‘He is before all things, and in him all things hold together’ Col.1:1
One of the hardest lessons anyone can face is to be told they are dispensable, “We are sorry, but we don’t require your services anymore”. You become redundant, retrenched, and find yourself in the queue among the dispensable. The hard fact is – no one is indispensable; there is always someone, perhaps not as competent, nevertheless, eager to take your place. There are leaders today who see their own people, entire families, homes and the property of other nations as dispensable when a war is declared. Our dumping grounds are overflowing with dispensable items. What do we regard as indispensable? The dictionary tells us it is that which is absolutely necessary, essential…that which we cannot do without. Think about that for a moment. What are your indispensable items?
As youngsters a group of us planned our first three-day camping trip to the Yorkshire moors. We had to decide what equipment, clothing and food was necessary so we each made a list of what we would need. My family laughed when they saw my list. The first item on the list was ‘My bicycle’. They thought it hilarious, but in my mind it was ‘indispensable’ – how else would I depart on a camping trip? Without that item everything else was of no significance. I would be left behind. Camping would remain just an idea or a dream. Since that day it has not always been so simple to decide what I should regard as indispensable in life. Looking at your home, your family, your ‘stuff’ and your life – what is indispensable for you?
In our consumer-crazy world a thousand things are thrown at us every day, and a cacophony of voices raised to persuade us to regard them as indispensable items if we want to live life to the full. It is so easy to become confused between what we are told is essential and enticed to want and what we really need. We are persuaded to gather too much stuff. Jesus set the example of a simple life style. He sent his followers out with nothing. Faith in God was for them to be the indispensable factor. Their daily needs would be supplied.
When Moses faced the wild country and an array of enemies with a variety of erotic cultures and a multitude of unorganized people depending on his leadership, he had to decide what was the indispensable factor that would hold the people together in their birthing as a nation. His answer was ‘To be obedient to the Laws of God’. Every prophet that followed reminded the nation of that instruction. Their obedience would shape their moral character and fulfill God’s purpose by making them a light to the other nations. It would maintain healthy relationships among themselves and the Covenant which God had made with them. Whenever the Law was regarded as dispensable, a mere matter of individual opinion, serious consequences soon followed.
We are ready to accept without question there are issues of a common, practical nature that are not a matter of opinion. A fish without water is soon dead. Air for the lungs is essential. Food and water for the body are indispensable. Jesus knew the basic essentials for maintaining the body, but he also knew each person was more than a body. The indispensable factor for Jesus was ‘Seek first the kingdom of God’. In simple terms this means ‘live in a right relationship with Him’. To be truly human a proper relationship with God is absolutely essential. Our history shows us what happens in government, business, families and all human relations when God is removed from the equation. God’s design for the wholeness of every person combines human and divine, matter and spirit. Teilhard de Chardin was the Roman priest palaeontologist who saw the development of the human consciousness as the evolutionary work of God’s Spirit. For him God was busy in every aspect of becoming human – emotional, physical, mental, spiritual.
For Paul the indispensable factor was ‘For me to live is Christ’. He would fully agree with the theology of St. Patrick’s prayer – Christ above, behind, before, beside and within us. The significance of Christ shone in every letter he wrote and everything he said. ‘Christ was all in all’. This could not be questioned. In his popular book ‘Mere Christianity’, a series of radio talks for the man in the street, C.S. Lewis addresses the person who says ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God’ – and says – ‘That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level of man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God, or else a mad man or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.’
When we in faith humbly willingly do that, He makes it clear the indispensable factor for following him day by day is love – of life with God, of one another and of his creation.