Archbishop of Sydney

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Sam 12:7-10, 13; Gal 2:16, 19-20; Lk 7:36-8:3

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
17/6/2007

The excerpt from St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Galatia about what makes a person righteous, or justified, is sandwiched between two stories of forgiveness. The first features King David who is forgiven for arranging the murder in battle of Uriah the Hittite so that he could marry Uriah’s wife, but the penalties are to continue across the generations for David’s family, so that now “the sword will never be far from your house”. And so it proved to be with Solomon and the tragedy of his sons.

The second relates to Jesus’ treatment of the notorious public sinner, a prostitute, who washed his feet while he was at dinner with Simon the Pharisee, dried them with her hair, kissed and finally anointed them with oil. The host was scandalized by the entire procedure; the unseemly behaviour of this social outcast, Jesus’ courteous reception of her ministrations and his even more provocative teaching on forgiveness, where he links the woman’s faith and love to the forgiveness he grants. His fellow guests had some realisation of the significance of his claiming to forgive sinners and sins and murmured “who is that man, that he even forgives sins?”

This is spelt out in another equally provocative way by Our Lord, where he explains that the debtor who has a large debt remitted is likely to love the creditor more than someone freed from a much smaller debt. Applying these lessons to his host Simon who had received Jesus politely, but without the usual courtesies of a kiss of greeting and the washing and anointing of his feet, Our Lord claimed that “It is the man who is forgiven little who shows little love”. There is no threat that the sinner or her family and descendants would be punished across the generations, despite her forgiveness.

We must never take the reality of God’s forgiveness for granted, because it is one of Christ’s most wonderful teachings and gifts to us, even in an age like our own where a large range of sins, but not all of them, are often defined out of existence by appeals to the primacy of conscience.  Every person is obliged to follow the truth by exercising his or her conscience, judging what is true and good. Christians are believers who accept Christ’s answers.

In our society where up to 20 per cent do not believe in God, this minority cannot access God’s forgiveness and are badly limited in how they cope with their guilt. Often this is displaced, renamed to surface as anger while its deep roots are unrecognized and ignored.

Christ’s emphasis on a new brand of forgiveness helps explain Paul’s claim that it is faith in Jesus Christ that makes a person righteous not obedience to the law.

Paul does not oppose faith to good works or keeping the commandments, although it is obvious that we can obey for the wrongs reasons. Paul wants us to obey, to follow the law, which is now refocused by Our Lord’s teachings.

Paul was answering an almost modern misunderstanding which reduces religion to morality. He was insisting that following the law is not of first importance, although it is also vital, because the person of Jesus is at the centre. Our faith in him as Son of God is the essential ingredient and our good actions follow as we imitate him and follow his teachings.

Paul is also emphasising that no human being can make himself worthy to be in God’s presence, simply by his own efforts. We cannot, so to speak, pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, but do so through the life of Christ which courses through us.

Justification is a difficult concept for us to grasp. One reason for this is that in the aftermath of the Reformation some strands of Protestantism mistook the concept of justification to mean that having faith was all that one needed to be assured of salvation. Seeking salvation through good works was thought to suggest that it was something we could earn, when the point the Reformers were trying to make was that salvation comes from God and is entirely His gift to us.

But when Paul wrote about salvation in the Letter to the Galatians which we read today he had other ideas in mind. Paul was, of course, immensely learned in the scriptures and the Jewish law. In the Jewish tradition the idea of justification was not bound up with how to know whether someone is saved, but how to know if they are part of the covenant community. As Anglican Bishop Tom Wright has written, for Paul justification is “not so much about salvation as about the Church”.

This issue arose among the early Christian communities from discussions about whether the non-Jewish members of the Church must undergo Jewish ritual practices, such as male circumcision, to become a member of the Church. Paul answered this question in his Letter to the Galatians by saying that it is sharing Christian faith, not ritual practices such as circumcision, which make people members of the Church. Having faith is what authenticates our claim to be Christian and to be part of the Church and, Paul claims, such believers are thereby justified.

We are called to be a light to the world and it should be possible to recognise Christians through the many good things they do for other people.  But we do not need to have a proven record of goodness to be accepted as a member of the Church. Given our weaknesses and our many failings this is just as well. The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a club for saints, and it is our faith which gains us admission and calls us to repentance. Through the sacraments and through the healing power of his love, God can then help us to do the rest and receive the blessing of Godly forgiveness.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.