SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER A

[cappie]

Every human being will worship – give ultimate worth – to something, because we have been created in the image of God whose essence is infinite.

If our worship is not toward a higher power, it will be toward a lower power.  If our worship is not knowingly God-directed, our worship will go in another direction, a misdirection, and we will give ultimate worth to – what? – to how many “Friends” we can have on Facebook, or how many degrees we can earn, or how much money we can make, or how beautiful and wrinkle-free we can appear, or how much food we can eat, or how sophisticated we can act, or how much real estate we can own, … or, whatever…  To how soon we can buy a Rolex watch or a new iPhone, or have the next drink, or exert the most power and influence, or try to ensure we do not die.  Something.  

It’s inevitable that we will ascribe the highest worth to something – whether we do this consciously or not – and then build our own pantheon of descending lesser worths for which we may fight tooth and nail, be absolutely consumed in obtaining, or hoarding, or guaranteeing we will have within our grasp.  We will give ultimate worth to something or somethings.

And so, I say this is both a “heads up” and an invitation: that we ascribe ultimate worth in life to life’s source – to God who is the beginning and end of life.  And Jesus presses the point.  We are no longer talking of a God whose name is unspeakable, and whose ways are unknowable, and whose face is unseeable, and whose power is unapproachable.  The God whom we worship has not only created life, has not only come to live among us in Jesus, but to live within us.  We hear Jesus say, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”  The God of all creation has come to live within us.  

If we don’t get it right, that is, if we do not choose to align the satisfaction of our needs, our love, and our power with God, with the source and end of life, then we will misalign the satisfaction of our needs, mistake our love, and misuse our power with a lesser god to whom we give ultimate worth.  We see the shadow side to God’s having come to live within us is our infinite capacity to misuse power and to destroy life.  We human beings have the capability of ending life on this earth.  Through our armament, through our desecration of the environment, through so many other misaligned channels of power, we human beings can bring existence in our world to an end.  And that is not because there is no God. To the contrary, that is because there is a God who has formed and filled us.  What we have in our hearts and hands is power, and that is because we have been created in the image of God.  That is the “heads up.” 

The invitation is to surrender ourselves to the source and end of this power, to align ourselves to what Jesus called the building of God’s kingdom on earth as it will be in heaven.

Two spiritual disciplines will help align ourselves with God – the beginning and end of life.  Two spiritual disciplines will help keep the satisfaction of your needs, the sharing of love, and use of your power aligned, not misaligned, to God.

Two spiritual disciplines: a prayer and a practice.  A daily prayer, of surrendering all that we are and all that we have to God.  It is to acknowledge that we have been given life by God, on God’s terms, and we align ourselves to God’s purposes, on God’s time, to God’s end.  That is a prayer of oblation, of self-offering, a posture of aligning ourselves with God’s purposes and power. 

 Secondly, a practice: some outward sign so that what we pray, we live.  Do something, do something every day  so that what you pray, you live.  You are not God; and you are not shopping for God.  You are a creature of God, in whom you live and move and have your being.   
Our lives then are different because the Lord,  brought us into a new and everlasting relationship with God. As Jesus told us, “and you will live.”
 
Of all the wonderful words that the Church sets before us this Sunday, perhaps we might particularly take these words of Jesus to heart, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live.”

                                                                                     

Edited May 16, 2020 by cappie