Child of God

SecondSundayAftertheEpiphanyB, Sullivan Park Care Center, January 18, 2015 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            You are a child of God created in God’s image.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your entire mind, all your soul, and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.  This is the basic formula.  Follow this, and you will have life.  The reason is simple: God created you and all that exists.  God gave you a brain, legs, arms, hands and muscles.  God gave you resources in your physical environment as well as in other people.  God gave you what you need to learn to love as God has loved you.  You can be more and do more, even to the end of your lives when you realize how profoundly God loves you.  Some of the sweetest words of encouragement have come from those no longer able to move on their own.  I remember so clearly the poetry recited from memory of a 103 year old.

Consider God to be likened to a baker. Your average baker will likely use the same recipe multiple times because it almost guarantees good results each time it is made.  The baker will measure out each item in the recipe accurately, being careful to follow the instructions printed below the ingredients.  The baker will not follow advice that is out of context from another recipe such as, “to make really good, moist banana bread, add an extra banana from what the recipe calls for…”  Likewise, think of God as one who wishes to crochet an afghan: it is wise to follow carefully, even the minutest instructions to assure that the afghan will turn out as planned and that it will indeed resemble that which was intended.  This method is basic and is predictive of success for both baking and making specific items.  If you have ever watched the Chef Ramsay shows for cooking, you know that if you don’t follow a recipe, there are still standards for a proper product. A rejected product would be bland or undercooked, for example. God has made each of us with specificity in mind and yet also with variations.  All of it is good and we all have the potential to discover and use the gifts God has given each one of us.

            The Jewish laws according to the book of Leviticus are similar to this.  They are an attempt to answer the age-old question of how to live out what it means to be a child of God. They were focused on what actions are to be performed in order to be made right with God.  This had to be followed precisely.  For example, Leviticus, chapter 23 states, “The Lord spoke to Moses: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.  He shall raise the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall raise it.”  The Israelites of old were a worshipping community who lived in covenant with God.  Part of that covenant-keeping was to observe all that God or God’s agents commanded.  In this case, Moses was acting on behalf of God. And as close as Moses was to God, even Moses was not to see God’s face.  Attempts to get close to God involved building altars, sacrificing, and going to the mountaintops. 

Today, we try to reach God by meditation or prayer.  People talk of going on a retreat in which great focus is placed on listening for God’s presence, God’s voice. People continue to seek those mountaintop experiences.  The one thing that distinguishes the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who is the God of the Jews as well as Christians is this: God is both transcendent as well as intimate.  You can’t get any more intimate than becoming human and living with us, dying our death.

God has shown us the way to be intimate with others in Jesus.  The story about Nathaniel is a great example of God’s knowledge of us and for some confirms that Jesus must be God.  Our psalm for today is another description of how well God knows us inside and out, yet many of us hesitate to share our lives with others.  My co-worker gives the excuse that her generation does not talk to other generations like its some rule set in stone.  Another co-worker of mine, when asked a personal question would make something up. Sometimes it is because we have something to hide or what we say might be misconstrued or misinterpreted.  Sometimes we simply do not want to feel vulnerable with others or we fear their judgment. I recently had a job interview in which I was asked to share some personal information about my hobbies and what I do to reduce stress in my life.  This is typical of a mental health job interview, but I fail to see the relevance, so I shared little.  These are people I will probably never see again.  I know there is no weight to these answers, but it doesn’t make it any easier to just tell the whole of my life before other people.  It is a normal human defense to want to protect ourselves emotionally.

At the same time, we long to connect with others, to share our lives.  We long to have others know us and to be known by them.  We seek to understand and to be understood.  We also become confused as to where God begins and ends because everything we describe about us is inextricably tied up in our identity as God’s children, made in God’s image.  However, that is the very point of this portion of Psalm 139.  God is without beginning or ending and God is so intimately involved with us that making distinctions is not something we should engage ourselves in.  Does it really matter deciding what is human and what is divine?  Maybe it really is as Thomas Aquinas suggests: God is like a stained glass window and we are the shattered pieces of God.  God may be more like us than we can conceive or imagine, even though God is in the expansiveness of the entire universe and beyond.

Remember this, you are a child of God and so is your neighbor.  In the words of Frederick Buechner, “WHEN YOU REMEMBER me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.

If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.”

As the thief beside Jesus hanging on the cross uttered those poignant words, we also should be pleading, “Jesus, remember me.”  Remember me now and when I come into your kingdom.