A Cup of Coffee with Pelagius

Psalm 63

March 24, 2019

Lent 3

William G. Carter

O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. 

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. 

But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth;
they shall be given over to the power of the sword, they shall be prey for jackals.
But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult,
   for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

We are fortunate today to have an honored guest joining us for worship. He has traveled all the way from the fifth century, where he was living in a monastery in Rome. He is not the first heretic to ever come into this room, and certainly not the last. But perhaps in Christian history, he is the most famous. Would you join me in welcoming Pelagius?

BC:      It's good to have you with us. Would you like a cup of coffee?

Pel:      No thank you. That bitter brew is not to my liking. I prefer a cup of tea.

BC:      I thought it might be difficult to understand you speak.

Pel:      I am from Britain. I am conversant in English, although it's Old English, a very old English. Although if you prefer, we could converse in Latin, too. Or Greek.

BC:      Let's stick with English. I am glad you can be with us for a few minutes this morning. During this season of Lent, we have taken some time to learn more about the Celtic tradition of the Christian faith during this season of Lent. You are Celtic, right?

Pel:      Aye. I cannot remember the place of my birth, and the year is fuzzy too. Most likely, it was 354 years after the birth of Jesus our Lord. Born in Britain, although the names of the places have all changed.  May I ask, how did you make my acquaintance?

BC:      It was a history class, many years ago. I was reading about you in the writings of Augustine...

Pel:      Ah yes, the famous African. Bane of my existence, he was.

BC:      He didn't like you very much.

Pel:      No, he didn't. Augustine was vehemently opposed to me. It was his obsession, or at least one of his many obsessions. But I don't wish to speak ill of the dead.

BC:      I want to hear some more about your differences. But first, tell me and my friends some more about yourself.

Pel:      I don't like talking about myself. Never have. I have had a quiet life, devoted to prayer, good works, and teaching. Self-discipline comes naturally to me, so I found my home within a monastery in Rome.  Apparently my writings were helpful to many of the Christians, especially at a time when the Roman Empire was coming apart.

BC:      And I understand you had some progressive views for your time.

Pel:      Progressive?

BC:      Forward-thinking.

Pel:      Oh, it's difficult to be forward thinking when you live in a monastery. Our schedule is very scripted. We study hard, work hard, and pray hard, all according to the bells that ring on the hour.

BC:      Let me be more specific. I heard you were criticized for teaching women to read.

Pel:      Yes, that's true. Jerome and Augustine and the rest of them were offended. They said, "How dare you teach women to read the Bible?" I replied, "How dare I? I dare because women and men are both created in the image of God. They have equal dignity before Christ. Every human child is born in the image of God. That's what the Bible says, in Genesis, chapter one. There is a fundamental goodness to everything God has made. That includes women, of course."

BC:      Well, from what I've read, Augustine says Genesis, chapter three, has damaged Genesis, chapter one. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God in Genesis, chapter three, it left a permanent stain on the whole human race.

Pel:      Oh, that Augustine! Ever read that long book of Confessions that he wrote? A lot of his sins were certainly original. He was a wild one. He should have settled down and gone to a monastery. It would have done him a lot of good.

BC:      Was this the essence of the battle between you two?

Pel:      Please understand: we never actually met. Our battle was in ink, not in person.

BC:      You never met?

Pel:      No, we did not. I went to North Africa with my young friend Coelestius. We traveled to seek out Augustine and have a conversation face to face, just like this. But he was trotting around the Mediterranean Sea, or perhaps hiding behind the living room door.

BC:      Why did you go looking for him?

Pel:      Because of the terrible things he was saying about my teaching. I have always held that people can improve themselves. That's what I saw when I lived in Rome. The city was full of moral rot. The politicians were corrupt. The citizens were heartless. My Bible calls on me to speak the truth to power and to practice kindness where there is pain. Augustine disagreed and said, 'No, it won't do any good. The human race is always a mess, thanks to Adam and Eve, and no amount of human effort will make us better than we are."

BC:      I wonder if Augustine was speaking out of the wreckage of his own life. Earlier on his journey, he had rejected the Christian faith of his mother, and pursued a wild life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Pel:      What is this 'rock and roll'?

BC:      I'll tell you later. From what I can tell, Augustine had occasions when he did try harder, when he sincerely tried to clean up his life - but it didn't do any good. He kept slipping. He kept messing up.

Pel:      Well, all of us are sinners.

BC:      Wait, you believe that? I didn't think you did.

Pel:      Of course I believe that. I say that on the very first page of my treatise, "On the Christian Life." Listen to this: I am "a sinner first and last, more foolish than others and less experienced than all." Rather than grumble about what he thought I said, Augustine should have read what I actually said. I'm a sinner, created good in the image of God, but broken by my ignorance and repeated mistakes. Thankfully, "God does not pardon sins but rather defers judgment." God desires that we come home from our sinful journey and live in the holy peace of God's home.

BC:      Interesting: that came up in one of our scripture readings today. Jesus tells about the farmer with a fig tree that wasn't bearing any fruit. He complains to the gardener and says, 'We've been waiting three years for fruit on that tree. Let's cut it down. It's wasting space in my garden."

Pel:      ... And the gardener says, "Sir, give it one more year. Give it one more chance." That's my favorite parable: Luke, chapter 13.

BC:      Do you really think it's possible for people to improve?

Pel:      Certainly I do. I also think it is possible for people to be good. May I read you something that I wrote?

BC:      Please do.

Pel:      That person is a Christian who is merciful to all, who is not motivated by injustice, who cannot endure the oppression of the poor before their very eyes, who comes to the aid of the wretched, who helps the needy, who mourns with those who mourn, who feels the suffering of others as if it were their own, who is moved to tears by the tears of others, whose house is familiar to all the poor, whose food is offered to all, whose goodness is known to all, and at whose hands no one suffers injustice, who serves God day and night, who ceaselessly considers and meditates upon his commandments, who makes themselves poor in this world that they may be rich in God, who is without honor in society that they may appear glorified before God and his angels, who seems to have nothing false and untrue in their heart, whose soul is simple and unstained, whose conscience is faithful and pure, whose mind is wholly in God, whose hope is all in Christ, who desires the things of heaven rather than the things of earth, who leaves behind human things that they may have the things of God. (p. 402)

BC:      Wow, that quite a list. It's hard to believe that Augustine convinced the church to denounce you a heretic.

Pel:      No comment. Well, maybe one. When Augustine first accused me, fourteen bishops read through my writings and found nothing wrong. I was acquitted. So Augustine put me on trial somewhere else. He was nothing if not persistent.

BC:      It sounds to me like both of you persistent. And if I may make an observation, that wonderful list that you offered of what it means to be a Christian is exactly right - but it's impossible.

           

Pel:      Are you saying it is impossible to be a Christian?

BC:      No, but I am saying that it's impossible to live up to that list.           

Pel:      But if we do not have the list, which is essentially a description of living like Christ, then we have no model, no good example, nothing to aim for.

BC:      Yes, but if all we have is a list, then we have no need of God. Because none of us are good enough to attain all those perfect qualities.

Pel:      You sound like Augustine, who declared our human imperfections and said salvation depends entirely on the good grace of God. To me, an over-emphasis on grace will make us lazy. I think of the fool who acts despicably but says, "Christ has saved me."

BC:      True enough. But I think of those sad moralists who are tempted to revel in their spiritual superiority, much of which is fake. They reduce the living faith of Christ to a checklist of behaviors which neither they nor anybody else can actually maintain.

Pel:      That, too, is a sad truth.

BC:      May I suggest a way forward of us together?

Pel:      I would covet that. I sense that you are my brother in the faith.

BC:      Perhaps the way forward is not to obsess on how our sin originates, nor how deeply it pervades our lives. The better way forward might be to set our gaze on God, the God who comes to us in Christ. Jesus is our good example when we are at our best, and our savior when we are at our worst. He is "both and."

Pel:      Go on. I am listening.

BC:      So maybe the way forward is by paying attention to our true hunger and our true thirst, namely, to be in complete presence of God, and therefore to be as complete as possible in our own skin, never trying to impress, but doing what we can to move closer to Christ..

Pel:      This wisdom resounds in the psalm that I heard you and your friends recite as I arrived. I can still hear the echo of it: O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water... 

BC:      ... So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. 

Pel:      So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. 

BC:      Pelagius, I honor you as a child of God. We thank you for visiting with us today.

Pel:      It is I who is honored to be with all of you. In fact, these days, I am honored to be anywhere. May I offer all of you my blessing, from the final page of my work?  Here it is: "Regardless of whoever disapproves of you, mocks and derides you, you should please only God, and do those things which are of Christ. And when this is what you have become, remember us, who love you so much that we give you in our absence what we cannot give by our presence." (p. 404)