God's Motivation is Love

"There move the ships, and there is that Leviathan, which you have made for the sport of it.” Psalm 104:27, Translation from The Book of Common Prayer

When I was in college, the prayer book’s mention of “that Leviathan” always brought a smile to the face of my priest. “For the sport of it,” he’d chuckle. “Can you imagine? That at least some part of God’s reason for creation is God’s enjoyment of it? Even parts of creation, like the Loch Ness monster, we will only ever guess or gossip about. Even those parts we’ll never know at all. Each one, known by God. Enjoyed by God. Creation brings God joy.” Maybe, added to the other verbs we remember about God’s relationship to us, we’d do well to remember “enjoys.”

In his short, whimsical book God is an Amateur, John Claypool obverses that, where you and I are likely to read the word “amateur” to mean “a person who isn’t good enough at a thing to be professionally paid,” the origins of the word suggest one who does a thing because they love to do the thing. So, he says, “God as an amateur in the original sense of the word, not as one who is a novice or inexperienced, but one who does something for the love of it. God’s only motivation is love.”

God’s approach to creation helps center me in the summer season. Don’t get me wrong, I love summer. And, if I’m honest? Summer presents its challenges. Four kids and no schedule? Or is it four kids and six schedules? Friends and neighbors, coming and going, sometimes ship passing. How on earth do you get a thing done? But also, how many times does the orbit of the urgent only talk us out of the space we might have made for other things that could have breathed our hearts to life?

I know, I know. Easier said than done. But as a start this morning I spent thirty minutes cleaning the insides of a fountain pen. Taking my lead from my Maker, I did a thing for the sport of it. Not because it was essential but because it brought me joy. And as I worked the pen flush through the chambers, I remembered that you and I are fountain pens of God’s delight. If I’m lucky, the next time I’m in church, I’ll still remember and blush a little bit. I might even break Episcopal protocol and laugh out loud.

You and me and our new to us neighbor, all of us, saved from the tedium of justifying our existence. Enjoying God and each other. Made for joy. And God’s delight.

Who knew?

In the joy and delight of Jesus,

Jonathan

Excerpted from this week's James' Journal, the weekly eNews of St. James Episcopal Church in the Lake Highlands neighborhood of Dallas, Texas. Click here to have it delivered to your inbox!