Sexagesima

It is not Lent yet. But the Church – our Church – has already donned the penitential colour of purple, and our Collect last Sunday officially put into our mouths the admission of our sins and offences and our need for deliverance. And this Sunday the Collect reminds us that we must not put our trust into our own efforts, as if we could lift ourselves by our own boot-straps.

One of the readings midweek recalled the Genesis crisis of Adam and Eve being successfully seduced by the Evil One to eat from the fruit that would give them their own knowledge and judgment of what is good and what is evil, rather than obeying God in this matter. It is really a parable of us trying to do our own thing autonomously, independently of God, in effect making ourselves into god. It should be obvious by now, from human history, that this does not work. What does work is what St Paul suggested in the Epistle last week, describing life as a race where we have to exert ourselves to receive a prize, strive for mastery of ourselves and bring ourselves into subjection.

Now this week we have the Gospel parable of the sower sowing his seed, it would seem with rather careless abandon, scattering some seed by the wayside, some on rocky ground, and some among thorns, all representing various ways in which we manage to prevent the Word of God taking root in our lives and bearing fruit. It is another way of talking about us not subjecting ourselves to God in obedience.

Anyone who has even occasionally tried to subject himself to God when that went against the grain of what we really wanted knows that it is no easy matter. I scarcely dare to mention that in times past some Christians have referred to this aspect of our life as a “spiritual warfare”. Last week’s Gospel also suggested that we must get off our duffs and work for our salvation, for the prize that is to be won in this race, not just sit back on our haunches and see if God is going to do his job for us – for free.

But then, in the 20^th Century, we invented “the comfortable pew”, a symbol to the idea that we come to church to relax and be comforted by God without any demands made on us. In fact, are we not all tempted to regard our religion as a sort of comfortable pair of slippers that make us feel good and put no pressure on our bunions?

I am currently reading the writings of a 4th-century church father, Evagrius by name, whose teachings on the spiritual life articulated the understanding of the Church so clearly that he became a widely influential authority for centuries to come. I think his insights can even help us, 1600 years later, to get a better sense of this Septuagesima-and-Lent message on the nature of the Christian life.

Of course it all hinges on the fundamental question of an old version of the children's Catechism: For what purpose did God create man? And the answer is: “God made man to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

And so, Evagrius tells us that to reach this goal, of getting to know God, we must actually change ourselves, in order to make ourselves capable of the knowledge of God! And this is the very road St Paul tells us about with his analogy of training for a race, striving for mastery of ourselves and bringing our unruly selves into submission, so we can perform adequately to win the prize. And the prize is our getting to know, enjoy and love God.

But, with our flawed nature, we all have inherited a bunch of vices, which make our access to God difficult. Evagrius divides these vices into two groups: the concupiscible vices or our unruly desires, that incline us to every sort of excess, in eating, drinking, abusing alcohol and drugs, and even each other through various sins of the flesh which damage our relationships with each other, on the one hand, and the irascible vices, that predispose us to acts of anger, aggressiveness, hatred and violence, and so on, on the other hand. So, if you like, the one group of vices leads to sins of wrong or excessive desires, cravings, wanting, while the other to aggression and hostility.  And our life-long task is to overcome these vices and gradually replace them with the opposite virtues.

Our concupiscible vices or unruly desires are kept in check by the contrary virtue of temperance, which the Catechism defines as “the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. [It says temperance] ensures the will's mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honourable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion.” Moderation in food, sobriety in the use of alcohol, chastity in our relationships all belong under temperance.

The irascible vices are of course countered by love.

Now it is important to understand that the vices of themselves are not actually sins but only habitual inclinations that predispose us, tempt us to commit the respective sins. A sin is a freely chosen wrong action. A temptation which we successfully resist and don’t act on is not a sin. Likewise, virtues are not of themselves good deeds, but only habitual inclinations that predispose us to good, virtuous deeds, and makes right conduct easier. Both vices and virtues are habits we can work with and develop, on the one hand, or work against and weaken, if not eradicate. Deeply ingrained vices will make it very difficult to resist the habitual sins they predispose us to, while well developed virtues make right living ever easier, more habitual.

So, for instance, if we are victims of the vice of gluttony and are addicted to over-eating or to abusing particular foods or drink, we need to work against that and develop the virtue of temperance or moderation, by restraining ourselves and changing our eating habits to a healthier, more balanced way. If we have trouble with avarice or greed, sometimes masquerading and excusing itself as an excessive concern for our economic security and future, we need to work against that by developing a healthy detachment from unnecessary possessions, be generous to others with what we have, and reduce the clutter of too much in our lives.

It is amazing how much current awareness of health and wellness issues – without any religious dimension -- has come to echo this ancient Christian wisdom. Silence, and fasting, or an intelligently controlled diet, meditation, moderation and simplicity of life have become goals that fill shelves and shelves in the book stores, produce television shows and training  programmes people pay a lot of money for.

Isn't it strange then that this wholesome ascetical dimension, which was there in our Christian tradition right from the beginning, is all but absent in the mentality of a lot of Christians today? Yet, as St Paul tells us, we should have vastly more inspiring motives to train ourselves to be in better shape than those who diet and run and train themselves simply for a better figure, improved physical health, or to run a half-marathon. “They do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.”

And the prize, to the extent that we can subdue our vices and develop the corresponding virtues, is nothing less than coming to know God. And that, that alone, was the sole purpose for which we were created: “to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.” We have seven weeks to Easter: usually about the time to give a new programme an honest chance.