INSTRUMENTS OF GOD
October 4, 2003
presented at Fall HYC, 2003
If we say we are instruments of God, we assert several basic theological principles:
1)
God cares about what happens in the world.
2)
God has some control or influence over what we do.
3)
God uses us to accomplish things.
Throughout Christian history, the Holy Spirit has most often been understood as the persona of God moving and shaking things throughout the world. But does the Holy Spirit act alone, or does God count on us to change things?
In the 16th century, a Christian mystic named Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which to look at Christ's compassion to the world, yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.”
This saying makes Christ (rather than the Spirit) the persona through which God does things in the world, but more importantly, Teresa of Avila seems to imply that God cannot do anything in this world without us! Rather shocking, eh? Isn’t God supposed to be all-powerful?
But if God is all-powerful, then God can also choose arenas in which to abdicate that power. Maybe God has given some of that holy power to us and trusts us to use it wisely. But wait … God trusts us to do holy work? Isn’t that rather foolish? Everywhere we look, we see what amazing power humans have to destroy and corrupt the earth and each other. If I were God’s advisor on this point, I wouldn’t recommend that God abdicate power to humans!
Most Christians believe that God is able to see the future. For some people, this causes problems with the issue of free will. If God knows what we’re going to do, then God has created us to be predictable. How could we really choose anything for ourselves? But maybe this scenario works the same way as the previous one: God is all-seeing, but God chooses to abdicate some of that power in order to give us free will. In other words, God could see the future, but chooses not to. Instead, God says, “I trust you to sort things out … now, let’s see what you can do.”
If it seems like God is off the holy rocker, let’s consider the alternative: a world in which God decides everything for us, shows us very clear paths to follow, and does all the important stuff for us. Some people think of the afterlife as being just like this. God forbid! In this scenario, all our free will is lost. We follow God because God is a dictator, allowing us no power at all. We never do anything wrong, but the cost is that we never do anything right, either. We can’t make mistakes, but we can’t know the joy that comes from choosing to love.
Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” If we assume that God knows what’s best for us, then maybe that realization sheds some light on the awesome responsibility God has given us. Maybe God knows that we’ll take this holy power and abuse it, but someday, we’ll finally understand what we’ve done and what we’re capable of—both individually and collectively. No, I don’t think we’ll ever perfect the Kingdom of God on earth, but we can do our best to approximate it, one day at a time.
Jesus said to the Pharisees, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” We may interpret this to mean, “Don’t wait around for the kingdom of God to appear someday. It’s already here, and if you don’t recognize it, you’re not participating in it.” In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Your will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven.” Okay, then: as instruments of God, let’s do God’s will on Earth. I think we can safely assume that heaven is already taken care of.
Do we work alone? No. Rather, we let God play our instruments. In the service of Holy Baptism, we repeat the phrase, “I will, with God’s help.” We are co-creators with God. God does not control our actions, but God influences us with a “still, small voice.” Some people interpret this voice as our conscience, but that’s not exactly true. Sometimes our conscience gets clogged with voices from within our culture telling us to feel guilty, telling us we should be doing so much more, or telling us we’re not good enough to do anything.
God doesn’t require us to believe that certain things are true. If we say, “I’ve got it all figured out!”, then we stop allowing God to change us. If we leave room for doubt, we remind ouselves that we don’t call the shots. In fact, our doubts can open us up to God’s reassuring, guiding hand. We are always growing … I pray that I never have it all figured out, because then there would be no more to learn.
God doesn’t demand that we muster up a huge amount of faith. We can’t produce faith on our own, so we shouldn’t feel guilty when we feel it’s in short supply. If you’ve ever thought that maybe God doesn’t even exist, you’re not alone! I’ve been there, too. I dealt with my lack of faith by choosing to live the life I believed God would want me to live if God did exist. Guess what? I found God waiting for me in that life.
God doesn’t ask us to be perfect in any way. God simply wants a relationship with us. If we open up to that relationship, we will find that it shapes what we believe and what we do, and we’ll find that, together with God, we can make amazing music in the world.