Saturday of the First Week of Advent

Lectionary: 180

Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give."

Everyone who has studied the scriptures and pondered their deepest mysteries, I suspect, has formed dozens of different formulae which might summarize the Gospel. But the Lord's remark about freely receiving and giving must rank high among them. 

Of course, it demands much of us. To take it seriously we slow our frenetic activity and consider how much and how freely we have received from the Lord. To do that, we might have to struggle for a while with the misconceived conviction that we did it ourselves. This world's philosophers prize the self-made man who lifted himself by his own bootstraps out of the mire of poverty and became Someone. The absurd metaphor mocks the poor -- bootstraps are used to pull on boots and nothing more --  and satirizes those who believe it. 

That being said, do we not deserve some credit for what we have become? Granted that most successful people grew up in stable, two-parent homes, with adequate food, clothing, housing, medical care, and education. And many were given higher education, though some needed low interest loans which a successful career quickly absorbed. At least one notorious billionaire was given several million dollars to start with. Do they not deserve some credit? 

President Obama's remark -- "You didn't built it!" -- cannot be ignored. Successful people were born at the right time and exploited the right moment. If they hadn't done it, someone else would have. That's how the odds work. A predetermined number of entrepreneurs will succeed; a larger number will fail. They were all clever, and they all worked hard. The successful were lucky. But is there no accomplishment somewhere amid that effort? 

Argue as you might, no one can dismiss the Lord's command, "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give."

In the first place, God made us. He had no need and felt no obligation to create the universe out of nothing, nor to create us out of mud. He was not lonely. The Trinity is a perfectly satisfying communion of love between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Billions of years before the human creature appeared the Earth seemed quite satisfied with its superabundance of living creatures. There was so much life and so many forms of life it could afford several mass extinctions before we appeared! There was no apparent need to create a self-conscious, intelligent, and incredibly creative creature; but there was a generous impulse in God to bestow existence upon the mud and create something in His own image and likeness. 

That image comprised radical freedom from instincts and astonishing, endless ingenuity, neither of which were necessary. Human freedom and creativity are so remarkable that some scientists say we created ourselves. And yes, given their premise of a godless universe -- deus abscondus -- it's not an implausible argument. 

However, the Holy Spirit moving in us, scripture, and common sense recognize the Gift of Being with its burden of responsibility. We are given much and must return everything. Our common ancestors, Adam and Eve, forfeited the divine prerogative to endless life. We must die, and can take nothing with us into the earth. In fact, we'd do better to surrender all claims before that day comes. 

By God's mercy, we hope for an easy transition into eternity, and prepare for That Day by giving as freely as we have received.