A soldier asked Abba Mius if God accepted repentance. “Tell me, my dear, if your cloak is torn, do you throw it away?” He replied, “No, I mend it and use it again.” The old man said to him, “If you are so careful about your cloak, will not God be equally careful about his creature?”
We generally like our stuff. After all, that's why we have it, because we liked it to begin with. Of course, some stuff was given to us; but the majority of our stuff came from us. Have you ever noticed that when we really want something we would prefer to purchase it ourselves rather than receive it as a gift? Or is that just me?
We tend to get attached to our stuff. Some of us get overly attached to a particular pen on our desk. Some of us love our cars and care for them deeply. I served on a volunteer fire department once that had in its jurisdiction a man with a classic car collection. We had standing orders to let the house burn and save the garage. If you need an example of this kind of devotion, make your way to the Classic Car Show in Grants Pass this weekend. And I should probably get a new Prayer Book, but red duct tape works wonders.
Whether we care for our stuff out of a sense of passion and devotion, or whether we care for our stuff because we want it to last, or whether we care for our stuff because we choose not to be part of society's throw-away mindset, the operative words there are, “we care for.”
Abba Mius used the image of a torn cloak to make the point that, if the soldier cared for a piece of cloth – just some stuff – enough to mend it and continue using it, would not God care for one of his living creatures enough to help it mend and be of continued use? We are more valuable than a piece of cloth. We are more valuable than stuff. We are more valuable because we were created from the boundless, and boundary-less, love of God.
I received a request to sign a petition this week from a Christian group determined to force a repeal of a variety of recent government actions granting equality to LGBT people. They are intent on stopping what they see as a threat to Christianity and America. There is no sense of love in that petition. There is no sense of caring. There is only hateful outrage that they are being required to share their equality with people they don't like. And that's sad.
It's sad because they choose to not recognize other people as people, just as “others” who need to be stopped and/or eliminated. It's sad because what they care for is maintaining their superiority, not other human beings. It's sad because they can't see God working in any way other than through their own agenda of exclusion. It's sad because they can't see the love of God manifested in people who happen to be different from them.
More than anything else, it's sad because this group of Christians view LGBT people as less valuable than a piece of cloth, stuff not wanted in the first place, whose only value is in the trash.
How do we care for our stuff? How does God care for his stuff? If we aren't caring for others with at least as much devotion as we care for our stuff, or if we are part of a group who sees other people only as useless stuff, maybe we need to rethink why that is.
Amen.
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