Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

 Lectionary: 471

For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. A worker’s wage is credited not as a gift, but as something due. But when one does not work, yet believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. 

Abraham appears more often than Moses in the sayings of Jesus and the writings of Paul. The "Friend of God" had enjoyed an intimate relationship with God long before there was a Law to govern his thoughts and actions. He was like Adam and Eve in the Garden before they were told not to eat of the tree. His concern, if we could call it that, was to wait upon, listen to, and abide by the very specific directions of the Lord. He left his fatherland, traveled to Palestine, and then to Egypt, and back to Palestine. He circumcised himself, thus creating a physical bond with the Lord. He offered the sacrifices God demanded; he stoutly fought against the four kings who opposed him; and finally, he offered his only son Isaac in sacrifice. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. 

In the face of the overwhelming Pharisaic reading of the Jewish tradition, with its heavy reliance on a peculiar interpretation of the Law of Moses, the Christian movement appealed to the original relationship of Abraham and God. Long before all those statutes, decrees, and ordinances with their confusing and contradictory demands, there was Abraham's remarkable friendship with God. If it began with God's terrifying presence which could only leave a human paralyzed with fear, it resolved into an intense loyalty between the Lord and the Patriarch.

The disciples enjoyed that same intimacy with Jesus; and then the Spirit gathered succeeding generations who had never seen the Lord face to face into the fellowship. Through Baptism and Eucharist we experience the Risen Body of the Lord. The Acts of the Apostles describes how the followers of Jesus announced the Gospel -- beginning at Jerusalem and moving toward the ends of the earth -- at the very specific directions of the Holy Spirit. 

In the following centuries the tradition would be more clearly defined as they determined which documents should be called canonical scripture, how the Christian liturgy would worship God, how the teaching authority of the Church would be passed to the next generation, and what deference members owed to the leadership. 

Always they retained a healthy skepticism of pharisaic attitudes and behavior. Every Christian should know the Lord as Abraham did, and wait upon his Spirit for guidance. However, that intimacy would never settle into a warm, comfy feeling of Jesus and me; intimacy wants to share in his sufferings, which were never warm and comfy. As Saint Paul said of righteousness in his letter to the Philippians:

More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and [the] sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  

Finally, Christians find our righteousness through obedience to the teaching and authority of the Church. In community we learn to consult about every good idea and hide no secret plan. The fellowship which "tests every spirit" knows the difference between diabolical impulses and divine initiatives.