February 8,
2017
Wednesday,
Week Five, Year I
Genesis
2:4-17; Psalm
104; Mark
7:14-23
Oh, bless the Lord, my
soul!
Genesis
2:4-17 tells us God gave humans a responsibility. As
“stewards of creation,” humans have a job:
The LORD God planted a garden in Eden... and there he put
the man whom he had formed... to cultivate and care for it.
God’s word tells us work has the positive
value of giving humans dignity. We are not just children playing in a garden.
Our lives draw meaning and value from what we do, because what we do has value
for the world.
After our fall and redemption, God
persists in giving us this dignity. We even have a part, a work to do, in our
own salvation, The Mass Preface III for Sundays praises God for his “loving
plan of salvation”:
You came to our rescue as God, but you wanted us to be saved by one like us. Humans refused your
friendship, but a human was to restore it through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Not only that, but Jesus continues to
“restore it” through humans who, as his body and disciples, continue his
mission on earth. There is no end to God’s affirmation of human dignity.
When yesterday’s reading said God “rested
on the seventh day,” it was hinting at more to come. In the Commandments God
enjoins the Sabbath rest, recalling Genesis:
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you
shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD
your God; you shall not do any work...For in six days the LORD made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day.[i]
The rabbis explain that this was to teach
us we are different. All other creatures exist only for what they contribute to
life on the planet. But humans have a reason for existence that precedes and
supersedes this: we are created for direct relationship with God. Our raison d’être is to know and praise,
love and serve God. To keep us
conscious of this, God said that one day a week we are not to do anything just
because it is useful. Sabbath leisure is an emancipation proclamation. It is
freedom from idols.
God laid one restriction on “the man”:
You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that
you eat of it you shall die.
“Knowing good and evil” could mean the
right to decide for oneself what is good. That would be to make oneself the criterion, which is the essence of
pride, because it is to make oneself like God, who alone is the criterion.[ii]
The truth is, God intended from the
beginning that we should be “like God” in a way beyond imagining. We were
created to “become Christ” by Baptism and “in him” to share in God’s own divine
life. To be divine. But not by our own efforts. By the free gift of “the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Adam’s sin was to try to take, in disobedience to
God, a distorted version of what God already intended to give.
This teaches a profound truth about human life.
There is no good God does not want to give us. But if we seek any good outside
of his guidance and in a way that is against his will, we will diminish rather
than enhance our lives. We will “die” — in whole or in part — because the good
we seize will not be authentic, will not be whole. It will be flawed and render
us flawed. It is only in harmony with
God’s will that we can say, “Oh, bless the Lord, my soul!”
Meditation:
Do I experience my value in working, interacting with God or
both?
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