Salvation. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
We are saved. Not by deeds, nor by the law. But by faith. Faith alone.
Or in another way: We are saved by God.
Today’s Readings are all about that. Starting with the Old Testament and its Ten Commandments which is followed by the dismantling of the very same through the Epistle Reading.
Last, we have the Gospel Reading which adds to what is said about salvation that – despite of it not being through deeds – it is seemingly not easy to obtain. Almost impossible. At least to men.
Luckily, we have God. God with whom “all things are possible.”
The dismantling of the law. I believe some people would have preferred if the law was still there. People like the man in the Gospel for instance.
To him the law is beneficial. It works as a kind of checklist that makes him rest assured that salvation to him is achievable.
But is the law beneficial, or is it good having it out of the way?
The other day I read a story with my son that made me reflect upon just this. A story by the Danish author Kim Fupz Aakeson.
Back in 1992 he published a book containing bedtime stories for kids named Sallies Stories. The story I read with my son was one of the stories in the book.
Sallies Stories is like 1001 Nights. Only it is not a princess enter-taining a prince to survive. It is about a father being forced to come up with a fun story night after night before his daughter, Salli, can sleep.
The story I read with my son was called the world’s naughtiest boy and in translation and shorted a little down it goes like this:
“This little boy wanted to be well-behaved, and he did all sorts of good things. For example, he washed his ears every morning and every evening, and he kept his room tidy. He never pestered his dad for stories in the middle of the evening news, either. That’s the kind of good and sensible boy he really was…
He went to school, too, and did his homework. And if his mum said, “Run down with the rubbish,” there was none of the usual, “Oh, no – not right now!”
Instead, he would happily dash into the kitchen, grab the rubbish bag, and then bound all the way down the stairs – off he went with the rubbish, without a single complaint…
And yet he was the naughtiest boy in the whole world. The reason was that he simply could not tell a lie – and that can be a real problem.
Take this, for example: if you are visiting your aunt and she serves you stuffed cabbage rolls you are expected to eat every last bite.
And if she asks, “Does it taste good?” you are supposed to say, “Yes, Auntie, you have always been such a wonderful cook.” That is what being well-behaved is all about.
But he couldn’t do it, even though he wanted to. So, when his aunt asked if he liked the food, he said, “No, honestly, Auntie – it tastes like farts.
You can probably guess that there were not many people who thought he was a well-behaved boy, just because he could not tell a lie. But luckily, there was such a thing as a School for Lying, and that is where he was sent.
Every day, all the naughty children in his class had to practise telling lies. They started by practising with apples – ordinary red apples.
The teacher gave each of them a bright red apple, but they were not allowed to eat it. Oh no! First, they all had to look at the red apple and then say, loud and clear:
“Mmm, yum! What a lovely green apple!”
The cleverest children in the class learned it during the very first lesson. Others learned it by the end of the day. But our boy – oh dear – it took him I do not know how long.
Just looking at the red apple and saying it was green was one of the hardest things he had ever tried. He even had to stay after school before he finally managed it.
Luckily, the boy was hardworking, and little by little he got better and better at telling lies. And by the time he finished the School for Lying, he had become a truly well-behaved boy. Now, for example, he had learned to say, “Why, Auntie, this tastes absolutely delicious!”
And that is how everyone eventually forgot that he had once been the naughtiest boy in the whole world. He became so well-behaved that he not only got extra pocket money from his parents, but from his aunt as well.” The end.
Is the law beneficial, or is it good having it out of the way? This was what the story made me reflect upon and I hope you can see why.
This well-behaved boy is so well-behaved that he ends up being naughty. Naughty because he cannot do something naughty: Lie.
Now that for sure is a dilemma. A dilemma that eventually is a dilemma of all laws: A law is black and white, works well as a checklist, and the like.
But when it comes to judging good from evil, when it comes of the grid, when it comes to spiritual matters, laws seem somehow insufficient.
Doing what the man in the Gospel did for sure was good. He was a good man – at least to some degree. But to the full degree: How much did his deeds really tell of him?
Any law can be followed blindly, but is it not more important to understand the meaning behind any given law enabling one not only to follow it by word, but by intention, by spirit, and enabling one to adjust the very same law if the need arises?
I believe it is. And I suppose Jesus believed so as well. After all he dismantled the law and replaced it with something far more unclear and uncertain, faith.
Faith which, because it was far more unclear and uncertain, is something far greater than law as well.
I hope you liked my retelling of the short story, and I hope it have helped you understand the depths and meaning behind Jesus’ dismantling of the law. The depths and meaning of what was said in Romans earlier:
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
We are all caught on the web of the well-behaved yet naughty boy. We all ‘fall short’. ‘Fall short’ before the law.
Yet we all are justified freely by grace, by Jesus Christ. That is the mercy we celebrate each Sunday. That is the love God showed us and keep showing us ‘day by day’.
Amen.