God works through common things

 

I recently read that the average human body is composed of 8 and a half dollars’ worth of oxygen, 8 dollars’ worth of carbon, 7 dollars’ worth of hydrogen, and 36 cents worth of nitrogen… when the other elements are added to the calculation, our market value ends up being around 28 and a half dollars. Of course, with inflation being what it is, we might be talking real money…

Likewise, if you may remember all the back and forth that went on surrounding the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund—where you were and what you did when you died, shaped what the government considered you to be worth.

                Now… on some level, we’re just a cheap sack of molecules (Luther would occasionally refer to himself as a maggot sack… in fact that was our Seminary Flag Football Team’s name one year) … yet our faith tells us that God works through common things!

 

Prayer

                Imagine how the story of Naaman and Elijah would have gone bad, if an attitude of disparaging common things were to have prevailed…

                Namaan, embarrassed by his ailment—how it indicated that he too was as vulnerable as all the rest—he would have never told anyone of his disease, and thus never been healed. He would have seen an enslaved foreigner as so low that she was not to be listened to. Perhaps the King of Israel would have surmised rightly—Namaan WAS picking a quarrel—driving Aram towards war, after all life is cheap and our words are cheaper still. Again, perhaps Namaan would not have trusted his lowly, worth less, servant and “washed and become clean.” Likewise, perhaps a show—waving hands and theatrics, instead of healing would have been more precious.

 

                What I’m saying is woe to those who seek only the rare, the favor of the mighty, the uncommon and difficult.

                Blessed, however, the common things, the common people… was it not so when God came among us, to a lowly family—Joseph the carpenter and Mary who calls herself “a low servant” who could only afford the most basic of sacrifice—a pair of turtle doves—to honor their son’s birth, in the flesh, God one of us in sandals and made up of 20 some dollars’ worth of molecules.

                Woe too, to those who want a show. “Come, stand, call, wave” those hands around, or I will pout and rage.

                Blessed are those who show up. Who heal and cleanse, who help even when the odds increase, who ground their actions in real needs, who ask, “What can I do? Where can I be useful?” Those who take steps to care for another, even when the other is the enemy.

 

                Imagine too how the sending of the 70 would have gone if a scarcity mindset, a boil the body down to its trace elements worldview had won.

                Perhaps there would have been many laborers, but no harvest. Perhaps, out of self-preservation, the 70 would have gone out as wolves among lambs, bringing everything but peace. Perhaps instead of staying in a singular place where they were sent, they would have circled around the community like predators, scamming the whole town. No one would have known the nearness of the Kingdom of God, for the 70 would have sought triumph and dismissed faithfulness.

                Woe to the airport evangelists and parashooting do gooders—those who make no effort at care or community, and wait until they’ve got someone captured and vulnerable, and only then name the name of Jesus or point to the Kingdom, and only do so from a point of power, a box to tick off, a point to brag upon, ever having to consider that person again.

                Blessed are those who come in open weakness and stay among neighbors. The local ones who trust in the kindness of strangers—who know they are guests, that they share the same baseness, the same vulnerability, as those to whom they minister. Sent with peace, and nothing more.

                Woe to the self-serving stuffed with triumph, who like Namaan are caught on the grandness of the mission, not the message itself, the miracles not the Kingdom come.

                Blessed, finally, are those who rejoice for they have been named and claimed by God. Those who have the Spirit of Peace sealed upon their soul and their sending showed it. Those for whom the Kingdom of God—the reign, the rule, the righting of this world by God, has come near.

 

                As I talked about at Pub Theology and wrote an article about in our upcoming Newsletter, echoing Luther’s refrain in the Small and Large Catechism, “Was ist das?” we’re having a “So What?” summer here at Spruce Run.

                We are indeed made of common stuff, yet God works through common things… so what?

-So, the things we do every week in worship—community, washing and word, a hospitable meal of grace and thanksgiving, called and sent into the world that needs us—all of that is God mediated by common stuff—Kingdom and cleansing, peace and healing—present with us, even in this very moment!

-So, being the body of Christ together, the nearness of God, has been named as faithfulness. Even when it doesn’t feel like it, there is a spiritual import to the peace we receive and the peace and extend to others.

-So, the faithful way to minister to this world—even if it isn’t cool or hip or anything like that—is about vulnerability and being present with our local community. Being neighbors here in the Lebanon Township area, is ministry.  

-So, in a world that pulls us 10,000 different directions and encourages separation and disengagement, where we are drawn to being consumers and enemies, passive and disempowered… it has to be said, even as torturously shallow as it might sound: Showing up subdues the evils of this world!

Amen?