Scripture text: Romans 5:1-11
My senior year of university, I was on top of the world. I was just a few credits shy of earning my bachelor’s degree. I was enjoying the party scene. I was the center of my group of friends (most of whom I still have today 20 years later). In a group of nerds and geeks, I was one of the few “game masters.” When you play D&D and other games like that, there has to be a referee of sorts or the game doesn’t happen and that was my job. That gave me a lot of power, a lot of influence in my group of friends. When I talked, people listened. I mattered.
A typical scene in my Blacksburg apartment, circa 1995
And then she came along.
She was Dinah and it would not be an exaggeration to say that Dinah was drop-dead gorgeous. Petite, red-hair, sexy as all get out, and as much of a geek as the rest of us. She wandered into our little niche in Blacksburg and immediately upended just about everything. She’d walk into the room and I would go instantly from top dog to invisible. All eyes were on her. All ears hung on her every word, and I could have done backflips while juggling bowling balls and no one would have noticed. I hated her.
My head was full of reasons why I was justified in my hatred, most of which I cannot repeat in polite company. Some of them were based rather loosely on the truth, but most were the creation of my enraged imagination. Every misogynistic sexist thought I could have conjured up I hurled at her in my mind. Dinah had stolen my friends. She was threat. How dare she? She wasn’t worthy of them. She didn’t deserve them.
It was not my finest hour.
What I had done is all too often what we humans do when we encounter something we find threatening or disturbing. We forget all of our civilized mores and revert to something we’ve inherited from our animal ancestors. In the wild, packs of animals are organized in hierarchy, the top being the alpha, with the beta below, on down to the omega at the bottom. Wolves, apes, all sorts of animals organize in this fashion. My position as the alpha of my pack had been challenged and my head filled up with excuses as to why my challenger was unworthy of that.
We humans do this all the time and most of the time we’re not even aware of it. We’re always evaluating, ourselves and others. Are they worthy? Are we? Where are we in the pecking order? Every day, we run unconsciously through this evaluation of ourselves and others. From our conclusions, we determine the worthiness of ourselves and others. I’m prettier than they are. I’m smarter. I have more money. I dress better. I get better grades. I’m more talented. I’m a better Christian. I’m an American. I’m a man. I’m white. I’m straight. Each time one of these thoughts runs across our mind, conscious or unconscious, we elevate ourselves on that pecking order and devalue those who don’t meet our standards.
I spoke last week about how events in Baltimore of late have highlighted our apathy and this relates to that. Those people down there and their problems aren’t worthy of our attention and how dare they impose that upon us. In a lot of ways, it’s really what it boils down to. We wouldn’t riot, therefore we’re better than those people. We wouldn’t abuse a prisoner in custody, therefore we’re better than those cops. But would we, if we were in their shoes? That question we never ask, because it’s beside the point. This is about our ego, our self-aggrandizement, and those pesky little details might somehow prove our unworthiness and that will never do.
We prove ourselves worthy often at the expense of others. Because every one of us wants to be the alpha and we’ve got a whole list in our heads as to why we deserve it. And we do this constantly. We should be on top. We should be in charge. If you did it my way, we’d never have these problems. I’m the one with all the answers, all the beauty, all the talent, all the money, all the whatever. Listen to me and only me because only I am worthy of your attention. All the rest of these people are inferior. They are unworthy.
It’s like we’re a bunch of squabbling children, each one competing for our parent’s attention. Pay attention to me, Mommy. I’m better than my brother. I’m prettier than my sister. They don’t deserve you.
You know what the saddest part of this is? It’s just how astoundingly pointless it all is. Do we truly not get that it’s not about our worthiness and it never has been? Our value in life is not in how good we are or how much better than someone else we are. That doesn’t matter and it never has.
A quick question, on this Mother’s Day, to all the mothers (and to the fathers for that matter). Do you love your children because of how good they are or do you love them simply because they’re your children? That right there speaks volumes as to how pointless all this jockeying for position really is.
There is nothing our children can do to make us love them any more or less than we already do. They’re our kids. That’s all that truly matters.
That’s the point that St. Paul is trying to make in our text today. He’s talking to us about God’s love and it is not predicated on how worthy of it we are. In fact, quite the contrary. Paul does not mince words here. “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” God loves us despite how unworthy we are. And as if that didn’t drive home the point enough, he says this just a couple sentences later. “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” Enemies? We are God’s enemies and he still loves us. Still sent Jesus. Still went to the cross and rose again. Enemies and he did all that for us.
There is nothing we can do to make God love us any more or less that he already does. We are his children. That’s all that truly matters.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re worthy. It doesn’t matter whether you’re better than some other person at something. It doesn’t matter if you’re the prettiest or wealthiest or the strongest or the most patriotic or the most Christian or anything. God loves you for you. You have nothing to prove to earn that love. We’re worthy because God says we are. We matter because God says we do. We are worth the universe because the one who created that universe has declared it so. That’s our real value. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment