“What matters to God?” (Sunday, 4 Aug 19: Farnham Training Centre)

 

Scriptural commentary: “What matters to God?”

(Sunday, 4 Aug 19: FOB Passchendaele, Farnham Training Centre)

     What really matters?  Right now, the answer might well be: “getting through this exercise”.  What matters to God?  Psalm 8 is very clear – YOU matter to God!  We really matter to God.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars … what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands…” (Ps. 8.3-6)

Today’s readings emphasize our mortality and vulnerability – we are swept away like the dust that you sweep off the floor of your room; we are as resilient as …a blade of grass.  And yet, we are no less glorious for being such fleeting, fragile creatures.  Though we are but dust, we are the spitting image of our Creator.  As G.K. Chesterton said about the Genesis creation story – “idols of God, walking around in a garden”.  How often we fail to recognize the infinite value of the people around us.  As C.S. Lewis said,

 

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. ... Next to the blessed sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”

 

I believe that it is against this background that we should understand today’s readings; otherwise, they might leave us with the impression that God’s view of humans and their endeavors is altogether bleak.  Today’s readings affirm that human beings often spend what little time they have on this earth pursuing things that do not satisfy the deep, God-given longings of their soul; indeed, like the rich man in the Gospel, many people pass away without being able to enjoy the things they gave their lives to obtain. 

     Human beings are a paradox – we have been given such a glorious calling – to represent the Creator to his creation – and yet, most of the time, we fail to live in light of this vocation and actually do damage to ourselves as well as the world around us.  In Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, the lion named Aslan says to a group of children: “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve …And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”  We are a strange mix of glory and shame.

     The author of Ecclesiastes has a hard-nosed commentary on the human condition: “Vanity of vanities!  All things are vanity!”  Another translation renders it: “All things consist of chasing the wind”.  Does anything really matter?  What’s life all about?  A contemporary writer says the following:

 

“Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made for joy, we settle for pleasure. Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance. Made for relationship, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise. Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world ... That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God's new world, which he has thrown open before us.”

 

     This quote reminds us that God is in the process of re-making, of re-creating his world.  Although the present world is in a mess, the story isn’t over yet.  Whenever we find ourselves thinking of God as fundamentally angry with the world, we need to remind ourselves of the creation story.  At the end of each day of the week of creation, God looked at what he had made and said, “It is good!”  God rejoices over his creation.  We give God joy.  As St. Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive”.  God enjoys the world he made.  What does enrage God is everything that threatens his creation.  Evil, sin, greed, the darkness within the human heart – these things anger God because they produce death, and the Creator God is the God of life.  The Creator desires above all else for his creation to flourish.  The Bible describes a love affair between God and his world.  Think of all those passages that describe the trees and the hills praising God.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his Only Son” to rescue and renew it and grant never-ending life to his human creatures.  This is what matters to God – that we should live free of the despair that results from seeking fulfillment in anything other than God himself.

     This is why we need people like St. Francis of Assisi – people who live lives that are radically different from the norm.  The lives of the saints remind us what really matters – not things, not status, not power, not pleasure – but rather people – those creatures that God created in his image in order to fully live.  It is so easy to get wrapped up in things.  Many Christians down through the ages have felt the need to completely detach themselves from material things, in order to demonstrate a lifestyle of radical trust in God.  If we truly trust God to take care of us, we are set free to care for our neighbor.  We can give generously, without calculating what we will receive in return.  “Freely we have received, so we can freely give”.

     And so, the challenge is put to us – are we pursuing life in all its fullness?  Are we living in the joy and freedom that result from trusting our heavenly Father?  Or are we playing at being God, motivated by pride and fear, grasping at whatever we can get our hands on while we can get our hands on it, pushing others out of our way, trying in vain to give ourselves a sense of security, worth and importance?  Are we becoming more fully alive or are we simply dying a little bit more every day?  These are sobering questions.  We are caught up in the “Lent – Easter dynamic” – we need to be reminded of our true condition as vulnerable creatures (“dust to dust”), dependent on our Creator, as well as our destiny to share the glory of God and to rule over the new creation.  Our God-given destiny – already announced in Genesis and the Psalms – is to share in the reign of Christ over the re-made world.

     So, which world are we living in?  Well, we’re living in two worlds – the present world of evil and death, which is destined to die, as well as the new world of life that was born on Easter morning and will one day be fully revealed.  The NT makes reference to this “two-world” reality on almost every page.  The “world to come” has already arrived!  The challenge for us is to live as if it’s true.  Our challenge is to live in a world in which the Sermon on the Mount makes sense.  To live lives of humble trust in God, as opposed to lives of fearful pride.

     May God grant us the wisdom and the courage to pursue life in a life-giving way.  May we truly hear God’s voice, and receive His word with open hearts.  May we be rich in what matters to God.  Amen.