IMITATING GOD THROUGH LOVE OF OTHERS

 

When our Lord Jesus Christ says in today’s gospel that the heavenly Kingdom is like a king, this makes clear, intuitive sense, because God is a king.  He has complete rule over the entire universe and every aspect of existence.  He is the Creator of all things, but all things also remain in existence, because, in every moment, He wills their continuation.  This one fact is very marvelous, when we consider the vast size of the universe, since our world is truly only a particle of dust in a vast sea of other particles, namely stars, planets, even galaxies.

When we consider our insignificance, this might be a temptation to our faith, except that we remember that the Lord God loves smallness and insignificance, just as we read in the eighth psalm: “When I look upon the heavens, the works of your hands, the moon and the stars You have created, what is man that You are mindful of him, or the human being that You care for him.  Yet you made him little less than the angels, with glory and honor you crowned him.” 

In a similar way, God also showed His mysterious love for insignificance and smallness, when He chose the people of Israel to be the instrument of salvation for the entire world. Further, He even entered into His Creation, not in a majestic way, but through smallness and insignificance, having become a man, a very tiny thing in the vastness of the universe.  

God has absolute rule over the universe, and His rule has not only infinite extension in space, but also in time. Past, present and future have no meaning for Him, because time is His creation, and He lives beyond its limits.  But, when we think about this absolute rule, we must remember that God is all-good.  God has a plan, which He created in love and compassion, and our circumstances are parts and aspects of His plan, because He is All-Mighty and All-Loving. So, every circumstance, even every trial, has a purpose in His plan for our good.  

God always wills our good, and so, we must bless God in all things. Similar to many things in human life, we need to form the habit of accepting the manifestation of God’s will in our circumstances with faith, love and hope.  

We know God’s will through His commandments, which He revealed to us. But, this knowledge of His will is not concrete.  Our knowledge becomes concrete through our response to circumstances. We have a choice to respond to our circumstances according to the commandments or against them. The Lord Jesus is very clear in this teaching, when He tells us that nothing that enters a man from the outside of him is able to defile him. In other words, external circumstances cannot soil us, but only our response to those circumstances can defile us. We must remember this when we suffer insult and scorn from others.   

Only the humble man is able to recognize trial as a blessing from God, because, in order to do this, we must admit that we do not have the complete knowledge that God has. Even the question, “how can such a thing be good?” puts limits on God’s goodness, since the Almighty can change anything, even the greatest evil, into the most perfect good, leading us to salvation.

Thus, it is clear that God does not judge us on the basis of our trials and temptations, but only for our responses to these things. In other words, He will judge us according to our deeds, how we have behaved towards others, and even towards Him. (We should not forget that we have a personal God, actually a tri-personal God, and our behavior towards Him is also interpersonal.) The day will come, when God settles accounts with us, and our accountability to Him needs to be our primary concern.

We need to be merciful towards our fellow human beings. God does not despise us in our smallness and insignificance, but He accepted that very same smallness and insignificance on Himself in the His Incarnation.  Our behavior towards others has to be similar to God’s behavior. God wants us to change our hearts according to the example He has given us, imitating His self-sacrificing love. Any failure in this area will defile us, and God will judge us accordingly.