LIKE UNTO GOD

 A SERMON FOR SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

Today is Septuagesima Sunday.  Yuletide is now officially over, and our attention turns to the less joyful aspects of our Redemption as we start our preparations for Lent.  It is another new beginning, the time when we start to contemplate the price of that Redemption.  We are reminded by the violet vestments that another season of penance is upon us, and that our thoughts must return once more to focus in on the sins we’ve committed, repenting and making reparation for them.  Soon it will be Ash Wednesday, with its somber reminder of our creation out of the dust and ashes of the world.  This morning, we started reading in the Office of Matins that story of creation when God made the world for man, and then created man himself to know and love and serve him.

It is a story at once joyful and sorrowful.  The beauty of an organized universe, the wonders of nature, the  creation of man and woman in their earthly paradise of Eden—we read with awe and thanksgiving that God would deign to make all these good things out of nothing, and for no other reason than to extend his infinite love to us mere mortals.  Everything that God created was for us men and for our salvation.  So who exactly are we, that God would do so much for us?

The catechism asks us this very question, “What is man?”  And we all learned when we were children that “Man is a creature composed of a body and soul, and made to the image and likeness of God.”  This is what makes us different from all other creatures.  Everything else is either entirely made up of matter, or entirely spirit.  An angel, for example, is entirely spirit.  A rock, on the other hand, is entirely matter.  But man is a combination of both matter and spirit.  While both aspects of our nature are made in the likeness of God, it is our soul that most closely resembles him.  When we receive our ashes on Ash Wednesday, the priest reminds us that insofar as we are made up of matter, our bodies are nothing but dust, and “unto dust thou shalt return.”   But our soul?  That’s a whole different story, because our likeness to God is chiefly in our soul.  This soul of ours is in the image and likeness of God in four distinct ways: our soul is a spirit like God; it will never die, but continue forever like God; it has understanding; and it has free will.  Four ways in which we are truly like unto God!

The first two require little explanation: God is a spirit and our soul is a spirit.  It is not made up of matter but of spirit, and cannot be perceived by any of the five senses.  And because it is a spirit, it can never die.  Sure, there was a time in the past, before God created our soul at the moment of conception, when our soul did not exist.  But there shall be no time ever in the future when our soul shall cease to exist.  It will live forever, it will exist unto eternity, like God himself. 

The third way in which our soul is like unto God is that it has understanding.  It has the gift of reason.  This places us on a level higher than the animals.  We are able to reflect on our actions and the reason why we should do certain things and why we should not do them.  We are able to judge the consequences of our actions.  Man is not just an animal.  A human being is defined as “a rational animal.”  Other animals do not have reason, they only have instinct.  They follow certain impulses or feelings that God gave them at creation, with different laws for each class or kind of animals.  They follow that law without thinking about it, acting solely on instinct.  We sometimes think they know why they’re doing something, but they actually don’t.  It is we who understand why they do them, but they are simply following their instincts.  When the dog chews up your slipper, he might slink into the corner with his tail between his legs, as if he understands that he has been a bad boy and is sorry.  Actually though, he is instinctively aware from prior experience that he’s going to get whopped with that slipper when you see what he’s done.

If animals could reason, they ought to improve in their condition, inventing better ways of doing things, improving gradually throughout the generations to the point where they could learn, for example, how to create commerce, how to organize the food chain, build supermarkets where they could buy bigger and better bones… you get the picture.  But they don’t.  We humans did.  We constantly improved on what was before, until now, all we have to do is shout out to Alexa and she will somehow turn the heat down, lock the front door, play Beethoven’s Ninth, and predict tomorrow’s weather.  We have the use of reason and we used it to invent Alexa, and everything else that makes life easier.  Animals don’t.  We are higher than the animals, and thus closer to God.

We have reason, then, but how do we use this reason?  That’s where the fourth aspect of our soul’s likeness to God comes in.  For we have free will.  I have the freedom to do or not do a thing, just as I please.  I can even choose to commit sin and refuse to obey God.  God, you see, has voluntarily imposed upon himself this limit to his power, that he cannot force us to do anything unless we first wish to do it ourselves.  And neither can the devil, by the way.  What we do, how we act, is all up to us. This great gift of free will can be used either to benefit myself or to injure myself, but either way, God will neither make us do good things, or stop us from doing bad things.

Why did God give us free will?  Because if we had no free will, we would not deserve reward or punishment for our actions.  No one should be punished for doing what we cannot help.  God wouldn’t punish us for sin if weren’t free to either commit that sin or avoid it.  It is we ourselves who turn our freedom to our benefit if we do what God wishes when we could equally do the opposite.  Because we aren’t physically obliged to do God’s will, but do so voluntarily, God is all the more pleased with us and will reward us accordingly.  Animals don’t do that.  If you dangle a frog in front of a hungry snake, the snake will eat the frog.  But if someone puts a 16 oz. T-bone steak on your plate on a Friday, you are free to choose whether to follow the Church’s law on abstinence and thus please God, or do what you really want to do and wolf it down.  We are not animals, and so we are free to ignore our instincts and obey the laws of fasting and abstinence, and indeed all the other commandments of God and precepts of the Church.  It’s all up to us whether we do or whether we don’t.

From this first day of Shrovetide and for the next two and a half weeks until Ash Wednesday, our job is to prepare for Lent.  If we focus in on this idea that we’re made in the image and likeness of God, if we use our reason and our free will to avoid the things that are wrong, to do the things that are right, we will surely arrive on Ash Wednesday in the right frame of mind to spend the Lenten season fittingly, by repenting for our past faults, by making reparation for them through prayer and penance, and by resolving to avoid all future offences against God.   A very blessed Shrovetide to you all!