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Letters Seventeenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
July 28, 2000Most of the Pauline letters follow a standard pattern. They are composed of a salutation to the addressees and a thanksgiving, followed by the body of the letter. Then comes the formula of conclusion. The body of the letter is generally divided into two sections, one which deals with the teaching that the writer wants to impart, the other with directions or exhortations for moral behavior. Ephesians follows this general format, and this Sunday’s reading is the beginning of the section that gives behavioral directives based on what the author had taught about the Church.
In the doctrinal part of the letter, the author had emphasized the unity of Jew and Gentile in the body of the one Christ. Now, calling on the memory of the imprisonment that Paul had endured in order to invoke the apostle’s authority on the exhortation, he calls for behavior that will foster unity.
The basis for the directions he gives his addressees is at the end of our passage. It is oneness: one body (the Church), one Spirit, one hope, one Lord (Christ), one faith (in Christ), one baptism, one God who rules everything and pervades everything and sustains everything. Oneness is what life in Christ is all about: oneness in the faith community, oneness in the Trinity. It is understandable, therefore, that he calls for attitudes and actions that will reflect and promote unity: humility, gentleness, patience, willingness to bear with others’ faults, eagerness to preserve the unity and peace that are the gift of the Spirit. All these virtues involve putting oneself in second place for the sake of promoting oneness in Christ, the Spirit, the Father. If you are going to be united, that’s how you will go about it. Right at the beginning of the passage, however, the author gives a general principle that not only governs the pursuit of unity in the local church, but that also provides the basic directive of all of Christian moral life: "Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received."
Living as a Catholic Christian believer is not a matter of keeping rules. It’s not a question of studying up on the particulars of moral theology so that you know how much you can get away with. ("How far can we go before it’s a mortal sin?") What Christ expects of us is not that we behave in a certain determined fashion so that we will deserve salvation when we die, but rather that we act in consistency with what He has already made us to be. The question that true believers have to address in deciding what to do or what to avoid is not, "What do the regulations say?" but "What is in accord with my existence as a sharer in the life of Christ, as a member of His one body, as one united with the Father through the action of the Holy Spirit?"
The way we govern our personal (and corporate) behavior says a lot about our deepest attitudes toward Christ and salvation and the Church and our brothers and sisters in the Lord. I suspect that there are a lot of "selfish saints" in the Church, people who do what’s right and avoid what’s wrong because of what they see in it for themselves. They don’t commit sins because committing sins puts them on the outs with God, and they want to be able to say when judgement comes that God has no reason to be on the outs with them. There are others in the Church whose behavior may be exactly the same, but who guide themselves by what God has already done for them rather than by what they are trying to get out of God in the future. They wouldn’t dream of fornicating or telling lies or being harsh with the people around them or missing Mass on Sunday not because they are afraid of what might happen to them if they do, but because they are so aware of how much they have already received, so grateful for what God has already made them to be that offending God is simply unthinkable. It doesn’t make sense to be selfish (which is what all sinfulness ultimately is) if you are aware and appreciative of the generosity of God. Looking out for yourself at the expense of others is ridiculous if you really appreciate the self-giving of the Lord Jesus. Participating in parish factions is absurd if you are conscious of the many kinds of unity that lie at the roots of our faith.
Of course there are rules of behavior for believers. We are not free to do as we please on the basis of self-deluding attitudes of what Jesus would or wouldn’t approve of. We have to be objective about what is right and what is wrong. But the criteria on which we are to base the decisions of our conscience are not the criteria of legal hair-splitting or spiritual self-serving. They are the criteria of consistency with the love of Christ in us, the criteria of acting in accord with the gifts that a generous God has given us.
Living in a manner worthy of the call we have received can sometimes be much more demanding than merely keeping rules. But it’s much more in accord with what we are and much more harmonious with what God intends us to be when our struggles here are over.
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Conversation Questions
How do I decide what is appropriate behavior?
What image best matches my idea of God: judge, father, benefactor, friend, disappointed lover, enforcer, creditor?
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