Church of the Holy City

Doing Good Well

Doing Good Well
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
March 14, 2010

Joshua 5:9-12 Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 Psalm 32

“There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). This sentence from Luke concludes the short story about the one lost sheep which the shepherd finds. And it also applies to the famous story about the prodigal son. When the prodigal son returns home, after spending his inheritance on wild living, his father holds a great celebration in his honor. His father says, “It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (15:32). While these passages from Luke talk about repentance, I want to go in another direction in my discussion. What about the good son? He faithfully obeys his father, and doesn’t get into trouble? I have to admit, that I feel for that son. He resents the celebration for his lost brother, and won’t even go in to the party. His father has to come out to talk with him. The good son says,
Lo these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf! (15:29-30).
So here the good son is doing the right thing. He is living a good life. He is serving his father faithfully. Yet he gets no celebration or reward. But his brother who has lived riotously gets the fatted calf and a big party. I think I would be like the good son, and also resent the big celebration for the prodigal son.
What are we to take from this story? That it is better to live wildly and then repent instead of living a good life? Certainly not. I think that there are two messages working in this story. The first message is one of repentance. The message we learn from the prodigal son is one of self-examination and humility. The Bible says that the prodigal son, “came to himself” when he realized his woeful state. He humbles himself before his father and says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (15:18). These words are a recognition that we are nothing when left to our own devices. We have all fallen short of God’s laws at one point or another in our lives, and need to continually ask God’s forgiveness, and to ask Him into our hearts. The good things that God gives us are gifts of grace, not deserved by our own work.
This idea brings up where the good son falls short. He is a good and faithful son. But it appears that he expects a reward for his good deeds. In our Old Testament reading, we heard about eating food from the land of Canaan. Eating food from the promised land means accepting God’s love into our hearts and bringing that love into good actions in our behavior. It is imperative to our eternal life to be bringing God’s love into our lives by living well–by living a good life. Swedenborg writes,
The means of salvation are manifold, although they each and all have relation to living well and believing rightly, thus to charity and faith, for living well is charity, and believing rightly is faith. . . . by means of them a person can procure for himself eternal life from the power implanted in him and given him by God; and so far as a person uses that power and at the same time looks to God, so far God makes it effective . . . (TCR 340).
Living a good life, and turning from sin are things we do apparently by our own effort. But here I must emphasize that very important word, apparently. Swedenborg’s wording is critical about this. He says that, “a person can procure for himself eternal life from the power implanted in him and given him by God.” Notice here that the power to procure eternal life is given us by God. When we do the good works of repentance and when we implement love in our good actions, the power to do this is from God. Swedenborg generally doesn’t like the word grace, but that is what he is talking about here. The power to live well is given us through God’s grace. I think that the lesson we learn from the good son in this story is not to expect a reward for the good that we do. The good son is angry because he never got a lamb to celebrate with his friends, while his prodigal brother got not just a lamb, but a fatted calf. The problem with the good son is that he is looking for a reward for his good life. Expecting a reward for the good we do, or taking credit for the good we do can be very harmful to our spiritual life. Swedenborg calls this placing merit in good works, as if we merit salvation from them.
In the exercises of charity a person does not place merit in works so long as he believes that all good is from the Lord. To ascribe merit to works that are done for the sake of salvation is harmful because evils lie concealed in so doing of which the person is wholly ignorant. There also lies hid in it a denial of God’s influx and operation in a person; also a confidence in one’s own power in matters of salvation; faith in oneself and not in God; self-justification; salvation by one’s own abilities; a reducing of Divine grace and mercy to nought; a rejection of reformation and regeneration by Divine means; especially a limitation of the merit and righteousness of the Lord God the Saviour, which such claim for themselves; together with a continual looking for reward, which they regard as the first and last end; a submersion and extinction of love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor; a total ignorance and lack of perception of the delight of heavenly love as being without merit, and a sense of self-love (TCR 439).
When we do good, our reward is the joy of doing good in and of itself. We don’t look to our reward for being so upright. We don’t pray in the public places like the Pharisees. We don’t pat ourselves on the back for how righteous we are. When we do good, and it is essential that we do good, we need that same humility that the prodigal son had. We need to realize that we are not worthy. We need instead to recognize that it is God working salvation in us. Furthermore, when we do good from a heavenly love, we do not want to take credit. We find joy in the act of doing itself. Taking credit, or wanting praise for the good we do tarnishes the free expression of our love.
To think about getting into heaven, and that good ought to be done for that reason, is not to regard reward as an end and to ascribe merit to works; for thus do those also think who love the neighbor as themselves and God above all things . . . Such do not trust to reward on the ground of merit, but have faith in the promise from grace. With such the delight of doing good to the neighbor is their reward. This is the delight of the angels in heaven, and it is a spiritual delight which is eternal, and immeasurably exceeds all natural delight. Those who are in this delight are unwilling to hear of merit, for they love to do, and in doing they perceive blessedness (TCR 440).
The father of the good son does reassure him that he has inherited all the father’s estate. He also assures him that he has the joy of being with him always. “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (15:31). This is how we may hear God’s voice to us, when we come into a good life. What more can we want than always to be with God? Further, what more can we want than to receive all that God can give us. That is the good food in the land of Canaan. We receive God’s life and love when we realize its source. And when we recognize that all the love we receive and all the good we do is given to us, not done by our own power, then we are truly in a heavenly path. How blessed it is to ponder the father’s words, and realize that they are meant to be God’s words to us. “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”