The Neck

Johan Egerkrans, Vaesen

Propers: The Third Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 10), A.D. 2018 B

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the folklore of northern Europe, there exists a creature called the Neck.

It is a water-spirit, a shapeshifter, one of those innumerable faerie creatures of a middling nature betwixt man and the angels. And like so many of his brethren, the Neck has rather a sinister reputation. He’s a river siren, of sorts—as are his sisters—playing the lyre and singing music most sublime in order to lure children and young women to their watery doom.

In addition to being wicked, the Neck was said to have no soul, leastwise not of the sort possessed by human beings. A Neck had no hope of life beyond death. And yet we possess this one curiously wistful little folktale of a man riding his horse to market through the forest, who, upon crossing a bridge, spied a Neck perched at the riverbank, playing a soulful tune upon its violin:

“Come Doomsday, come Doomsday, God’s mercy I’ll receive,” crooned the monster. “Come Doomsday, come Doomsday, God’s mercy I’ll receive.”

“Hah!” the man cried out suddenly. “There is no mercy for you! Thou art one of the Little Folk, the hidden creatures of the forest, and you have no soul to save! My riding-whip would sooner sprout leaves than would your kind be allowed entry into the Kingdom of Heaven!” And with a howl of anguish, the Neck then plunged back beneath the waters, weeping and wailing as it went.

Thus satisfied and rather smug, the man rode onward. But he’d hardly gone a mile when he noticed that his riding whip had begun to sprout and bud.

We never fully grasp the astonishing depths of God’s mercy, the lengths to which He will go in order to resurrect this fallen world. We’re always too busy judging, calculating, erecting hierarchies of morality by which we justify our own sin. We are by nature—or at least by fallen nature—creatures of draconian hierarchy. There’s always a class system, a caste system, a terrible accounting by which we rank our fellow men and women and seek to judge their worth.

This goes all the way back to Eden, when Adam blamed his Fall from grace on the wife whom God had given him, and she the serpent, and the serpent tried to pawn the whole thing off on the vicissitudes of a jealous God. We’re always building ladders, aren’t we? We’re always ranking sin. Sure, I ate of the forbidden fruit, but I can’t be as bad as the one who gave the fruit to me in the first place, right? Blame her. Blame the snake. Don’t blame me.

As near as I can tell, this is bred into us from birth. Anybody with two or three kids knows just how quickly the blame gets spread around. In politics they call it whataboutism. What about what he did? What about what she did? I’m not as bad as them. Don’t blame this on me. Yeah, I’m bad, but hey, they’re worse.

In theological lingo we call this works-righteousness. And it flows from the primal sin of pride. The first sin, the Fall of Adam and Eve, was the attempt to be like God without God—to be like God on our own terms. To earn it. To deserve it. But we can’t. That’s not our purpose. That’s not what we were built for. We were built to share in the eternal life and bliss and love of God. That’s who we are. That’s what makes us human.

But that wyrm got in our ear, that we should stand on our own two feet, that we should claw our own way back up into Heaven. The problem is we can’t. And what’s more, we know we can’t. We know right and wrong. We have a moral sense. And because of this, we are the only animals on earth who can see that the way things are is not the way things ought to be. We have fallen short; we have failed; we have sinned. And we deep down, we all know it.

So we try to make excuses. We say, sure, I’ve sinned. I’ve missed the mark. But hey, at least I’m not a drunk! At least I’m not a cheat. At least I’ve got my life together—sort of, maybe. At least I’m not like them! And so we judge, and we judge, and we judge. We do it in our hearts; we do it in our homes; we do it in our politics and our professions and in our social media. But all we’re really doing is judging ourselves. We’re trying to build ourselves up by knocking down the world. And it doesn’t work that way. Pulling others down doesn’t get us higher. Calling others bad doesn’t make us good.

So what’s the solution to works-righteousness? How can we be liberated from the human condition of forever building ladders up into Heaven? Well, that’s where God’s Word comes in. And it comes to us in two ways. The first is the Law. And the Law is the hard truth that we cannot save ourselves. We cannot claw our way back up into Heaven—for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us, every one.

The Law comes in like a hammer and pulverizes those ladders we try to build, those caste systems, class systems, hierarchies of judgment. It smashes to pieces our degrees and our paychecks and our criminal records and all the other metrics by which we judge ourselves good by judging others bad. And yeah, that kind of kills us. And yeah, that breaks us down. But it also sets us free.

Because while the Law shatters any notions we had of climbing up above the rest, climbing up even unto God, so then the Word of God comes to us as Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, who loved us while we were yet sinners, and who died at our hands that we might live. No, we can’t earn Heaven—but it is given to us free of charge! No, we can’t make ourselves worthy of salvation, but our salvation makes us worthy. All the things we sought to gain apart from God are given to us, and infinitely more, in, with, and through God. We are restored to our rightful place in Eden. We are restored to the love and life and joy of God. It’s all Him, all for us.

The Law kills us in our pride, so that the Gospel may raise us in Christ’s love. The Law at first seems terrible, a burning lance of righteousness laying bare our festering sin. But the diagnosis leads to the cure. All the things for which we’ve struggled, all the anxieties and fears and strife, they’ve all been cast aside, and we are given everything we need as free and abundant gift in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thus are we liberated from the awful calculus of worth.

Because ultimately, Law and Gospel, judgment and mercy, wrath and grace, are really one and the same. They are both the Word of God. They are both Truth.

So then, if all of us are dependent upon mercy, if all of us are in need of forgiveness, is there anything God cannot forgive? Is there an eternal sin, which is beyond God’s mercy to absolve? Allow me to be perfectly clear on this: absolutely not. There is nothing God cannot forgive. There is no sin God is unwilling to forgive. There are no limits to the mercy of God. (CCC 1864)

But then what about this morning’s Gospel? What about Jesus’ direct quote: that “people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”? That seems pretty cut-and-dry, doesn’t it? Unflinchingly, terribly clear.

Yet the Church is pretty clear as well. And in the teaching of the Church, the eternal sin—blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—is none other than the belief that God cannot forgive you, that you are beyond Jesus’ power to redeem upon the Cross. And that’s bull. There is nothing you can do that God cannot forgive. The only unforgivable sin is the rejection of forgiveness, the refusal to believe that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son—for you.

Note that you can only reject something you’ve already been given. Christ has already forgiven you. He has already poured out His breath and life and blood for you. You have already been bought with a price! And so you can reject the forgiveness of God over and over again. But God is patient, and inexorable, and wise. He will not stop calling you, will not stop drawing you, will not stop forgiving you. God will not let you go until you bless Him.

So hold out as long as you can, if you wish. Keep trying to climb those ladders into Heaven. Keep judging others as unworthy of your love. You’re only hurting yourself. But someday, someday, God’s mercy you’ll receive.

Someday, someday, God’s mercy you’ll receive.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.