You

You--September 20, 2018

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, not that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life." [Romans 5:6-10]

What does Jesus value?  

That is, if I may correct myself, ultimately the wrong question.  The issue is not a "what" sort of question, but a "whom" question.  Whom does Jesus value?  Who is of such worth to the infinite almighty Creator of the universe that the divine enters into death for their sake?

You.

You.

You.

And, of course, a whole world full of "us," too.  You are of such importance, such worth, to Jesus, that he thought it was better to give up his own life for your sake.  And mine.  And an endless line of other "ungodly," "sinful", "enemies" (all Paul's words here, mind you), who are also of such precious worth to God.

Now, so far, this is pretty basic, pretty standard Christian jargon.  "Christ died for us" is like Gospel 101, and all too often we religious folk don't go any deeper to poke at that sentence to think about what it means or how radical it is.  But if we consider what Paul says here as he fleshes out this idea of a God who enters into death--the Ground of Being drowning in non-being on a Friday afternoon!--it should shake us, terrifyingly and then wonderfully, to our core.

And this is why: the New Testament makes it clear, here among other places, that God values you apart from your "goodness" or "badness."  Apart from your being well-behaved or being a chain-smoking, unkempt, alimony-shirking, deadbeat drifter panhandling for booze money.  Apart from whether you were born in America or across the border or across the ocean.  Apart from whether you have paid your taxes or go to church. Apart from whether you pray to God daily or don't believe in God at all.  Apart from whom you love, and apart from whom you hate. You are precious to the living God, regardless of whether your manners are polished and refined like something out of an etiquette book or a debutante's ball or as rough as a corncob.  In fact, like all other human beings, you are not just one OR the other, but a peculiar mix of both righteousness and rottenness. And we are, all of us, tainted like bad clams. And yet, in the face of all this, Jesus deems you infinitely valuable.  Enough to die for.  Enough to embrace while an enemy, knowing that you might stab him in the back or nail him to a cross while you are that close.

Your life is of greater value to Jesus than preserving his own.  Period.  Full-stop.

Let that sink in for a moment.  You know yourself pretty well, I hope.  You know, surely better than I, the skeletons in your closet, the things you are ashamed of, the failures you cannot shake, and the selfish rottenness back in the cobwebbed cornered where you don't let anybody else in to see.  And then beyond what you know about yourself, there's a whole list of other stuff that God knows that even you and I don't want to face about ourselves, or don't see anything wrong with.  The secret hates we have learned to justify, the ways we have let ourselves off the hook for our avarice and indifference, the ways we have told ourselves we have "forgiven" ourselves for things we should still be on the hook for, and the smug self-righteous pride we have baptized to let ourselves think we are better than someone else.  The things we are so used to that they don't even raise a red flag for on our own hearts, but which God has never forgotten or ignored.  All of that, too, God is completely and perfectly aware of... and still God says, "I choose you."  

Still, God says, "Death for me first!--rather than life without this precious one whom I love."

It is enough to move one to tears of joy. It is rare, after all, to be loved like that, in this world of fickle, conditional, half-hearted empty promises and broken commitments.  Most of the time, we hide ourselves, either in part or in full, from each other (and from ourselves) in order to avoid being rejected by someone who says they love us, because we are afraid that if we are truly seen in all our rottenness, we will find the limits of their acceptance.

And yet here is the apostle Paul--a man who literally died for the chance to tell the least-acceptable people that they were accepted--insisting that the God who sees you completely loves you all the more, without condition and without asterisks.  And more than that, Paul makes it clear that this love from God is not simply a foggy cloud of emotion or endorphins, but is the conscious choice of the divine to deem your life worth more than preserving God's own life.  That's what the cross is--for whatever else the death of Jesus means, it cannot mean less than God's absolute, irrevocable, wholehearted decision to value your life more than keeping God's own life safe.  You are of such infinite value to Jesus.

But, if you will allow me for just a moment more, let that sink in further, all the way down to the ground floor.  If you are loved so unconditionally, if you are valued so infinitely, but wholly regardless of being "ungodly" or an "enemy" or a "sinner," then that means that everybody else on God's green earth is so loved and valued as well.  If God deems me precious without regard for my "goodness" or "badness" (and that is what Paul has said, very clearly), then the "goodness" or "badness" of anybody else is not a factor in God's love for them, or God's determination that they are of infinite worth as well.

So it's not just the adorable kindergarteners who have been coloring rainbows and unicorns that God in Christ says are of ultimate worth, as cute as they surely are. and it's not just the decorated soldiers or the heroic firefights who marched into the burning buildings, as good and noble as those folks surely are.  As Paul says, "someone might dare to die for a generically 'good' person, maybe," after all.  But from God's vantage point, the white-collar criminals, the entitlement-abusing absentee parents with drinking problems, the spoiled rich kids who think they can do anything with impunity and want to rub your face in it, the bitter angry kids who punch other kids at school because their moms told them they were accidents, the repeat overdose case who keeps getting Narcan-ed back to life, the mean old racist neighbor who is mad that the world is changing, and the couple that got evil-eyed out of the church and understood the unspoken message that they were not welcome, and everybody else you have ever met or ever will meet--we are, all of us, deemed infinitely precious by God apart from our supposed "goodness" or "badness."

There is no one you will ever know who is not worth dying for in God's book.

There is no one over whom Jesus will ever say, "Ugh... now that is too far--that loser is just not worth the pain."

And that means, finally, that there is no one you will ever come across that Jesus does not insist we treat with the respect and love due to someone who is made in the image of God--no matter how much damage we do that image in each other and in ourselves.  

For Christians, at least, this is our obligatory, non-negotiable posture toward the whole world.  We are not permitted only to be kind to "our kind of people," and we are not allowed to look out only for "our interests first."  We are not authorized to say we matter more, or that we should look out for things that help Christians more than non-Christians, and are not given the divine OK to think that God loves us because of our goodness, our smartness, or even our ability to love God.  Everybody you meet today is of infinite worth because Jesus deems them so.  You and I don't have to like it--it just is.

But even on the days when we fail to live like that is true--even at the points where we slide back down into self-preservation and limits and Me-and-My-Group-First rottenness, you cannot lose God's love.  Because you know Jesus thinks is utterly precious?

You.  And the person you least expect, too.

O Love that will not let us go, let it sink in on this day how deeply you value us, and let us then treat this whole world full of your creations like the precious treasures you declare us to be.