Every so often one reads a story that perfectly exemplifies the care and concern that one should have for their fellow human being. I do not know whether the person in the story is a Christan or not, but he has certainly kept the second part of the royal law, to love your neighbor as yourself. It is not a story of heroism, nor of personal danger, but a story of love in practice. What is the story?
(CNN) — Time was running out, and Mark Dickinson wasn’t sure whether he’d get to see his dying 2-year-old grandson one last time. A long line at Los Angeles International Airport’s security checkpoint had kept him from getting to his gate on time.
His grandson Caden would be taken off life support in a matter of hours in Denver, Colorado, with or without his grandfather’s presence, according to CNN affiliate KABC.
“I was kind of panicking because I was running late, and I really thought I wasn’t going to make the flight,” Dickinson told KABC.
That’s when a pilot from Southwest Airlines stepped up and held the flight at the gate until Dickinson arrived. The pilot was standing by the jetway waiting for him when Dickinson arrived in socks, so rushed that he just grabbed his shoes at security and ran through the terminal. . .
Dickinson made it to Colorado in time to say goodbye to his grandson. . .
Though the airline has identified the pilot who held the plane for Dickinson, the pilot has asked that his name not be released to the public.
The airline has highly praised the pilot for the decision he made. Yes, I got teary-eyed on reading the whole story. But, here is my point. In the midst of our praying, liturgies, akathists, catechisms, fastings, etc., it is all too easy to not realize that we are not engaged in practical love. Or another way to put it is that we do not realize just how darkened our soul still is. If our souls were not darkened, our response to many situations would be a natural and unthinking response of practical love. Look at your Gospels and see the various times that one of the writers comments that as Our Lord Jesus Christ was on his way somewhere, he noticed something happening that called forth a response from him. Sometimes it was a raising from the dead; sometimes it was a healing; sometimes it was a wise bit of advice at just the right moment. But, one never gets the idea that he stopped and thought through what his options were at that moment in time and whether he should become involved. He just knew.
Because we are fallen and damaged, we need to train ourselves to notice situations, to notice when we are not engaged in practical love. Though I would agree with most Christian writers that love ought to be our natural response, I quite disagree with some of the Protestant writers when they imply that if an act of practical love is not from the heart, then it is somehow not a godly act. My heart is desperately wicked. If I waited to do an act of practical love from the heart, I would not be doing many acts! No we need to remember that we are in the midst of an internal spiritual warfare. That is why Saint Paul kept exhorting us to put to death the deeds of the flesh, to mortify our bodies.
This is where I have found that Orthodoxy has a more realistic view of us than do some Protestants and Roman Catholics. We are very aware of the warfare within us. We are very aware of how darkened our soul and our heart is. To this point, almost all Christians would agree. But, we think that there are practical solutions to which we are called by Holy Tradition–Scripture and the Church Fathers. The reason we are called to use our will to engage in practical expressions of love–and frankly to fasting, prayer, communal worship, Scripture reading, etc.–is precisely because we need to choose to ignore the darkened part of our heart and choose to do what is right. This is not works-righteousness, this is heart training, or I should say, retraining. We are engaged in warfare against the flesh (and the world and the devil). While it is theoretically correct that we should practice love spontaneously, it is not the reality in which we live. Those who imply that our good works are not good because our intentions are not pure have completely missed the point. We choose with our will to do good works precisely because our intentions are not pure. They are good works because we choose to do that which God wants of us and choose to ignore our impure intentions.
It is easier for us Orthodox, because for us works did not function as some type of coin with which we purchased grace from God. Nor have we ever fallen into the trap of saying that pious practices somehow accrue to an account that might just keep us out of hell, or at least serving much less time in some purgatory somewhere. No, we choose with our wills to do good works because our hearts are not yet trained to respond automatically. Mind you, our wills are also far from perfect, but each time we make a right choice with our will, it also is another step to habituating us to choose the right thing. Thus, choosing to do good works helps to train and retrain both our will and our heart. We know that this retraining will not be finished in this world; but that does not excuse us from good works.
So, I encourage you to embrace good works. No, they will not let you buy your way to heaven. But, they will most certainly please God because one of his sons or daughters is seriously engaged in the process of trying to train and retrain his or her heart and his or her will. And, here is the other side of the coin. There is a mystery involved here. As we choose to do what is right and to express our love in practical ways, the Holy Spirit is there. We are not left to try to change ourselves. God knows us better than that. No, as we obey and do, the Holy Spirit is present within us to change us more and more into the likeness of our God. As we obey, the Holy Spirit works upon our heart, mind, and soul to powerfully remake us and recreate us. This is God’s salvation made practical in our lives. And so once again we find that our salvation began with God; our salvation is worked out by God’s grace; and someday our salvation will be finished by God when he comes with a shout, with the voice of an archangel. It really is all grace, is it not?
So, get out there and engage in acts of practical love! Retrain that stubborn heart! And, let the Holy Spirit work upon your heart and your mind so that the peace of God which passes all understanding will rule in you.
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