Sin, Salvation, The End of Man

A Homily by Bishop Mercer

Christianity is about relationships.

Christianity is not primarily about a book, thoughthere is a whole library called The Bible, Greek for books, orScriptures, Latin for writings, which is of immense importanceto us.

Christianity is not primarily about rules and regulationsthough there are 10 commands, neatly summarized into 2, whichare of immense importance to us .

Christianity is not primarily about doing good orabout being good, though if our concern is with relationships,the difference between right and wrong is of immense importanceto us.

Christianity is not primarily about knowledge orunderstanding, though if our concern is relationships, then ameasure of knowledge and understanding is of immense importanceto us.

I repeat: from first to last Christianity is aboutrelationships.

And the first and foremost Relationship is calledGod. Within one God are relationships. There is a self consciousBeing called the First Person. From Him derives another self­consciousBeing called the Second Person. They have taught us to think ofthe relationship between Them as akin to, though not exactly parallelwith, the relationship between a father and his son. From therelationship between this Father and this Son derives anotherself conscious Being called the Third Person. They have taughtus to think of Him as the Spirit. For this one God we have ourselves,perhaps under the Spirit's inspiration, coined a new word, Trinity,from the Latin, three one. There are other ways of thinking ofthis Trinity: Lover, Beloved, the Love between Them. Or God, HisWord or Self-Expression or Self­Revelation, His Spirit.

God creates the universe from nothing. And here comesthe next relationship. As part of creation God invents man, whomoddly enough, God describes as being in His own image. Odd, becausein some ways man is in the image of brute beasts: like pigs, weeat; like dogs, we dream; like chimpanzees, we play games; likebirds and fish, we reproduce and die. But God gives to man self-consciousness;the ability to reason, the ability to reason about right and wrong;the ability to know the difference between good and evil; theability to choose the right. God gives to man participation inrelationships. No one human is ever sufficient or complete inand of himself. We need others in order to survive, in order tobe. We love and we are loved. A male and female love. From theirlove other humans derive. We call this derivation family. Butwe share in ever­widening rings of "relationship".We call other humans grandparents, ancestors, uncles, aunts, cousins,children, friends, teachers, pupils, clients, customers, craftsmen,nurses, and so on. Our happinesses come from knowing and lovingother humans. Our sadnesses come from ruined, broken, quarrelsomerelationships with other humans, or from severed relationshipsby way of death. God made man for relationship: God made man inHis own image. If the first and foremost relationship is God,the second and derived relationship is mankind, humanity.

And the second exists in order to relate to the first.Man is here to know and love God, more importantly, to be lovedby God. Here in this life we are to relate to God. But this shortlife is the entry to a fuller life after death, just as life inthe womb is entry to a fuller life outside of our mothers. Inthe next phase we shall have an even better time loving and beingloved by God and, incidentally, loving one another.

But there's a snag to this idyllic swirl of lovingrelationships. The snag is called the fall, sin, or original sin.Ruined, broken, quarrelsome relationships. Severed relationshipsby way of death. Our knowledge of the difference between goodand evil is impaired. But even when we do know the difference,we have a compulsion to do the wrong. I can't forgive. I won'tforgive. I'll kill. I'll conquer, bully, steal. Need I go on?We all know about life together. Our human life together is mademiserable by self­deception, deceit towards others, selfishness,aggression.

The result of sin is twofold. We are on the outswith each other. We are on the outs with God. There is still relationship,but it's impaired. What's to be done?

God's way of healing broken relationships, God'sway of reconciling man to God, of reconciling man to man, is byway, yes, you've guessed ­ by way of relationship.

God the Trinity gives us the Second Person calledthe Son. And to facilitate this special relationship the Son becameman, became one of us. If we put our trust in Him, if we entera specially intimate relationship with the Son, so intimate thatwe are described as 'in Christ', part of Christ, Christ's body,Christ's wife, then in Christ we shall be restored to the wholeTrinity: we shall be restored to each other. Because of Christ'stender love for us, called grace, we shall be able to love, toforgive, to say no to sinful impulses, to know the differencebetween right and wrong, to choose the right. This slow improvementof our inadequate selves is called growth in grace, or sanctification,though it involves suffering. When the Son Himself became manin order to give Himself to us at our level, man responded bykilling the Son. If, as part of the Son we become like the Son,there's a good chance man will kill us too!

Remember, relationships: not mechanisms, not magic,not manipulations. In a personal relationship you can not manipulateanybody to your ends, by saying words, or performing mechanisticactions. Prayer, Bible study, sacraments, all other activitieslike fasting or almsgiving, are to be understood in terms of relationships,not of magic. It is inhuman to say things like, "Prayerworks". It doesn't. What we mean is that God loves andunderstands and that we respond by turning to Him in trust. Thouand I. Outward acts, a kiss, a smile, a friendly wave, are expressionsof an inward meaning, not methods for controlling God or for controllingman.

God and man: sin, salvation, grace and penitence:the true end of man. What I've done in this talk now is obfuscatethe creeds. If you want an excellent summary of the whole Christianfaith, of the whole Bible, don't listen to me. Turn to your PrayerBooks, turn to what you already know by heart. There is a statementabout sin, salvation, grace and penitence, the true end of man,nicknamed the Apostles' Creed. There is a slightly longer statementnicknamed the Creed of Nicaea. And there is a much longer statementnicknamed the Creed of St. Athanasius. This last is full of detailabout the relationships among the Father, the Son and the HolySpirit within the Godhead. Also about the relationship withinChrist of His divine nature which He has ­from without beginning;and His human nature which He took of a human mother (she toois of immense importance to us). There is an even shorter summaryof the whole Christian faith than the three creeds. St. Paul sumsup the whole faith in just two words which he used over and overagain: In Christ.

The important thing about Christianity is not tounderstand and know everything, but to relate to God in a lovingpersonal relationship. And this we do by relationship with HimWho is both God and Man. A Christian is one who trusts Jesus,and who, trusting Jesus, is baptized into unity with Jesus, andwho feeds on Jesus by way of bread and wine.

Christianity is about Christ.