Isaiah 1:16-18
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Take your wrong-doing out of my sight. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us talk this over, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Contemplation
Today's reading from the Morning Prayer is the familiar phrase from Isaiah "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" I had heard this proclaimed from many pulpits in my life, but never really heard the condition of that promise explained in any of those sermons.
It wasn't until I started investigating the history of the great schism in the church called the Reformation that I began questioning the whole idea of what it means to live the christian life. For I had always been taught that once you "believe" in Jesus and take him as your Savior, your ticket to heaven is punched. Some would say that then no matter what you do, you will go to heaven. However, that always seemed a bit off to me. As a result, I struggled during my years as a teenager and young adult with these unanswered questions. The more I read scripture and tried to live the life, the more it just didn't agree with what I was hearing from the churches I attended at the time. I would just give up and go my own way. Thanks to the Divine Mercy who is Jesus, His love always drew me back to try again.
Two of the main tenets of Luther's and Calvin's schism of the 1500's were Sola Scriptura, "Scripture Alone", which I will address at a later time, and Sola Fide, "Faith Alone". Sola Fide says that it is faith alone that saves us. But scripture and the example of the early Church say something entirely different.
The Church has always taught that we are saved by Grace alone, that nothing that we ever did merited Jesus dying for our sins. It was His Divine Mercy that paid our redemption. In turn, we are told to imitate Jesus. We are told to take up our cross and follow Him. We are told in the Gospels how Jesus went about doing good, about his parables of the Good Samaritan, the widow's mite. We then read the Acts of the Apostles and see the church selling all they have to feed the poor, sacrificing their all. We see Paul and Peter giving their very lives for the Gospel of Jesus. We then see that example echoed in the Early Father's writings, the men who sat at the feet of the apostles and who in their turn were made Bishops and deacons. These disciples died for their faith. You can read in my earlier posts about Polycarp, a disciple of John, and Perpetua and Felicity. These and countless others counted it a joy to imitate the Master in His suffering and Death. So as I read all this, it just didn't sound like "Faith Alone" to me. It didn't sound like "sloppy Agape" or "easy believe-ism". It sounded like a serious choice. It sounded like a way of life and not just some opinion you might have.
I began to see that faith and works are like grace in that they are gifts from the Father of Lights. Faith and works are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other and its only through the grace of God that we have either. All that we do in the Name of the Holy Trinity, is a gift of grace. We work together in the power of the Holy Spirit. The source of all good is God. The source of all love is God for scripture says that God is Love.
So when Isaiah says to "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Take your wrong-doing out of my sight. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good", he is saying "lets be reasonable", if you repent and turn to God and then when you "Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow" then you are imitating God. Faith and works together express the Father's heart. Then in turn, even though your sins are so grievous to God, he will wipe them away. He will make you white as snow because you are showing yourself to be a member of His family.
Just as the Gospel for today tells us about the prodigal who turned back from the ruin he made of his own life and found the Father of Forgiveness hurrying to meet him on the road, God welcomes us into His family. We then by his Grace and power start taking on the traits of that family. We begin our Imitation of Christ.
So read again that portion of the Epistle of James and understand that Paul's letter to the Romans and the letter of James are not in opposition. Faith and works are pillars of the Christian life. Their source is God.
Faith and Works- James 2:14-24
14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.
16 If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?
17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
20 You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?
21 Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?
22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.
23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend.
24 You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.
I encourage you all to purchase Jurgen's Faith of the Early Fathers. This will give you a great light on the continuing life of men and women of the early church. The disciples of the apostles carried the true faith on and taught others to do the same and so on and so on. That process is still alive more than 2000 years later. I also encourage you to get a copy of Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ
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