When I begin
the day, I try to spend a little time in some devotions. One of the things I like to do is use the
lectionary---the daily readings---from the Benedictine monks. I find some solace in knowing that what I am
doing, every Benedictine monk and nun in this country and abroad is also
doing. It draws me into an invisible
community of seriously devout people. If
I am not quite in the same place as they are, perhaps their influence can come
my way. They are good company to keep!
This morning
I turned to the lectionary and the reading was from Psalm 24. The opening line of that Psalm is engaging. “The Lord’s is the earth and its
fullness…” This certainly has the effect
of putting me in my place. The earth and
everything on the earth and in the earth is the Lord’s. Obviously I and you inhabit only the smallest
part of the earth. I can give you my
address. I can tell you where I live and
where I spend most of my time. It is
infinitesimal compared to the entire earth.
I have literally been around the earth; I have been to India, China,
Japan and South America. I can tell you
how huge the earth is. According to the
Psalmist, the whole earth is the Lord’s.
I have to smile. I am
bold enough to tell you I own my home! I
could buy some land and claim ownership.
I am duped into thinking the earth is not the Lord’s. Part of it is mine! Legally this is true. But cosmically it is a pretension and
illusion. Legally I can keep other
people from claiming ownership of my house.
But cosmically, I cannot tell God this house is mine! And it is not just about my house.
The next line of the Psalm says that God claims me and you,
too. The Psalmist writes that God takes
charge of “the world and all who live in it.”
This is where it gets tricky. If
you ask me or most people on an American street, we would say, of course, that
we are free. I can go where I want to
go. In most cases, I can do what I want
to do. Particularly when you are young
and vigorous, you think you are totally free and capable of anything! At that point, we often feel god-like! But we are not.
Maybe that is good news to learn that we are not
god-like. But it does not always seem
like good news. It is humbling to come
to the realization that we are not gods.
Sometimes it even feels humiliating to learn that we are not gods. The earth and its fullness belong to
God. Even our little place on the earth
is not really ours. We can claim it; we
can borrow it for a while. But
ultimately it is God’s.
So what do we do, once we hear this news and take it
seriously? The answer is already implied
in those first lines we quoted from the Psalm.
The deep truth is the earth and all its fullness is the Lords. That really is good news. It means that not only my house is the Lord’s
house. It means that you and I are also
the Lord’s. Quite simply, this means we
belong to God. There are a number of
ways people belong to each other.
We can think of the historical ways people have claimed
other people. There have been slaves and
there have been prisoners. Neither of
those categories make any sense when we think of God. I do not see myself as the slave of God. And God certainly does not take
prisoners---against our wills.
I think of two other categories that make much more
sense. In fact, these two are both
biblical ways of envisioning our relationship with God. The first way is to understand that we are
children of God. Surely this is what the
image of God the Father or God the Mother means to symbolize. You and I and every other person in the world are
a child of God.
Like all children, we can be good kids or we can be little
devils! I am sure God’s hope is for us
kids just as surely as my hopes are the very best for my two kids. God wants us to shine with the Inner Light
and be beacons to the world. We are to
join God’s other children to make this the very best world possible. In fact, God wants us to co-create the kingdom
of God!
The other positive image of our relationship with God is
that of servant. I like to think of
myself as the servant of God. I am put
on earth to serve God. And since
everyone and everything on the earth is the Lord’s, then I can legitimately see
a very broad range of possibilities when it comes to my service.
Obviously, no one can serve all seven billion people who
populate the earth. In most instances,
we will have to look at those around us.
These will be the ones we serve.
Some of them we might not even like.
But they also are God’s children---even if they are bad kids in the
moment. We will need to find ways to
bring good out of the bad. And the good
ones? We need to find ways to encourage
them to bigger and better things.
So the earth is the Lord’s…and so am I. Count me in, God. I am your child and servant. Put me to work.
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