The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
Some years ago, a social networking website called MySpace.com became very popular especially among teens and young adults. It was a program where a person could broadcast who they are to the entire world. It was a phenomenon that helped to earn News Corp, the parent company, revenues exceeding 23 billion dollars in 2005. In addition to photographs of themselves, users of MySpace could list intimate and personal details to just about anyone, details that formerly might have gone to the grave with the user. Since MySpace, there have been many such social networking apps developed from Facebook to Tiktok.
We could probably debate the appropriateness of such a forum forever. I guess my only concern about it is that people will tell perfect strangers, half way across the world, things that they won’t discuss with people just down the hall who really love them. Whatever else MySpace might say to us, it does make us aware of a great human need. . . the need to be known.
I believe many of us grow tired of the burden of holding up and maintaining the various layers that make up our outer selves. Deep down, we want the world to know who we really are inside. But this is a desire that causes us as much fear as it does excitement because we worry that if others knew our deepest darkest secrets that they would flat out reject us, and my dear friends in Christ, there is one need that outweighs even our need to be KNOWN, and that is our need to be WANTED.
More than anything else, I wish that I could convince the millions of young people who flock to electronic social groups like MySpace to consider Spirituality as a way to address these needs. I tend to work out of a theology that assumes that every nano second of our living is fully known by God and is, in fact, our gift back to a God who is creating us and re-creating us moment by moment, eternally. It is exactly for this reason that we describe our God at the opening of every liturgy as One for whom all hearts are open; all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid. We’re not describing big brother in the sky, we are describing One, just down the hall, who loves us more than we can even imagine
I wish with all my heart that I could convince all the searching people out there that God has bridged the two needs; God has created a space for us to be exactly who we are, with all the layers peeled back, and a space where we will be WANTED and DESIRED for eternity! This should be good news. It should be a comfort to know that God knows us so intimately, but I wonder if some of that fear that I described a bit ago begins to creep in. Do some of us have a hard time getting close to God because we feel deep inside that God must reject us? After all, God knows. . . God really knows what we’re really like.
I have to tell you that as a priest, if I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times, in a million different ways: God can’t love me. If God knows all, then he must also know that I’m just not worth it. If you’ve ever had a thought even remotely close to this, then the parable told by Jesus in today’s Gospel was told just for you.
GOD NEVER REJECTS YOU…AND GOD NEVER GIVES UP ON YOU!
If I don’t say anything else in this meditation that makes an impression, I want you to remember that.
There is a story told about the great patriarch Abraham. One day Abraham saw a stranger walking in the distance, and the stranger looked weary from a long journey through the desert. Abraham invited the traveler to dine with him and stay the night. The man readily agreed, but as Abraham was preparing to serve the meal, he discovered that his guest was a FIRE WORSHIPPER.
Abraham was outraged at this, and he threw him out of his house without so much as a morsel to eat.
That night, God appeared to Abraham in a dream and asked, Why did you treat your guest so poorly?
Because he did not worship you, the one true God, my Lord, came the reply.
But God continued, Abraham, Abraham, I have loved that fire worshipper for sixty years. Couldn’t you have put up with him for even one night?
It kind of changes your perspective a little bit, doesn’t it? If you register on God’s MySpace, you as a person will always mean more to God than your creed or your past.
Like the fig tree in the parable, we all have a little of the unfruitful in us, don’t we? We all have a little deadness at the roots, don’t we? The fig tree had three years to produce, but it is still barren, and so the owner commands it to be cut down. But the caretaker offers another solution. He wants to offer the tree the grace of more time, and the goodness of a richer environment. The tree only merits this good grace because it is the desire of the caretaker to give it. We have a thoughtful caretaker in Jesus Christ.
My favorite apocryphal story about Jesus is when St. Peter realizes that some undesirables are managing to get into heaven, undesirables that St. Peter knows he hasn’t let through the gates. Peter decides to stake out the halls of heaven at night to find the culprit who is breaking all the rules of acceptance. As he walks by this one door, he hears a rustling and shuffling-like noise and some whispers. Peter throws open the door, and there is Jesus pulling people into heaven through a small opening where he had removed some bricks and mortar. In my Father’s house, there are many rooms. Heaven is a roomy place. We can all find our space there.
We can be KNOWN, and we can be WANTED all at once. This should provide some serious competition to News Corp. The God of Jesus Christ values us so highly and has so much regard for our potential that God is almost blind to our past. God is constantly cultivating us with vision, and with life and with presence!
The word Grace is defined in the Bible probably more than any other single word. The definition starts in Genesis and can be found throughout the entire scriptural record.
Adam and Eve disobeyed the very first rule, but God never gave up.
Abraham wandered, and Sarah laughed, but God never gave up.
Moses hid and shook with fear, but God never gave up.
Saul went insane, but God never gave up.
God’s people were exiled, but God never gave up.
Peter denied that he even knew Jesus, but God never gave up.
The disciples all ran away, but God gathered them back into the divine embrace and loved them all the same. God never gives up!
That’s GRACE!
Now maybe I’m just hallucinating, but don’t you hear a Go and do likewise in there somewhere? Isn’t it true that we often give up on other people too quickly? In the face of this parable today, don’t you think we should perhaps re-evaluate our patience for other people? Isn’t it true that we so often treat people like used cars? Isn’t Jesus trying to tell us that we needn’t check the condition of the oil or kick the tires when it comes to our neighbor? Isn’t Jesus trying to tell us that we need only to accept and embrace?
Now, I’m not saying this is going be easy. When the caretaker in today’s text volunteers not to give up on the slow-to-fruit tree, he does commit himself to a year of shoveling manure. To never give up doesn’t mean the same thing as to never suffer defeat. I believe that is why Jesus prefaces today’s parable with a couple of tragedies that even fell on innocent and good people. Love is risky and never carries a money back guarantee.
Have you ever stopped to read some of those heartbreaking missing children posters hanging in the post office or stapled to neighborhood telephone poles? Look carefully next time, and you might be shocked to see that the last seen dates on some of the pictures go back as far as the 2000’s. Even after more than two decades, a parent’s hope cannot be squelched, so it is with God. God has never and will never give up on you. You can always have MySpace in the life of God.
We aren’t told the ending to today’s parable. We haven’t been let in on what happened that next year. We have every reason to believe that given the new circumstances, that barren tree produced a rich yield. But what if it didn’t? I am certain that the caretaker would ask for one more year. Would it fly in the face of all we hold to be just, and right and fair to assume that the owner would recklessly grant yet another year? I don’t think so, not if it’s God we’re talking about.
Nietzsche once said, If there are gods, they do not care for us. A Christian’s answer to that charge should always be, If they do not care for us, they are not God!
Another cynic once said, God is love, but get it in writing.
It’s been given to us in writing. The very WORD of God has come to us in Jesus Christ. And even hanging on a cross, in excruciating pain, his words are full of hope and grace: FORGIVE THEM!
The need to be known and the need to be wanted, Jesus fulfills them both. As Isaac Watts described it so powerfully in the metaphor of O Little Town of Bethlehem — The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
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