How do we know what matters? As I scroll through social media or various news apps I am inundated with endless commentary. It seems that everyone has an opinion on everything, but why? Why expel energy on something that has absolutely nothing to do with you? Just yesterday I decided to look at the comments on a post about a missing girl in my town and the first one I came across was “If someone runs away are they actually missing?” which, to be honest, is a perfectly fine philosophical question, but was that really the right place to ask it? Of course not. Further reading revealed that this person regularly posts bait like this to get people riled up, my question is why? Why would you purposefully seek to get people angry or upset them? What is missing from your life that causes you to feel the need to do such a thing?
King David, God’s chosen leader of the Israelites, the man who God made king of not only Israel, but also Judah, uniting the kingdoms under one royal house, the man who literally had all he wanted still wanted more. He wanted the wife of Uriah for himself, so he arranged for the man’s death; not through murder, but by sending him into battle. Is this any different than the internet troll who posts inappropriate things just to get a rise out of people?
The theme emerging here is that humanity has an issue with desire. We see it in John’s Gospel as well. The people who have followed Jesus have experienced the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, and they want more, but what they want is more miracles, they want God to show them why they should follow this new teacher called Jesus. They are hung up on the experiences that have helped them understand instead of stretching their mind and trusting God’s wisdom. They want a daily reminder that God is present, instead of just knowing it to be true. They want to see God directly intervene in the world, as they did when they sent Mana from heaven or with the feeding of the five thousand. The issue here is that they will never be satisfied, there is no level of divine intervention that will cause them to believe without seeing. Which is why God chose a different way, God chose to reach us through Jesus, who has told us that “he is the bread of life,” but not the bread we need to survive physically, God has already provided us with all we need to survive on earth. The earth provides us with food and with the means to shelter from the elements, if there are any issues in these areas it is because we have broken the system. The bread Jesus is referring to is the bread we need to survive spiritually and emotionally, yet the people in Capernaum sought only more visible proof, proof that would lead to the desire for even more proof and in many ways don’t we do the same.
When we speak about our community of faith, or even go as far as to invite people to join us, what do we talk about? Do we talk about the spiritual connection to God we encounter here? Do we talk about the love we have for each other? Do we talk about the ways in which God’s love has manifested in our hearts? Or do we talk about the social justice committee, and the Green Team, and the book groups, and the racial reconciliation work? All the things we do as a community, all of the education work, all the social justice work is not from God. It is not God’s work, nor should it be our primary work as people of faith; it is the work we choose to do as we are inspired and called by God to love our neighbor and it is a sign that we are people of faith; but how do we know this and how can we share the good news of Jesus, the news that if we believe and follow his teachings then we will forever feel the presence and love of God, because that is what has been promised.
I am by no means arguing that communities of faith should not develop social justice programming, but it can’t be all that we do, and more importantly it cannot be our primary focus. We must also be keenly aware of why we engage in these activities because our reasons can quickly become our own and our efforts can quickly become idolatry instead of an outward sign of our faith.
When I was teaching ethics the most difficult question for students to answer was why something is unethical. I was trying desperately to get them to think about why they thought the way they did, what was the underlying reason for why they believed that stealing is wrong. Rarely were they able to articulate their belief about any topic, but they were sure in their convictions. As people of faith the underlying reason for everything we do and believe should be the love of God and to ensure that it is, we must spend more time endeavoring to feed on the bread of life so that we can internalize the teachings of Jesus to the point that they become second nature. How life giving would it be to be sure in our decisions, to understand and trust that God is at the center of all that we do? David realized his mistake because of the wisdom passed to him by Nathan. He realized that his decision to cause the death of another man so that he could have his wife was about him and not God. Just like his desire to build a temple was about him and not God. The people of Capernaum sought proof of God, just like we seek to prove that we believe in God by touting the work that we do, instead of internalizing the teachings of Christ Jesus and trusting that the work is in fact a consequence of faith. When we truly internalize our belief of love of neighbor and self, we will notice a difference. We will realize that the internet trolls are simply people who need attention and need to feel important. We will realize that it is not worth my time to get upset over changes at work because if our boss makes a change, it is likely because they believe it is necessary. We will realize that most people have good intentions and that our assumptions about their actions have far more to do with us and our desire to be in control than it does with what they are doing. Trusting God requires that we trust each other because it is through us that God reaches the world.