For God, nothing is impossible

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030419.cfm
Sirach 17:20-24
Mark 10:17-27

“Then who can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said,
“For men it is impossible, but not for God.
All things are possible for God.”
(Mark 10:26-27)

These two verses sum up the dilemma for Christians in the world. We live here. We’ve been brought up here. The things we do in this life, the only one we know, have been drilled into us as consequential to our eternal life. All religions, even the general framework of our Christian religions, tell us to please God in order to win him over. 

Jesus doesn’t say that. He says to follow him. He says that God the Father wants to win us over to himself, the Son, Jesus the Christ. Jesus says the Father will do that by his Holy Spirit living in us. We don’t become zombies, but we join our will to the Father, and then we belong to Jesus. We walk in the Holy Spirit, and the world will be restored and repaired. “Thy Kingdom come,” we are told to pray, meaning bring the Kingdom here. We’re supposed to see God doing that.

That’s not how most of us work things out, though. We see the piles of children toys, many which are broken or missing pieces. We see the unwashed dishes in piles, too, and those piles of bills, tools, leaves, snow, and dirt. We try to keep up, and push the piles around. It’s the way of the world — waiting for repair and restoration. We think it’s up to us.

The Kingdom seems an impossibility, along with our place in it. How can we be allowed in when we can’t keep our own little part of the world in proper order? There's a filthy toy. We clean it. We knuckle down and work harder. 

We’ve parlayed with other folks, and made all kinds of agreements and commitments to a large swath and range of relationships — family, friends, partners, spouses, children, and communities. Lots of different communities. In almost all respects of this world, God is invisible. Our habits and practices deal with tangible things and visible men and women, boys and girls. Love, truth, ecstasy, joy, and mystical encounters aside — which for most of us are both fleeting and overwhelming at the same time, because the bulk of our days and nights are spent with the conscious, physical and demanding array of sense-based interactions — so much is broken and dirty. 

The world looks pretty godless.

I don’t mean to downplay contemplative life, prayer among hand-holding believers, and the miraculous display of God’s presence to the saint-building experiences and encounters with the Holy Trinity. I’m simply projecting the reality of worldly operations. We interact primarily with toilets, procedures to pay our bills, kitchens, distractions to refresh our minds and bodies, beds, chairs, roads, stairs, and health goals.

One can argue, and many do, that God expects us to spend the largest part of our day fixing stuff, maintaining stable relationships after we build them, bringing order to every facet of society, and “Doing unto others as we’d have them do unto us.” That’s pretty much all-inclusive activity for a steady 75 years of life. We may even get more! A lot of us get less. At the end of that, we hope we performed well enough to be rewarded with some next life somehow, or at least some peace and quiet. 

We don’t want to think about only getting a few years of existence, but because that’s a possibility we try to keep our head down and avoid shrapnel. We don’t like suffering with chronic illness or pain, and we extend our desire for good luck to weekly lottery dreams, weirdly thinking that a few decades of wealth would bring satisfying happiness.

Wealth does not bring us eternal life. Neither does poverty. Nothing we can do in our life will save us, except for the intercession and redemption of Jesus Christ.

Three insufferable Christian things grate against the chalkboard of life’s common formula for success with that last sentence. 

First, eternal life is out of our hands. We can’t summon, fawn, manipulate, calculate or plead for eternal life. God must offer it to us with his expectations, not ours. Second, God must intercede for us in this world for us to join him in the next, in order for any offering of eternity to actually take place. There’s got to be a specific, clear, and personal interaction for us to understand the offer, discuss and study it, and then seal the deal. Third, that intersection, and consequent retrieval of ourselves by God comes in the form of God made man — the Christ, Jesus. Jesus offers us the Holy Spirit, living and personal, to each of us. The Father of Jesus imbues us with truth as part of a transforming gift of faith, and showers us with love that knows no boundaries and has no limits.

So, in order to follow Jesus Christ we literally must turn our would upside down. It’s God who’s our prize, not the lottery. That’ll save us a few bucks. It’s the Holy Spirit who gathers us together, brings us challenges, and stores up our saintly rewards. That puts all our investments into a different perspective. Finally, it’s Jesus who is our brother and our king, making our relationships to every brother and sister a mystical union that supersedes any argument, every conflict, and all missions. Everyone is a member of that body with vital parts to play. The closer we get to Jesus, the closer we get to everyone else. 

And, yet, there’s still the kitchen, toilet, bills, automobiles, and beds. We either see God in those things, or we revert to the old ways of order. Do our best. Watch out for bullets. In no time at all, we wonder where God went.

The dilemma of eternal life doesn’t belong to just the non-believer. In fact, they may be in a much less angst-driven life than us believers. Knowing that God has a part to play in every element of our existence is comforting one moment, and horrifying the next several days.

We remind ourselves that God loves us as we are — incomplete, unaware, lofty, crude, and forgetful. We remind ourselves that God forgives us. We repent. We weep. We submit. He absolves our sin, absorbs our fear, and showers us with grace. 

The non-believer may not grasp that any of this can be true, because it is counter intuitive to the way the world appears to work. A broken world of worn out toys, fallen leaves, and frozen snow seems to be the norm. Life is much simpler by just keeping ahead, not taking on too much, and ducking at the appropriate times.

But, then what?

That’s where most of us Christians come from. Quite a few discover faith from being at the bottom of a well, with no more more energy to dig. Today’s scripture reading talks about the other group of folks. Floating on top of the water, success met, stuff fixed, and an inexhaustible new set of piles ahead finally takes the wind out of their sails.

“Hello,” whispers the Holy Spirit. “Nothing is impossible for God.”