God Delights in Us

"God brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me." Psalm 18: 19.

Sometimes we get so caught up in what we are to do or suppose to be doing that we forget that it is God who has taken the initiative. We are one small speck of dust compared to the rest of the universe. Out of all the billions of stars, grains of sand, blades of grass, species of birds, insects, fish, animals God has chosen to love us into existence. God is so delighted in us that we were made in the image and likeness of the Most Holy Trinity. What's more, God made each and every person out of love, for love with love as our ultimate destiny. How do we know this? Because "God is love". ( 1 John 4: 8). And because God created us in the image and likeness of God, we too are made out of love, for love, so that love might be our destiny. We have been made with an immortal soul and loved so very deeply that God wants us to be with God in love for all eternity. This is why God sent Jesus, the Son of God to redeem us from sin and call us to love one another, so that there may be a foretaste and vision of what our final destiny might be like.

It is difficult to see this given today's Gospel from Matthew 10: 34-42. Jesus talks about loving God more than our own mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and in-laws. Most of us might not have too much trouble with not loving the in-laws. Is Jesus really saying that we are not to love our parents, relatives and others around us? No, of course not. How can Jesus tell us in John 15: 12: "Love one another as I have loved you." and now here tell us to love God more than our own families? What does Jesus really mean here?

Our problem with reading and interpreting Scripture is that we fail to see the whole picture of what is going on. The entire 10th chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel is about going forth in the Name of God to deliver the good news that Jesus Christ is God's answer to the soul searching for love. There is nothing so near and dear to the heart of God than those who want to come closer to God, but feel that they cannot reach out to God and feel that God is taking an interest in them. In order to do that, the Disciples of Jesus have to be ready and willing to reach beyond themselves and their familiar surroundings. To be an agent of God's unconditional love, Christians have to see people as they are and for who they are. Christians must be willing to be the eyes, hands and feet of God that let people know that God has not forgotten them. When Christians reach out to other people in the Name of God, knowing that they and other people are loved and delighted by God, people can begin to see that God wants to draw ever so close to them. When the interaction between followers of Jesus Christ and others is done with Christians knowing that God delights in them as they are, they help others know that God has their best interests at heart. And how can Christians do that if they first do not know that God delights in them?

What we are talking about here is not the kind of evangelizing that fundamentalist Christians do. That is really not evangelizing, that is proselytizing. Hitting people over the head with guilt using the Bible is not how Jesus envisioned the mission and ministry of the Church. This is the kind of evangelism where people literally go beyond themselves, are willing to change the world through the changing of lives through love in attitude and action. We cannot change the world around us for the sake of the Gospel if we do not first and foremost see ourselves as having been loved and delighted by God to the point that God came to us in Jesus Christ, to bring us closer to God. God wants to come closer to us so that we may know that we are loved, beyond just a Scripture verse, but to the point where God sacrificed everything, so that we may know that everything God has made and redeemed about us is very beautiful and cherished.

Very often when I hear of people claiming to have a Christian or even a "Biblical" attitude towards other people, yet condemn people different than themselves, I am reminded of a Scripture verse that says quite the contrary. In the Wisdom of Solomon chapter 11 we read: "For it is always in your power to show great strength, and who can withstand the might of your arm? Because the whole world before you is like a speck that tips the scales, and like a drop of morning dew that falls to the ground. But you are merciful to all, for you can do all things, and you overlook people's sins, so that they may repent. For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living." (11: 21-26).

Sometimes how we react and interact with other people around us tells a lot about our relationship with God. To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to see so far beyond the values that we might have been given through the course of our lives, so that we can see God in all people, including and even especially in those whom society has stigmatized and marginalized. When conservative Christians and Catholics assert the notion that only if lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered individuals "change" their sexual orientation and/or gender expression because that is the only thing that is "acceptable" to God, what they are doing in fact, is telling God that God's creation out of love in that LGBT individual is flawed, hated or even despised.

Last month, my partner and I visited Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin for Pride during the Labor Day holiday. While we were in the River Front Festival Park in Duluth for the Pride festival, there were two "evangelists" there with huge signs, calling for LGBT individuals to basically give up their God given abilities to love, to think and become more like these men with the signs. In addition to the arrogance that was demonstrated by these two men, was a statement at the very top of one of those signs that read in caps: "YOU ARE NOT A GOOD PERSON." My reaction to that within myself, was one of sadness and anger. Because, it is basically saying that God's creation in me, in my partner and in the love that we share is flawed. Somehow something that God hates, and did not call forth or sustain is what is controlling my life. This flies in direct contradiction to who God is to my partner and I. "God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because God first loved us." (1 John 4: 16b - 19).

God has created, loved, redeemed and wants salvation for all of us. Yes, that's all of us, including LGBT and straight people of any gender, color, class and religion in every nation, who speak every language, or with any kind of challenge . God is so in love with us, that God delights in us and through Jesus the Son of God, we have been rescued and given the mission to let others know that they too are loved and delighted in. How today will we go beyond ourselves so that others might know that?

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart:
All else be nought to me, save that thou art-
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
though my great Father; thine own may I be;
thou in me dwelling, and I one with thee.

High King of heaven, when victory is won,
May I reach heaven's joys, bright heavens Sun!
Heart of my heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, O Ruler of all. Amen.
(Be Thou My Vision, translated by Eleanor H. Hull, versified by Mary Elizabeth Byrne. Hymnal 1982, #488).