Divine approval

 

Two verses from the readings set for Holy Communion today:

‘Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.’

2 Corinthians 3:17

‘For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’

Jesus, Matthew 5:20

‘Righteousness’ is a word that means divine approval. Jesus is speaking about God’s approval of you, and that unless you know that approval you cannot enter the experience of God’s goodness in the world. He continues, unless you know God’s approval, you will find yourself bound up in a competitive disapproval of others, that will leave you in a prison, a burning hellfire, of your own making.

But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Freedom from all that.

We are all shaped by our childhood experiences. By whether we felt the approval or disapproval of our parents. And this, in turn, affects how we view God.

If a child habitually experiences parental disapproval, she conforms herself to whatever rules and behaviours are rewarded with the approval of their parent and minimise the loss of that precarious approval. Eventually this becomes a burden too great to bear. They believe themselves to be deserving of disapproval and are likely to project disapproval onto others. Even worse for the child who never knows how their parent will react. The parent who is loving and kind when sober, and a volatile monster when drunk.

One will say, ‘Of course God approves of me; I’m a good person.’ But this is conditional, and underneath is the fear that if we ever mess up, we’ll lose the approval we have worked so hard to keep.

Or another would say, ‘If God really knew me, there’s no way he could approve of me.’ This is also conditional—and also misunderstands God.

As the early Church came to recognise, in and with and through Jesus, God’s approval of you, and me, is always and irrevocably Yes.

God approves of you.

Not because of what you have or have not done, but simply as the relational flow of God’s eternal nature, as revealed and fulfilled in the human Jesus of Nazareth, who was put to death by human beings who were set on holding onto a divine approval they couldn’t lose—but could refuse to benefit from—but raised to life again because God remains true to who God is. The God who approves, who approves of you.

As we come to know this, more and more deeply, we are transformed. We no longer need to disapprove of ourselves or others. Knowing we are loved, we are empowered to love ourselves, and, loving ourselves, to love our neighbour as ourselves.

That isn’t to say we don’t call out bad behaviour. Both Jesus and Paul do that! But right behaviour does not flow from keeping the rules, but from being set free from competitive disapproval.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And that is glorious, a glory that we see in increasing degrees reflected in one another’s faces. Which is to recognise that we might not start out free of the things that have held us captive, but that there is hope: we are not condemned to be imprisoned by the failings of our parents to receive the freedom God longed for them. Neither will the damage we inflict on our children determine their lives for ever.

God approves of you. In and with and through the person of Jesus, you have—and can know—divine approval.

And that is good news.