Saturday, January 30, 2016

A Blog About Nothing

I recently had the opportuninty to preach on Nothing.  It's a topic that I've been reflecting on as I continue to move toward my priestly ordination.  When we think of the word of nothing, we can take two approaches: we can think of it in the lens of men or of God.  

Man; being influenced by the devil, the world, and our own brokeness; has a negative understanding of the word.  The devil, wanting us to believe we are nothing in the eyes of God, wants us to abandon God and for us to live our life for ourselves.  The devil wants us to believe God doesn't have a purpose or a plan for our life, and therefore, we are to make of it what we want (a life lived selfishly).  The world brings its own influences to the word.  To the world, in particular a capitalist society, you need to contribute and produce.  And if you don't, you are nothing!  Where does this, however, leave the young, the old, those who are sick or disabled?  The world dismisses them or at least tolerates them.  And finally in our own brokenness and weaknesses; as I get older, it is clear that I'm not capable as I once was.  This can bring doubts and questions of the inabilities and nothingness the future might continue to hold for me.

In all the negative influences, you can see how the word NOTHING can be scary when it is directed to our very life!  Yet the Scriptures reveal something different about nothing!  In Genesis, it is revealed in the creation account, the Lord created the world out of nothing!  But it's not the only time the God takes nothing and creates something beautiful.  The entire story of Israel in the OT is filled with constant works of the Lord in the nothingness of Israel.  In the New Testament, the Lord continues to bring something beautiful out of nothing, just look at his miracles and calling of the Apostles.  Look at the story of St. Peter, the first shepherd of the Church: here is a man, who was a fisherman off the sea of Galilee.  There was nothing special about his life.  If anything it would be easy to say he was nothing (to the devil, to the world, and even to himself).  Yet the Lord chose him, and lifted him up to the first shepherd of the Church.  In Christ's very life, we see Christ on the Cross.   To the devil, the world, and even in our own doubts, we might say there is pointless, nothingness of the Lord suffering on the Cross. And yet that was a moment that our salvation was even possible, where are Lord poured out His life for us!  Today, the Lord still works in the beauty of the Church.  At Mass we look at the bread and wine, and once again we are confronted by the devil, world, and our brokeness, and want to claim that it's nothing.  But at the words of consecration of the priest, through Jesus Christ, that bread and wine become his Body and Blood!  That nothingness becomes our everything!

We are constantly confronted that the Lord is active and working in our nothingness! If we are looking in the lens of the Lord, it should begin to excite us when we are confronted by our doubts, our brokenness, our weaknesses, our nothingness!   Because it is precisely in that moment that we know and see God at work in our lives! For only God can create something out of our nothingness.  This is why I'm getting excited about my priestly ordination not because God is choosing me because of all I have and been given, but because He is going to draw great and beautiful things out of me that which is nothing.