We look at our surroundings through the eyes of our own biases and prejudices, many of which our unconscious and un-acknowledged. In promoting our own way of seeing we may be directly contravening God's requirements for us and thus we are not living up to Christ within us. Samuel grieved not understanding what God was undertaking but responded to God's call upon his life to anoint David rather than his own expectations (1 Sam 15.34-16.13). Christ tells the parable of the mustard seed and the man sowing and having the result grow without his knowledge (Mk 4.26-34). We are blinded in the same way by our own supposed wants and needs. We often quarrel and complain about words, about thoughts, about ideas rather than allowing God's voice to speak to us and open our eyes in understanding.
By being bounded by our own passions we do not see or hear God's voice speaking to us. We make choices based on our understanding, just like Samuel would have done. Samuel's choices were based on his bias, his unacknowledged prejudice as to what he thought a good King should be. We often deny others the ability to interact with God as a result. The thing that needs to be put to rest before we enter into any long term plan for our community and the family of God is our understanding of what God wants. The call of God is made at baptism when parents and godparents are asked to bring their children up into a relationship with God. That relationship opens us up to the other and we allow ourselves to become part of a community that heralds in an era of understanding and listening. We are asked not to place our views on others or to go with our own views but we are asked to listen to God before disrupting relationship. Samuel was forced by God to listen to God not to jump with his own conclusions as to who was going to be the better king. Godparents are asked to set an example for their children and part of that is setting the example of listening for God's voice, the voice of faith and the other before choosing our path.
New life begins without our help but with God's grace - nurture it do not rip it out
We are happy to wield the power that we think we have because we know better, we have studied more, we belong to groups that promote our way of thinking but what we rarely do is ask if this is what God wants. Our causes may be good, our wishes may be beneficial but that does not negate the idea that God must guide us. The godparents have a tough time ahead when introducing a new child of God to the faith. It is their responsibility to show their child what it means to respond to God. We are often the ones that fail our duty to our children and as a result we become embittered and lost in our own unconscious biases not listening and not reacting to God's presence. This often destroys community rather than building it. It sets our own measures in place and not God's measures which means we fail to live up to the reconcilatory grace of God's presence. We set up our structures to reflect what we want not what we are asked for within our own lives and those of the body of Christ. We often fail to die as Christ dies and as the child dies in the waters of baptism. If we are unable to die to Christ we are unable to rise again in the new life that is Christ. Only when we become strong in Christ do we begin to proclaim the Gospel of God and not the gospel of our own biases.
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