Look, there are handfuls and handfuls of things that I have decided I just can not worry about. I couldn’t function if I cared about everything there is to care about. I don’t have it in me to always make the safest, most healthy, most ethical, most economical, most sustainable, most whatever choice all the time for all the things. So, I totally get it that we’ve got to shelve some stuff. Some things go on the back burner. Some things, honestly we don’t even take out of the box. We shove them in some dark closet somewhere and only realize they exist when we trip over them while we’re hiding Christmas presents.
But the truth is this: it’s all connected and it all matters. All humankind, all creation, all our history, all our future. It’s intricate, it’s ancient, it’s inescapable.
And Christians particularly must care about what the Creator has created: humans, earth, animals, water. We don’t get to opt out. We have to care about all the people and the environment. But, many hands make light work, right?
One of the most harmful (but tempting) things we can do is jump immediately to spiritual bypassing regarding the gravity of our shared circumstances by going straight to phrases about “God’s will” and the like. Often times, in doing this we short circuit our emotional processes that our bodies were divinely created to experience. That emotional processing will often aid in our spiritual growth as we feel deeply and turn to Christ for guidance and comfort. We stifle our compassion and empathy towards others when we quickly shove everything into the “God’s will” box; and more so, we abdicate our own responsibilities as followers of Christ.
We have work to do here. We are not called to just sing hymns and have potlucks and a couple of mission fundraisers. All of that is great, but we are called to even more. Our time of worship and fellowship is to fortify us for the work we have before us.
We are called to pay attention to what’s going on in our communities and hold people in power accountable. We are called to look at “how things are” with the eyes of people who seek to follow the ways of Christ and we need to believe that we can change things for the better.
We are the hands and feet of the Divine on this earth. We each have skills and gifts and resources that can be used to make as much of this place “on earth as it is in heaven” as possible. We are called out of complacency and comfort and fear and despair. We are called to bring light. We can be filled with the joy and peace of the Holy Spirit and also be taking seriously the inequities and injustices in our communities that will often lead us to lament and repent.
“I don’t envy those who have never known any pain, physical or spiritual, because I strongly suspect that the capacity for pain and the capacity for joy are equal. Only those who have suffered great pain are able to know equally great joy.” – Madeleine L’Engle
We should ache here on earth. We should feel that the hurt of this world is too much. It is. It is too much. There is too much to care about and too many things wrong. There is too much in our own lives and too much in the lives of those we love. This ache turns us to something beyond us. This brokenness hollows us out in a way that only something supernatural can fill. This is how we become vessels for the Spirit. It is not in our strength, but our weakness. It is when we let ourselves understand that all of it does matter and it’s just too much.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Psalm 51:17
A life of faith has a multitude of blessings. It also brings us into a story of care. When we align ourselves with the God that identifies as Love, we accept not only the mercy and grace offered to us, but we also become part of the bigger story of Holy Love. A faithful life can be an inconvenient thing. An uncomfortable thing. That’s not bad, but it is true.
All of creation matters. How we treat all of creation matters.
How we tend to our spirits, bodies, and minds matters. What we consume digitally matters. Everything. It all matters.
Even so, I’m not suggesting we inundate our daily lives with constant nit-picking of the “best” choices, because it’s impossible to live that way. We can know and care without turning every decision we make into a striving for perfection (especially when there’s no way to get there). We can know and care without turning that striving into an idol, a stumbling block, or a weapon to judge and shame others. We can each have our personal projects and interests that we dive into and share with others (we need that division of labor and resources). What we can’t do is just cocoon ourselves away from it all and act like nothing matters outside of our personal sphere, or quickly shove everything away with a religious saying and a Bible verse.
We are our brother’s keeper, and our sister’s too. When we take this seriously, we see that when they are held down, so are we. We start to attach their wellness to our own. We see it all connecting. A divinely intricate creation. We see ourselves in their place and begin to see and feel the way it would shape us; and so it does. It shapes us. We see how the wellness of the earth: the soil, the water, the plants, and the animals affects our well-being – our ability to farm well and eat well and live well. We see that it’s all connected.
It is time (it is past time) for us to lay down our swords we have been using against one another. There is so much work before us, but we have each other, this whole body of believers who can let their hearts break, hollow out, and be filled with light that can warm this whole place.
May we be as willing as God is able.
