Whole Selves

Whole Selves--May 14, 2019

"Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, to whom be glory forever and ever.  Amen" [Hebrews 13:20-21]

It's funny, the difference between what we think we need and what God thinks we need, isn't it?

We tend to assume we know our own needs best, and sometimes that is true.  But every time I offer an after-school snack to my kids who insist they are "starving," and they balk when I offer grapes or apples but think that a handful of Skittles candies will fill their growling bellies, I am reminded that we humans are great at fooling ourselves.  A lot of the time we have our own lists of what we think we need (or we have just baptized our "wish lists" and re-christened our "wants" as "needs"), and then we are surprised when God seems to have a different set of priorities than we have.

This is one of those moments where the Scriptures surprise me like that.  These are a sort of final benediction in the book we call "Hebrews" (the books of the Bible originally no titles, of course), and these words are offered by the anonymous author as a blessing, a prayer asking for God's provision and power on the people who to whom the book was written.  And just in case we forgot how powerful this God is, the writer is sure to add in that this is the same God "who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus."  In other words, we aren't talking about some cut-rate third-class deity who can only do parlor tricks, but this is the very same God who really and truly raised Jesus from the dead.  This is not some distant and aloof "Force" a la Star Wars, which doesn't get involved in human affairs, and this is not some kind of god that refuses to upset the "natural order" of life flowing into death, since after all, this is the God who raised Jesus from the grave.  So just by that reminder, just by naming God as "You know, the same God who brought you Easter!" we are assured that God is powerful, and involved, and cares about human affairs.  Surely this God not only has the power to give us what we need most, but also has a policy of helping human beings rather than leaving us to fend for ourselves.  (The God of the Scriptures, in other words, does not follow the "Prime Directive" of Star Trek lore, which prevents the Federation from getting involved in the affairs of other planets.)

Ok, so we're ready for it--whatever good things that this Good and Powerful God is ready to lavish on us, we're ready for the writer of Hebrews to start calling on God to give us the things at the top of our wish lists... right?  After all, he's going to the trouble of calling on this God to bless us, so surely that's going to mean a prayer for good health, success in business, soaring stock markets, and attractive honor roll children... right?

Huh.  None of that makes the cut.  None of that seems to be at the top of the list for what the writer of Hebrews things we most need.  He goes to all the rhetorical trouble of invoking the God who raises the dead... and instead of saying, "May that same God who is all charged up with resurrection power, now unleash that power on your career so you'll get that promotion!" or "May the God who rolled away the stone now roll away all your student debt!", the prayer is that we would be "complete."  That we would be "whole." The prayer is that we would be the kind of people who can do and live God's will... which may or may not have anything to do with the new car you have been eyeing, the weather during your upcoming vacation, or your political party getting more control in the next election cycle.  The writer of Hebrews sees that what we need most is to be whole people.

And you know what, maybe this voice of Scripture knows us better than we know ourselves.  We live such divided lives, compartmentalized into Work Me, Family Me, Hobby Me, Political-Affiliation Me, and often only if there's any leftover crumbs, Church Me.  Maybe you can add some more fault lines that break you up into eve more pieces, too.  But my goodness, we are fractured and dis-integrated, not just from one other in these divisive days, but within our own selves.  And I don't know how that doesn't end up just feeling like it's killing us, slowly (or quickly) sapping the very life out of us.

So what the writer of Hebrews prays for--what he calls on the power of the God of resurrection for--is not for more money, more influence, more prestige, or more social networking opportunities for us--but that we would be... complete.  Whole.  Put-back-together.  The old word for it is "shalom"--not just peace in the sense of an absence of fighting, but the presence of wholeness.  That's what we are most aching for.  And maybe that is what we most need on this day, too.

So today, let's dare to let the voice of the Scriptures pray for us--asking God, not for the candy we thought we were hungry for, but for the real and nourishing food our deepest selves most need.  Let's allow the God of resurrection to meet our real longing, and to help put us back together as whole people, complete selves, raised up from the broken shards we have been living with.

O God who raises the dead, from our disheveled fragments, make us whole--make us complete, so that that we can live in your good way.