It is love that impels them to pursue everlasting life; therefore, they are eager to take the narrow road of which the Lord says: Narrow is the road that leads to life Matthew 7:14. (Rule of Saint Benedict 5.10-11)
When my son was five years old, he asked me at Christmas: “How can God be both everywhere AND a baby in a manger?”
I said, “That’s right: and he’s also a Spirit who is present within each of us at every moment.”
“That’s CRAZY,” he exclaimed.
I said, “One day you’ll realize that the really dangerous crazy people make everything easy to understand. They tell you what you want to hear and flatter your pride.”
Fortunately, at that point he dashed off to something else, so I didn’t have to explain that the baby in the manger is an exiled king to whom we’ve given our allegiance, which involves us in all sorts of struggles while we wait for him to reclaim his inheritance.
Or maybe that’s not theologically correct. Maybe he is already King everywhere, but his enemy usurps his authority and seduces his citizens: usually the easy way, with inducements.
Sell out?
There’s a passionate loyalty in the Christian call, something about devotion.
The Christian does not obey a code of laws, a system of ideas, an abstract principle, or an impersonal force. We are to be subject to the law of the land, think rationally, and conform our lives to right principles, and we are buffeted by all the forces that affect everyone else. But this isn’t what makes us Christian. To be a Christian is to commit to obey a person: Christ.
Christian faith is not an exercise of the imagination. Nor is it an intellectual assent to a set of propositions. Still less is it membership in a club. We do exercise imagination and intellect, and we are free to join clubs. But faith is something else. It is fealty to a person who has won our trust.
It’s exactly at the point of obedience that you start to wonder whether you really believe, and clearly there are many people across the denominations who don’t even bother to wonder. Their religiosity yields a life indistinguishable from atheism.
If it strikes you that God requires far too much transformation, then at least you are paying attention to the fine print. Take a step in the direction of what he seems to want, and see what comes of it. When you begin to obey his commands, you can also begin to claim his promises. When you experience him making good on his word, you’ll gain confidence in the real: the actualization of the spiritual rendered into your own life. Forget the freebie Jesus who demands nothing of you. The price you pay for life is your whole self.
And realize that if you are insincere or untrustworthy, you cannot know God. Faithless means treacherous, fickle, false. That sort of person is incompatible with God. If you want to know God, be honest in your dealings with human beings.
Then God will be everywhere, a baby in a manger, and working his perfection within you.