Mt 1:1-17 Ancestory.God

Mt 1:1-17  Ancestory.God

(Click here for readings)

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  Abraham became the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob…

I live in a nice neighborhood.  All the homes are beautiful.  The yards are beautifully groomed.  The cars are brand new.  When you drive through the neighborhood, you never see any trash. 

The trash is hidden, kept out of sight.  Put in the back. 

I know why we hide our trash.  It’s unpleasant.  It’s unseemly.  It’s definitely not the first thing we want people to see around and inside our home.  Although our trash does say a lot about us:  what we eat and how we live, it’s something we don’t want people to see, period.

Yesterday, I got to thinking a lot about trash.  By the time I finished, I was surprised at where my mind had taken me.  I concluded that God is our trash.          

He is.  God is trash.  Or at least, we treat Him like trash.  We hide Him.  We keep Him out of sight.  We keep him far away from our homes, our schools, and our lives.  Often times, we consider Him, like trash, to be an unpleasant and unseemly reality.  Although God does say a lot about who we are, He remains someone we don’t want people to see, period. 

Let’s be honest.  It’s true. 

Yesterday evening, President Obama offered the people of Connecticut “the prayers and love of our nation.”    It was a very beautiful speech and gesture on the part of our Commander-In-Chief.  But what good are our prayers and love if God is treated like trash?

Is God allowed in our schools?  Is God allowed in our student’s speeches?  Is God allowed on public property?   No.  Let’s face it.  If our prayers are united to our God, then our prayers end up with our God:  in the trash.

As our nation continues to search for answers to the latest massacre of the innocent, we find ourselves going through the trash.  That’s right!  We’re all going through the trash right now.  We’re all looking for the God we threw in the trash some time ago. 

I don't know about you, but this always seems to happen to me:  I keep something around for a while and if I don't need it, there it goes, in the trash!  But then, out of nowhere, when I least expect it; I need it again!  And what do I do?  I go searching through the trash. 

Our God has become necessary again.  Our prayers have become necessary again.  Our love has become necessary again.  It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to spend our way out of this problem (it doesn’t mean we won’t try).  And it seems like our democracy, our Constitution, our elected officials, our suburban homes, our pills, our social workers, and our secular understanding of tolerance and acceptance did not shield us from yet another bitter tragedy.

We are all descendents and we are all related to each other.  This young man who killed twenty-six people is a product of our society, our laws and our way of life.  But so is the Lord.  Even the Lord is related to us.  In Christ’s family tree we see it all:  the good, the bad and the ugly.  But in Christ and through Christ we can see the best of who man can be and who God truly is.  The Lord is the culmination of man’s creation and man’s re-creation.  Those who accept Him are accepted into His family tree.

“For to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:12).

There are some people who think we need to get "past" God.  Unfortunately, some of them are the same people who brutally remind us of what we just threw away.

Let’s start looking for Him.  Let’s keep God in our homes, in our public and private lives, and in our schools. 

Trash belongs with trash.  God belongs with us.