IS GOD PARTIAL?

Peter (in Acts 10:34): “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” Really? Really. Both. Let me explain, or at least try to.

I am the oldest of five: two brothers and two sisters, ten years between my younger sister Luci and me. Every once in a while, Luci in a snit, would go up to our Mom and whine, “You love Billy more than you love me.” And Mom would take her aside and say, “No. Billy is my first born, but I am not partial to him. I love each of you equally. How could I not? I gave birth to each of you.”

So would God say to us: “I gave birth to each of you through your parents. How could I be partial to any one of you? I love you equally, really.”

Really? Whenever I look into the bathroom mirror, I see someone who is supremely blessed: I have a wonderful loving wife; five great daughters; six special grandchildren; superb friends. We own our own home, financially support our church, Boys Town, St. Jude’s Hospital, local feeding programs and more. Then I think of the orphans living in Boys Town, the children with cancer at St. Jude’s – and their parents, the people who come to the feeding programs in our area, the countless people in need who came to my office or called on the phone in my 53 years as a priest, and I ask: “Why am I so blessed?” 

My answer to that is simple” I don’t know.” But what I do know is what God expects of me because of my blessings, what God expects of each one of us who is so blessed. It is not to compare blessings or wish we were even more blessed. It is to always be prepared to use the blessings, whatever they are – our time, our special talents, our financial resources – to the best of our ability to serve those who are less blessed, who need what we have in abundance to enable them to live better.

It is not enough to simply be thankful for our blessings or, even worse, to think we somehow have deserved them because we are somehow special, that God loves us more than God loves others. We are not and God does not even though in the eyes of those less blessed it may seem that we are. The only way to give a modicum of thanks is to share what we have with those who are in need. We can only do so much and what we do may seem so little. In fact, it truly is. But the little in our eyes is often huge in the eyes of the one in need.

We can spend hours wondering why it really seems that God is partial so some and not others. But that, like God, is beyond our comprehension and will always be. It is not for us to reason why. All we can do is be thankful and demonstrate that thanks each day by sharing from our abundant blessings with those in need. That is all we can do, all we can ask of ourselves, and, I suspect, all God asks and expects of us as well.

IT DEPENDS UPON OUR PERSPECTIVE

Albert Camus:" Poverty prevented me from judging that all was well under the sun and in history; the sun taught me that history was not all." Camus was a philosopher, one of the many I had to study while in college pursuing my major in philosophy. I must admit I hated philosophy at the time perhaps only because the choice of majors was not mine to make. I/we had no choice. But it did teach me to think, I think.

Sometimes we think too much. Sometimes we, philosophers or no, have our heads somewhere else other than in the real world. Sometimes our minds our obsessed with ideas rather than with reality. Philosophers can give great explanations of why things are the way they are but they also often have little idea of how to deal with those very realities. Such led to Camus' observation.

When we are in the midst of a mess, it is very difficult for us to see anything clearly, to see the situation from afar, with a philosophical understanding. When we are up to our ears in alligators, well, you get the picture. Nevertheless, we must try as we might to not lose sight of the larger picture, the view, if you will, from the sun. For the view from the sun, as Camus states, allows us to have another perspective on the mess.

That perspective does not mean that the mess will either go away or that it suddenly does not become a mess. It simply means that the mess is only one part of the picture and not the total picture.

The total picture, the big picture, is what we need to have when we are bogged down by the present, as we often are in this life, life being what it is and of which is so much out of our control. For it is often only the big picture that allows us to realize that "this, too, shall pass, someday." The big picture is simply what gives us hope. Without hope, we die -- even while very much alive.

Yet, it is difficult to be hopeful when all you can see is a present that is filled with pain. It was difficult for Jesus to be hopeful there in the Garden of Gethsemane when his present and near future was full of pain and suffering. His human perspective was clouded by his present fear of the future pain. Yet what allowed Jesus to endure was his view from the sun, his view as the Son.

That same view, that same perspective can be ours as well. That same ability to find hope amidst despair can be ours. That same faith in God who will not abandon us ever is what can lead us through the mess, out from under the cloud to see, really see through the eyes of that faith, what good is in store for those who believe.

But let us not be deceived: it is not easy. The present difficulties can always easily be overwhelming, no matter what those difficulties are. The view from the sun, looking at the present from a different perspective, may not, probably cannot, take away the present pain. It still must be endured. It is our faith in God that sees us through, that gives us that different – and correct – perspective.

HOPE

Liz McAlister (in Year One via Other Side): "Hope never consists in thinking 'things will work out.' Hope finds its substance looking reality in the eye; realism finds its possibility in hope. Without a living hope, we can't stand reality; we lie to ourselves, cover up what is real, arm ourselves with illusions and rationalizations. Hope does not begin to exist except in the harshness of the reality with which we are confronted. Everywhere else we get along quite well without it."

Hope begins and ends in the real world, not in the world of our imagination, not in the world of our dreams, not in fantasy but in fact. Hope starts with what really is: with the bad and the hurtful, with pain and suffering. As McAlister says, when all is going well, or at least relatively smoothly, hope is not part of the picture. We only resort to hope when the picture is quite blurred.

Yet, no matter how blurred, how bad the picture, we must have hope. We must. We must somehow believe/know that what is so bad can, somehow in some way, even in some small way, become better. If there is no hope, we give up or we begin to live in a world of "illusions and rationalizations." We then either convince ourselves that the situation really is not so bad or we come up with some logical explanation why it really is such a mess – and for which we or nobody can do nothing.

Noam Chomsky (in Salt of the Earth): "If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If [for instance] you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to making a better world. That's your choice." Once we at least assume that the bad can be made better, that we can help make it better, there's at least a chance it can happen. Otherwise, we can either cash it in or collapse into a fantasy world.

That is easy to do, all too easy. Hope does not live so much in the future as it lives in the present because that is where hope begins. Milan Kundera (in The Art of the Novel): "There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable, than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact." Maybe not all but much because it is the present, the here-and-now, that we must change if we are to have a hope for the future.

What gives us the ability to hope, of course, is our faith, which "is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," as the writer of Hebrews (11:1) reminds us. That is not quite the same as saying "things will work out, eventually, if only in eternity." That is true.

What is also true that this working out begins right here with faith as the foundation, hope as the guiding light and the strength of the Holy Spirit to enable us to do our part in this messy, often painful present, in this very real world. It will require work, often hard work, to make our world and our life as it should be and not as it is. Hope spurs us on but we must do our part.

 

 

DEAR GOD

David Heller has complied a wonderful book he titles Dear God: Children's Letters to God. Heller discovered, as did Art Linkletter decades ago, that kids say the darnest things. They really do. And in so saying they catch a glimpse of reality that we adults often miss or have forgotten. Why we miss or forget is not because we are so smart or so wise or even so dumb and so stupid. We miss it because we don't have or won't spend enough time viewing life as it should be and not as it is.

A favorite letter of mine is this one: "Dear God, Esq.: My family, the Sandersons, is pleased to invite your family, the Gods, over for bread and wine (I figured you might like this)....Please respond in writing or on a tablet. Very truly yours, Sheila Sanderson."

Little Sheila must come from a family of lawyers or else she has spent way too much of her young life reading the Old Testament, laws and tablets and all. At least she got to the part about the Last Supper and the bread and wine. Now as for the family, "the Gods," maybe she's on to something. Maybe that's how she understands the Trinity. Never thought about it that way. Did you? It does make some sense when you think about it, though. It certainly is one, good, albeit childish, way to describe the indescribable, the Trinity (the family of God?!)

We adults have a way of making God seem not dear or near or even clear, but distant, deaf and almost dead. We are afraid of a close, personal relationship. We keep God at a distance except when we almost shout at God with prayer upon request upon demand. Sometimes we almost act as if God doesn't care, and what we do or do not do does not really matter in the grand scheme of things anyway. "God? Oh, yes Him. Or is it Her? Ah, well, you know, God is, well God and well...what was that question you asked?"

But for children God is dear, near and very clear, Children believe they can and should sit on God's lap and have a face-to-face, heart-to-heart chat. God can do anything, anything: repair bikes, repair relationships, repair whatever is broken. There is complete trust because there is complete love. Children may expect a lot from God but they do not demand a lot. They know God can do anything and they simply hope that God will do some things near and dear to their hearts – even bring the family over for a loaf of bread and a glass of wine.

Martin Luther, who at times in his life was simply an old curmudgeon, in his Commentary on Galatians says this” "Faith does not require information, knowledge, and certainty, but a free surrender and a joyful bet on His unfelt, untried, and unknown goodness." A faithful surrender and a joyful bet! What a novel thought –and a very provoking one at that, is we dare go there.

Children bet on God. That is their faith. They win. We adults too often bet on ourselves; and all too often we lose. God is dear to children because to them God is good. That is all they need to know. That is all they believe. Would that we would have such faith. Then maybe our life would be what God – and we – want it to be and not what it all too often is.

IT'S ALL LOGICAL

I think I am a logical person, perhaps too logical, too much left-brained. Perhaps I don't allow my emotions to get in the way enough. Perhaps. Perhaps that goes back to my days in college studying philosophy, studying logic and marveling how, when it all makes sense, it's the sensible and right thing to do. Perhaps. In logic, the stronger the argument, the better the case. In logic there is a major premise and a minor premise and logical arguments (read "proofs) for both premises. And then the conclusion, the "therefore...." It all makes sense.

The other day someone sent along the following logical statement. "Marriage is an institution. Marriage is based on love. Love is blind. Marriage is an institution for the blind." It all makes sense. The first three statements are all true. Thus the "therefore" should also be true: Therefore marriage is an institution for the blind. And that is true, humor and all notwithstanding.

I suspect most of us have no problems with the first two statements: marriage is an institution and it is based on love. It's the love-being-blind part that we may have a problem with. But in many ways, true, unconditional love is blind. It is blind to the failings and shortcomings, the humanness of the beloved. If love is conditional, if married love is conditional, there will be problems, sometimes problems so big that the marriage ends.

Going one step beyond, thinking beyond marriage, thinking about the church, is it not correct (logical) to say the same thing about the church, about the gathered Christian community to which we belong? Can we not substitute the word "church" for the word "marriage" and reach the same logical conclusion: "the church is an institution for the blind"?

As a gathered Christian community should we not have the same unconditional love for one another that we have for our spouse, our children, our personal family? Yes, we can say that we have no choice as Christians to unconditionally love our spouse, our children, our family; but the church is different. We don't have to belong to a church, this church. We do so because we choose to do so.

True. But once we do, then does not unconditional love go with the territory, with the choice? Yes, it is true that it is difficult enough sometimes to unconditionally love members of our own family, flesh and blood. Is it not asking too much to extend that family to a church? Is that not beyond our capabilities, logic or no logic?

It is, if we think we have to do it all by ourselves with only sheer will power. Sometimes it takes the grace of God to love my kids unconditionally. Sometimes it takes an even more abundant grace of God to unconditionally love those with whom I worship. But that grace is always offered, is it not? We don't unconditionally love because we can't. We don't because we don't want to. It is not God's problem: that God doesn't give us enough grace. It is ours: we refuse it, for whatever we think is a logical reason.