The image of Saint Paul is from Openverse, a tool that allows openly licensed and public domain works to be discovered and used by everyone.

RCL Year A, Proper 21 (Alternate Readings)
Ezekiel 18:1-4 and 25-32, Psalm 25:1-8, Philippians 2:1-13, Saint Matthew 21:23-32

Saint Paul ends today’s Epistle with a command: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”[1]

Few sentences in the New Testament tell us as much about what our response to God should be.

First, “work out your own salvation.” Working out our own salvation is up to each one of us. God will not do it for us. That headmaster I mention from time to time used to say, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.” He was talking about learning algebra. But the point is true also of our spiritual lives.

We have what I often call an agency that must be exercised. By agency, I mean that our being human and alive includes having a brain and a will, and both must be used if we are to work out our salvation. We have the Scriptures to read to teach us what God has chosen to reveal to us. We have the Sacraments to take assuredly to communicate with God. And with them as our guides, we choose to do what is right. God trusts us with the freedom to do what is right.

Second, “for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” In addition to a physical brain, we are made in the image of God; we have a spirit, a soul, that is in touch with God all the time. God enables our will to choose the right, and when we choose to do right, we give pleasure to God.

All that I have said seems to me to be very simple. But there’s a catch. Alongside the image of God, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments, stands our will. Our will is a pivot. We can choose the right, or we can choose the wrong. And often human beings choose the wrong.

But God, from eternity is prepared for us to choose the wrong. He has led us to the water. He has given us everything we need to drink the water: everything including the Scriptures, the Sacraments, and his voice in our souls, all combine to guide us to choose the right. Those guides encourage us to accept the redemption God has prepared for us. The Catechism puts it this way: “Redemption is the act of God which sets us free from the power of evil, sin, and death.”[2]

If you are not working out your salvation, what do you think you are doing?

---

[1] Philippians 2:12b-13.

[2] The BCP, page 849.