Proper 22B
In the name of the God of love. Amen.
Perhaps it’s because today is the blessing of the animals, but I heard all of our readings today in the context of Michael and me raising our little pup, Tino. He’s seven and a half months old now, and as experienced as we are in our house with dogs, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a puppy. And while our chihuahua, Rocky, was young when Michael adopted him, he wasn’t a little baby like our Tino still is. So it’s been a bit of an adjustment around our house.
One of the things that has been a key element of our life with him so far is that we are constantly amazed at how smart he is – too smart for his own good sometimes. He can just figure things out. We had a couple of these toys that are actually a “toy within a toy” – they’re supposed to figure out how to get in to get the toy inside. We’d bought them for our previous pups, and they never paid much attention to them. But now, with what seemed like almost no effort, Tino has gotten through both of them. And when we first started leaving him alone, we’d leave him confined to our kitchen. But the first FIVE times we left him, he figured out how to get out. No matter how many barriers we put in place – not matter how complex they were, he could figure it out and work around it.
But as smart as he is, one of the key things he hasn’t figured out is the meaning of the word, “no”. We’re constantly amazed at the range of words that he’s already learned in his young life, but “no” just doesn’t seem to be one of them. And, as wonderful as he truly is, he is still a puppy. He still gets into things he shouldn’t get into, and he still sometimes wants to play when it’s not time to play – or he thinks we’re playing when we’re really not. And through it all, he can’t imagine that he’s ever done anything wrong. I mean – it’s great that’s he’s been imbued with such a strong sense of self-confidence, but it’s like the idea of “no” has never occurred to him.
I sometimes wonder if being a pet parent is the closest we can come to understanding God. I often imagine that God must sometimes marvel at our brilliance – seeing all that we’ve done with the gifts we’ve been given; our capacity for thought and creativity. But just as often, God must be exasperated by our density – our unwillingness to give love as freely as it’s given to us; our inability to see the breadth of the impact our decisions have on others; our self-assured conviction that we are each, indeed the center of our own universe.
In the Collect of the Day today, we prayed, ”God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve.” At its core, I think that’s the definition of grace. We cry out to God in prayer, but God was listening before our crying found its breath. We seek out God’s gifts, but gifts beyond our imagining are already within reach. And, of course, we can hear it from the other side, too.
In a moment of frustration a couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with a colleague and friend. She provided a lot of support, and as we ended our call I caught myself saying, “Pray for me in case I can’t figure out how to pray for myself.” I’ve often felt that way. But here’s the thing: the God of grace, whom we worship and strive to know more deeply can already hear our prayers. Even when we can’t find the words to give our prayers focus, they are already held closely in the heart of God. God is more ready to hear than we to pray.
And how many times have I prayed that God might give me the gifts I need to accomplish a task or to achieve a goal – only to realize that I already had been given everything I needed. Perhaps I need to learn to pray instead that I’ll be better able to figure out how to use the gifts I have.
I imagine God looking at us with deep love and affection, and marveling at all we’ve learned and all that we can do, but still, just as much in awe of how little we actually understand – how much we still miss.
When Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me,… for it is to such as these that the realm of God belongs,” maybe it’s not so much a command to be more innocent – to be more pure. Maybe, instead, it’s a reminder to not think more highly of ourselves than of any other – to not assume we know better than any other, or deserve any more than any other.
Today, however, top billing seems to go to the subject of divorce. It stands there glaring and blinking erratically like a faulty neon sign in the night. It’s hard to look away from it. To be honest, whenever this text comes around again, I’m always a little flummoxed by it. Because it’s true, divorce is a sad thing. No one ever enters into the covenant of marriage hoping it will end that way. But does that mean it’s universally bad? Unwaveringly wrong? Aren’t there times when the dissolution of a marriage is the most life-giving possibility for someone?
And, of course, there are also cultural differences and social realities that play a part in this whole conversation. In the fiercely patriarchal culture of the first century, divorce was akin to a social death sentence for women. Men might face some shame as a cost, but women were left hopeless and destitute. So, couldn’t it be that this is just a different chapter of the same story about the children? Couldn’t it be that this is a reminder to the powerful men of the time that they shouldn’t think more highly of themselves than their wives simply because of their genders? I don’t know. Maybe.
But the thing is, the more my own relationship with God has deepened through the course of my life – the more deeply I’ve delved into what it means to follow Jesus – the less convinced I’ve become that there’s very much at all to these simple contrasting, black or white, yes or no, up or down kinds of easy answers. Relationships are more complex than that. Love is more complex than that.
And the more I get to know God the more convinced I am that love is the closest we ever come to an easy answer. When in doubt, love. When in fear, love. When we’re lost, look for love. When we’re searching for answers, assume the answer is somehow love.
That’s the closest we ever come to an easy answer in this life, and let me tell you – even that isn’t always easy. But it is, at least, reliable.
That’s how the gift of loving a pet as a member of your family might just be the closest we’ll ever come to understanding God. Because the only thing they can really give us is love. And we’ll move heaven and earth to give them everything else that they need – everything in our power – because there is love. In the end, that’s what actually matters most. And that’s what we have to learn from these non-human members of God’s creation with whom we share our lives and our homes. They may not understand much from our perspective, but they tend to understand that, and that’s everything.
And while I may not understand much, I believe that’s how God loves us. In a way that doesn’t make economical sense. In a way that gives and gives and that only ever desires love. In a way that sees our inability and our unwillingness to love as purely as we have been loved, and that answers us by loving all the more.
The world doesn’t always make sense. We basically never have all the answers we
think we need. But practicing seeing the
world and all of its problems and confusions through the prism of love is how
we redirect our vision into greater alignment with God’s. With love as the foundation, the rest can begin
to come into focus. Amen.
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