Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 350

Sing it, Little Brother!

How beautiful are all his works!
even to the spark and fleeting vision!
The universe lives and abides forever;
to meet each need, each creature is preserved.
All of them differ, one from another,
yet none of them has he made in vain,
For each in turn, as it comes, is good;
can one ever see enough of their splendor?

The sage Jesus ben Sirach, a Jewish philosopher who introduced Greek wisdom to his contemporaries, and wrote the Book of Ecclesiasticus, recognized in Greek thought the Lord his people had worshipped for a millennium. He is the Lord of glory and power, of wisdom and beauty, and goodness and right. He is simultaneously just and merciful, which to our minds seems impossible.

Sirach discovered in Greek thought and in Jewish history our longing for eternity. His is more than idle, mathematical speculation about endless possibilities. He beholds majesty everywhere he turns.

Many of our contemporaries, scanning a universe with sophisticated tools and methods far beyond Sirach’s wildest imagining, suppose there has to be some purpose to it all. It can’t possibly be entirely bereft of intelligent life, except for our seemingly inconsequential Planet Earth. What would be the point of such vastness? Surely there are other beings out there and surely they are searching for us! Only self-conscious sentience with aspirations of technological progress and upward mobility can justify the existence of a universe.

But these critics fail to note the superabundance, the over-compensation of life all around us. Why does a single maple tree drop hundreds of thousands of “helicopter” seeds each year? There may be millions, for all I know. Most of those seeds will never germinate. I watch nature television and see sea turtles laying thousands of eggs in the sandy shore. Odds are none of those baby turtles will attain maturity. Many will be gobbled up before they hatch; and most will not make it past the terns, seagulls and hawks to the sea. This profligality is all around us -- and within us. For that matter, do we really need how-many-billion people on the earth right now?

If every maple seed should have a Purpose, and every sea turtle have ambition for upward mobility, then life may be indeed be pointless.

But that kind of thinking is anthropocentric. Why should it all make sense to me? Does the universe owe me an explanation or apology for its being? For its beauty and vastness and wonder? For its complexity and subtlety? Should Glory squeeze itself into the limits of my comprehension?

When I surrender to this enormity I see the hand of God. Like an artist, poet or sculptor, God delights in creativity. Why make one when you can make a million? Or a billion? 

There's a bird in there
somewhere.

But – lest we forget – “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches over me.” Once again the anthropocentrist thinks, “God is too busy to pay attention to me.” Because the human brain can pay attention to only one thing at a time, this armchair philosopher says, “God doesn’t have time for me.” As if God is only another limited human brain. Would you not let your God watch over you and your neighbor too?

We cannot imagine the Lord of All Creation. Nor can we grasp all creation. But we can sense – philosophers call it intuit­ – the presence and majesty and enormity and beauty of God. We can bow down and worship.