A Reflection on Conversion

 

En lieu of a sermon by me on the evil of Big Ag and our poisoned food supply, here's a reflection on John 6 by an old friend. He's a retired Anglican priest and onetime Oxford Blue (pistol).

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:44

This verse from the Gospel for today has me thinking about conversion. I believe passionately in the need for personal conversion. It is a personal choice to follow Jesus. It is a personal choice to accept his atoning sacrifice on the Cross for the sin of the whole world. It is a personal choice to serve God in this world. Nobody just drifts into the Kingdom of God. The verse above is clear; it is God who has taken the initiative.

That initiative of God is to “draw” a person to Christ. It is God the Holy Spirit who “draws” us to consider Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Son, the “perfect sacrifice for the sin of the whole world.” It is God who “draws” us. We are then personally called to respond. Sadly, most will go their own way. Remember the rich young man? “Jesus showed love to him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. But he was deeply dismayed by these words, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.” (Mark 10:21-22)

I have experienced this “drawing” since I was young. I found that I wanted to be around people of faith. The Bible seemed always to speak to me. I loved worship in chapel at school. The Psalms and hymns spoke to me. I have always had a yearning to get closer to God. I believe I was being “drawn” and found ways to respond. That is even more so since I heard a clear call to the priesthood in 1967, at a Billy Graham Crusade in London. However, the “drawing” was, in retrospect, evident much earlier. In my opinion the key is how we respond. Do we say “yes” or do we turn away?

Conversion is a gift of Grace. As one who has found Jesus and the Gospel completely irresistible, I am amazed how many respond negatively to Jesus. Our sinfulness and need of God, our need of a savior, seem to me to be incontrovertible. At the end of John 6 we will read “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” (John 6:66) The twelve disciples did not reject Jesus, though one would go on to betray him.

Conversion is also a process of responding every day to God who “draws” us.  As followers of Jesus, we are offered constantly, daily, the choice to follow or not to follow, Jesus.

I pray for people to follow Jesus. God is always calling – calling each of us, all of us. Come, follow me, says Jesus. May we all hear that call of God amidst the noise of this world.

In his irresistible love, Fr Ian

 

I was moved by that and hope you find it helpful,

LSP

A Yellow Rose In Texas

 

And there you have it.

Stand Straight,

LSP

Sunday Homily

 

"Faith without works is dead," says St. James the Apostle, much to the annoyance of Luther who felt the letter an "Epistle of straw." Of course it was, to a former Augustinian friar who held that good works were "like fleas on the skin of a dead dog." Tell us what you really think, Martin.

Still, and Luther aside, we instinctively get what James is telling us. If you believe in something and that belief isn't enacted then it's not worth much, it ain't right. Worse, it starts to take on the sulpherous, pharisaical odor of hypocrisy. And our instinct's not wrong, faith which isn't animated, which doesn't move is dead, immobile. It doesn't "profit."

James drives it home:

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food. And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

 

What doth it profit to be full of belief, such as to move mountains, but be devoid of faith's animating principle, which is love, the Holy Spirit. Benedict XVI puts it well:

Being “just” simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love.

 

Right on, let's act accordingly, and be sure that the raging, nihilist hatred of Devil and his anti-kingdom, to say nothing of the gates of Hell, shall not prevail.

Keep the Faith,

LSP