Only Christ Says Come to Me

14th Sunday of the Year

I once had a housemate in college who would walk into the common room near the end of a very complicated movie, watch for 15 seconds, and then ask, "Who's that guy?" That is what I feel we have done today by reading just these four verses from the eighth chapter of Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans.

Romans is the most theologically complex of all the New Testament letters; and in this particular section Paul trying to make sense of the thorny relationship between sin and grace. This apparently rather simple and, in fact, cherry-picked selection is really the conclusion of larger, more intricate argument, which we have entered only at the end.

In what we heard today, Paul says: "You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the Spirit," as if in Paul's mind Spirit and flesh cannot exist side-by-side within us. Yet in the chapter that comes before this passage, Paul describes how these two forces do, in fact, co-exist and are at war with each other within himself. In chapter seven, Paul writes: "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (15-16) And again: "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (19). Paul sees and feels his mind pulling him in one direction — toward Christ — and his flesh pulling him in another — toward sin, as he says: "So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin" (25).

So, when Paul exhorts us today to live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh, he is not like a major league coach saying to us little leaguers, "Come on, kid, just hit the ball," as if that were something we should easily be able to do. No, Paul writing to us writes just as much to himself: to all people, fundamentally torn between the opposing forces of Spirit and flesh, grace and sin, God and the world, calling us to strive with God's help to choose the former over the latter.

Although Paul speaks in Christian and theological terms, I have always thought his insight speaks to the whole of human experience regardless of what one might believe. Everyone knows the visceral, internal struggle between moral obligation and our desires to the contrary, as well as the damage dealt when the lower powers win out. Knowing we should do one thing yet wanting to do another is a tension common to us all and felt at nearly every moment of our life.

That tension is obviously not pleasant, and so people try to mitigate that discomfort in a variety of ways, spanning the range from the healthy to the self-destructive. Often, beyond just the ordinary struggle with temptation, there is the additional, compounding psychological impact of depression or wounds from one's past that elevate the intensity of the battle and make victory seem improbable if not impossible.

We know this within ourselves. We see this in others. We can detect this in every aspect of our culture. What Paul describes is a sickness common to the human condition: a fundamental effect of original sin, which disrupted the internal harmony our first parents had and introduced division and brokennesswithin the human heart for ever thereafter. 

In response, there have ever been those who offered a way out: philosophers of all sorts who proposed a way of either confronting the realities of life or escaping them. Some in the course of human history have proved to be rather effective in bandaging up our condition; while others, even most, have proved still more damaging. Saint Augustine, prior to his conversion to Christianity, toured through many of the philosophies of his day and concluded: "I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come to me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." Those words come only from Jesus Christ.

Every other philosopher and wise man that came before or after him pointed out the way. Christ alone said that the way was himself. Others had students, he had disciples; others made people who thought like them, he made members of his own Body. Augustine came to realize that the only way to resolve the tension between good and evil within himself was to heed Jesus' invitation to come to him. Paul taught the same, telling us to live according to not just any spirit, but the Spirit of Christ. Only Christ, through his Spirit poured into our hearts, has the capacity to end the war that rages within us. Only Christ, the Son of God who humbled himself to share in our humanity, can raise up our humanity to share in his divinity, in which there can be no war or division but only the wholeness and goodness that will be our everlasting peace. 

Neither for Paul, nor for Augustine, nor for us is running to Christ and once-and-for-all act. The struggle between Spirit and flesh, grace and sin, God and the world, will continue within us, sometimes even increasing within us, throughout our earthly lives. Christ’s invitation is continual. He offers us those kind and assuring words whenever we've fallen or are tempted, like a mother who sees us in the throes of our agony and pain and calls out to us — "Come to me!" — offering us healing and comfort. Daily, personal prayer, regular confession, frequent reception of the Eucharist: these are the responses we ought to make readily and joyfully to his invitation that we may receive the rest he promises us. In these, we have sure and certain encounters with Jesus Christ that can be transformative if we approach them with an open disposition marked by faith.

We may have been answering his call for quite a while to no avail and may be on the verge of giving up, but we must not despair. We must persevere. We should not disparage prayer or the sacraments for seeming to have no effect on our life if we stay the same after months or even years of trying. Grace works slowly and methodically, deeply and quietly — frustratingly opposite of what we expect in this life, but perfectly ordered in God's loving plan. Our God has come to save us; and he calls us at every moment to come to him.

Perhaps in hindsight we weren't thrown right into the end of Saint Paul's reflection after all. For in the Collect for this Mass, we prayed for that which we have just meditated. May we pray it again: “O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness.” Amen.

Homily preached July 10/11 at Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish and the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.