Sitting with the Sacred

1 Samuel 26:2,7-9,11-13,22-23
Psalm 103:1-4,8,10,12-13
1 Corinthians 15:45-49 
Luke 6:27-38

“For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you” (Luke 6: 38). I struggle with the previous statement, for one because if it’s true of God, it doesn’t seem possible that God gazes at me with love. Past experience tells me that I can forgive neither as completely nor as often as I hope God forgives me. A second reason I struggle with the sentence is that it seems to contradict the message of the psalm for the day and as well as words attributed to Jesus a few verses earlier. Verse 12 of Psalm 103 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us,” and in Luke 6:35, Jesus says, “But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” These words don’t describe a divine parent who has a tit-for-tat relationship with me. I’m getting the message that, on the contrary, God responds to my weaknesses and failures with more love and generosity then I can’t contain. Luke 6:38 says, “Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.” The verse doesn’t say to hand God a metaphorical jar and that God will pour until the sand reaches to the rim, but he won’t pour any further. No, the verse says God is going to shake the jar of divine generosity sand so that as much as possible can fit into the vessel, and then God is going to keep pouring past the point where the jar overflows. God’s going to pour, not into a container with sides, but into my lap, where the generosity sands can spread out and be carried beyond me by the winds of the Spirit. I find the image in Luke 6:38 helpful. I’m calling what’s being poured “sand” because I know sand can be “packed together, shaken down, and overflowing . . . poured into [a] lap (Luke 6:38). I also know how its grains interact with each other, and I know the effects of water and wind on it.

Each grain of sand is a tiny, distinctive component relative to all of creation, yet it so often looks like it forms a smooth, unified body because each grain connects to those around and helps to form the body we call sand. Water smooths the rough edges of the body of sand and binds its components together, just as one might say baptism does to the Christian community. Faith community aside, water and wind move through all of us, so that we all form a body in that way. No matter how solid the body of sand might seem, it’s fragile and porous. Water and wind constantly rearrange it. Wind blows individual grains in different directions, just as the Spirit moves different people in different ways.

Maybe it’s key not to forget that I’m a grain of sand and to let the water and wind blow through me to the next grain and from other grains to me. Maybe it’s key not to imagine that I can cling eternally to myself, to other grains or to things that don’t belong to the beach, — such as buckets or shovels — no matter how useful or attractive these tools might be. I’ll always dry out, get blown around, and need to find the beach and to be wetted again so I can make something new. I can’t create something larger than myself on my own, and I can’t see the whole beach because I’m a mere grain.

Though I’m only one grain (and I can be irritating, to say the least, if I get caught where I’m not supposed to be), Luke 6:38 begins, “Give and gifts will be given to you. Maybe this phrase isn’t referring to God’s response to me. Maybe instead it’s referring to how others will respond when I give. After all, the phrase doesn’t identify God as the giver. Maybe Luke is using this phrase to remind us about the human experience. It seems only logical that the more someone gives, the more he or she gets back from others, and this shared generosity between people is one of the ways we experience God’s generosity in our lifetimes. Some people pass along the generosity they receive, even if not everyone does. Maybe the first person in an intricate web of generosity is blessed in unanticipated and/or immeasurable ways as giving is reciprocated from the ever-increasing numbers of lives the initial giver touches. If generosity works this way, it might be something we want to spread.

Work cited

The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.