high mountain. Once there he becomes transfigured in their sight. His clothes becomes dazingly white and divinity shines in all its glory through his humanity. His three companions are naturally overcome with emotion and hardly know what to say. What Peter does say is, ‘Lord it is good for us to be here. Let’s build three tents, one for you, another for Moses and one for Elijah’. Then they hear a heavenly voice from a cloud saying ‘this is my beloved son, listen to him.’ The voice was forbidding them to build their tents in honour of the ancient prophets who in their own time had climbed significant mountains and would have been revered as pointers to the way up the mountain of God. They had just ascended the mountain with Christ alone, and without help from the traditional sources that would have relied on merit rooted in obedience to the Commandments and adherence to the Law. Here they were being shown, in no uncertain terms, that Grace and not Merit is the path to holiness and the only way to ascend the mountain of the Lord.