'Sin grows with doing good', Eliot has his martyr say.
Alongside invitations to do quite marvellous works of piety and love, lies the temptation to somehow seek pride in them, or to use them manipulatively, or to love God less because of them.
The devil tempted Jesus to make bread and to share in rule and to save himself, all in themselves not bad things. The goodness of creation itself and serving its needs, which are real and authentic goods, can be extremely diverting from the ultimate purpose of human life, its worship of God.
The story of Mary and Martha - which I always found to be a great rejoinder to people obsessed with housework! - perhaps is suggestive of this. Martha is busy in doing good, doubtless. But her good spills over into her fury with her sister; and earns her a famous rebuke. Was Cain's sin likewise not the ungood of his offering, but his envy of his brother (see I John 3)?
4 comments:
This is a very insightful post, thanks!
Great post Michael.
I think there is a double edge to all we do. For every gift there is, there can be a weakness that tends to go alongside it.
Michael,
Sin always appears to be barking at our door, even when we do good our good actions are tainted by our sin. I wonder whether this phenomena (if it is true) effects your thinking on martyrdom, in that presumably even martyrdom is tainted by sin. How many of our 'celebrated' martyrs did it so that they would be celebrated? Or perhaps even more so because to die was gain?
THanks Michael for your thinking, you truly have a big brain.
Simon.
PS I told you I read your blog.
Well, thanks for the compliment, but you can feel pretty small sometime round these parts!
I think your are RIGHT on the money. This is TS Eliot's insight really: the greatest temptation for the martyr is the vanity of being a martyr, a kind of spiritual celebrity.
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