Getting our Job Done
“For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”
Romans 7:19
I don’t know about you, but I had some interesting jobs in my vocational life. I generally say the best job I ever had (before coming to St. Martin’s) was also the worst job I had (definitely not the case with St. Martin’s). I loved being a lifeguard in my adolescence. I got to be outside all day, working on my tan (my dermatologist will expect me to add, “Don’t do this at home, kids!”), flirting with the boys (just like everybody else did in their teens) and even get paid for all that fun, but we also had to perform custodial tasks throughout the day and clean up at night. I learned a great deal about public nature and how it intersects with personal hygiene!
I read recently about an important job in the United Kingdom in the 18th and 19th centuries. After a family member died, his or her survivors would place a loaf of bread on the chest of the deceased and hire a local professional “sin eater” to sit in front of the body for some time. They believed that the bread “soaked up their loved one’s sins” and, once the professional ate the bread, he or she personally took on those sins, clearing their loved one’s slate before they had to meet and bring an accounting of their life to God in the afterlife. Most of these professional sin eaters were among the very poor, whose “desire for a little bread” and payment of what would amount to a few dollars today would be worth the risk of eternal damnation.
Perhaps this might sound sacrilegious to you, but in reading about this hazardous vocation, I thought it is a great picture of what Jesus did. He took on our human nature and our sins, wiping our slate clean. He ate up the bread, every little morsel, before it could be placed on our chests. It’s done and gone; we’re free and clear…right?
Well…yes, sort of. Like St. Paul’s admission in the quote from Romans above, we keep on sinning, whether we want to sin or not. And that is when the work of the Holy Spirit kicks in. One of the “jobs” of the Holy Spirit is sanctification, the process the followers of Jesus Christ undergo in growing in holiness. This lifelong “process” begins with our baptism and is strengthened by life in community and reading the scriptures, worship, prayer, service and other spiritual practices. So, there is some level of participation expected from us as we mature in Christ and seek to avoid those things that separate us from God, i.e., sin.
And in both, it's always grace–the grace of our sin-eating Savior and the grace of the Holy Spirit–that helps us begin again every day in our task of growing more and more into the likeness of Christ our Lord.
