Have you ever though about what life is all about? You know, questions such as: Why was I born?, or why do we have certain feelings, or why is there suffering and joy – or why is there death?
I know I have. For nearly sixty-two years, ever since I began to develop the ability to reason, even as a child, I questioned the purpose of life. I watched as new plants sprang to life in the Spring, flourished and produced their fruits, and then died in the frosty nights of late Fall. I observed the humble insect, a house fly, flitting around the kitchen one day, the next lying dead on the window sill. I wondered as I watched the robin, swollen with the unlaid eggs of her new offspring, flying back and forth from the ground to the place high up in the tree where she was preparing her nest. And I marveled at the hatching of the fledgling robins, with their constant chirping in hunger, and later stood in awe as I saw them struggle to learn to fly.
Growing up on a small “family” farm, with a cow kept for milking, pigs and chickens for future “bacon and eggs,” and a vegetable garden every summer that produced the great majority of the foods that my parent’s family would live on for the whole year, I witnessed hundreds, probably thousands, of God’s little miracles – God’s gifts of love to the creation which had been made in the image of God. And I marveled at it all: at all that I observed. Even though I could not, as such a young age, begin to understand the meaning of all that I saw, I was still filled with awe by the visions of these wonderful, incomprehensible mysteries that happened all around me, day after day. Even the terrible incidents – like the time I had a pet die in my arms, or that time that a young bird expired in my hands, having fallen from its nest long before it was ready to fly away and be on its own – even these terrible tragedies, as puzzling as they were to such a young mind, revealed to me a truth that it would take me generations to understand, and to appreciate.
How do we look at life? Is it a state of existence into which we are born? Is it the cycle of birth, living, and dying? Perhaps these are way that we, you and I, look at life. But is that really what life is?
Life is a Gift from God. Life comes from God, life radiates from God. Life does not exist without God. I know that there are those who try to prove that God does not exist, but their theories, as scientific as they may sound, have never proven the intended theory. And that is, I believe, because science can only prove or disprove that which has a physical substance, or is produced by the interaction of physical substances. If it cannot be examined under the microscope, if it cannot be prodded and poked in order to identify its parts, Science cannot prove or disprove it. It is only in the ACTION which the non-physical causes in or upon the physically existent that we are made physically aware of that which is not of a physical existence. The simplest to so point out is the wind. Can you see the wind? No, you can’t. But, you can see the affect that wind has on other, physical objects. You can feel the effect of the wind moving the air against your face or arm; you can see the effect of wind as it causes leaves to flutter on the tree, or the branches dance as the wind increases. But you cannot see the wind.
And like the wind, life is mystery; something we have, but yet something which we do not fully understand. Science can reproduce the human body from the elements of the earth, but it cannot, in any way, create life. But, wait, you say. What about cloning? To that I respond, Cloning begins with an already living organism, some part of an already living creation. It is natural creation done in a test tube. Without that mysterious, incomprehensible, breath of God, nothing created by the hands of humans lives.
And that, my friends, brings me to the dilemma before me today. I am mystified by today’s Gospel reading. Two of these three verses from Matthew’s 10 chapter having me asking questions I don’t know how to phrase.
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one sent me.”
This I understand. Jesus is sending the disciples out be missionaries; if those to whom the disciples go receive them, i.e., accept them and the message that they carry, then those very people are accepting Jesus, because it is what Jesus taught that the disciples carry out as the message. And if the people accept Jesus, then they are accepting God, because God sent Jesus.
Are we in agreement with this? Good. Then let us move on.
“Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever givens even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
I cannot tell you what these words mean in my own words. Even after a week of pondering, I am forced to turn to others for comprehension, and even then, I remain in the shadows.
So I quote: “. . . this chapter need not be alien at all. It reveals in concentrated form what the Christian life essentially is: confession of (God’s act in) Jesus, living toward the eschaton [ i.e. the last time, or the end of time] with a concern for mission in this world, letting go of both material possessions and fear of what others might think about us or do to us, placing loyalty to the God revealed in Christ above all other loyalties, even the deepest ones of home and family, a life of non-resistance to violence, trust in God and God’s future.”
But then the author of this piece adds: The call to this life of mission is not directed to the twelve only. For Matthew, all disciples are apostles; all participate in the apostolic mission.”
And in quoting, I begin to understand. Matthew is not just telling us the story of Jesus instructing the 12 DISCIPLES for their first mission; Matthew is telling us what WE, we who are also his disciples, must do to live the kind of life that we have been created for. We must equipt ourselves to carry forward as missionaries, even if we do not travel beyond our homeland. We have to let go of our need to own possessions, and give all for the mission to which we have been called. We have to let go of our fears of what others may think about us, and do what we know needs to be done, regardless of the possibility of being laughed at or ridiculed, even turned against. We have to give our loyalty to who it belongs – God, our creator – even if that means leaving behind home and family in order that we may do what God has given us to do. It is having the courage to face violent actions and people without a weapon of war in our hands, but a most powerful one in our hearts – L-O-V-E – love. And, if we give as we have been given, so shall we then be received.
And the reward for life, is life eternal.
Amen.