Interesting news this week. According to the population
clock at the US Census Bureau outside of Washington, as of 7:46
Tuesday morning, there are now 300-million of us in America.
There was a bit of controversy about just which new one put us
over the magic number - a little African-American girl born in
Atlanta, or an Asian-American boy in California, or the little
girl born in Manhattan into a family made up of Hispanics,
Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans. Statistically,
demographers generally agreed, the person who pushed the national
population to 300-million was most likely a Hispanic boy in the
Southwest. The American melting pot.
We come an go pretty quickly these days. That population
clock estimates that an American is born every 7 seconds, one
dies every 13 seconds and the nation gains an immigrant from
abroad every 31 seconds. The United States is now one of three
countries with more than 300-million people, ranking behind only
China and India. In contrast to most other industrialized
nations, America has a population, propelled by immigration and
higher fertility rates, that is still growing.(1)
News like this lends itself to some theologizing,
particularly on a day that many churches across the land are
commemorating as Children's Sabbath. There are questions about
poverty and wealth and our responsibility to those born into dire
need. Questions about population: are there limits to God's
instruction in Genesis to "be fruitful and multiply?" But the
question that jumps out at me in the midst of this news is
simply, "Do I matter?" Here I am and here you are, one-300-millionth of America's population, not to mention 1/6-and-a-half-billionth of the world's number, not even a microscopic blip on
the cosmic radar screen. Talk about insignificant!!! 1/6-and-a-half-billionth. Do I matter?
Add to that what we know of our world. Scientists say that
our sun is one of about 500-billion stars in the Milky Way, which
is a medium-sized galaxy among 200-billion others, all swarming
with stars, most so far away that it will take millions of years
for the light from one of them to show up in our Pennsylvania sky
some night. Wow! The old Psalmist, even without the benefit of
modern science was equally mesmerized: "When I consider your
heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which
you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?"
O Lord, my God, When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made;
I see the stars; I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.(2)
So here we sit, 1/300,000,000th of the population in one of
many nations on a minuscule planet in an obscure, out-of-the-way
galaxy. Do I Matter? Really?
If you think about it, that question can be understood in
two ways. One has to do with the contribution we make to this
world - does it make any difference whether I have lived? For
some folks through history, the answer is ABSOLUTELY. We could
all name some - Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Hitler, Martin
Luther, Thomas Edison, perhaps even Bill Gates - we could have
fun with the process, and in the end, we would have a list of
people who, for good or ill, made a difference. They mattered.
In many ways, whether or not we matter to the world, what we
accomplish, is up to us. In Robert Fulghum's best-seller with
that wonderful title, It Was On Fire When I Laid Down On It,(3) he
recounts a conversation with a colleague who was complaining that
he had the same stuff in his lunch sack day after day after day
after day. Fulghum asked who made his lunch. "I do," said the
friend. Uh-huh. UP TO US!
Do I Matter? You have heard that old philosophical
conundrum - if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to
hear, does it make a sound? What about this one? If a person
lives and dies and no one notices, if the world continues as it
was, was that person ever really alive?
But there is a second way of understanding the question
which is NOT up to me. Not do I matter to the world, but do I
matter to God? The answer I want to hear is ABSOLUTELY! YES!
OF COURSE! But is there any evidence for that? I think there
is, and we find it in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
Jesus taught us that God is like a shepherd who leaves
ninety-nine sheep inside the fold to hunt frantically for one
stray, like a father who cannot stop thinking about his
rebellious, ungrateful prodigal of a son even though he has
another who is respectful and obedient, like a rich host who
opens the doors of the banquet hall to a menagerie of bag ladies
and bums. God loves people not merely as a race or species, but
rather just as you and I love them: one at a time.(4) Once, Jesus
let us in on a secret - God knows us individually so intimately
that even the hairs on our head are numbered...and as some of us
are aware, that number changes all the time. Do I matter? Do
you? One of 300-million? We must.
And Jesus did more than talk about it - he showed it. He
went out of his way to embrace the unloved and unworthy, the
folks who could ask "Do I matter?" with an urgency that none of
us could muster. Lepers who were not allowed to live inside the
city wall were touched by Jesus, even as his disciples shrank
back in disgust. The handicapped beggers by the wayside whom the
world loves to ignore were not ignored by Jesus - they were
healed and given new life. A woman, too shy and full of shame to
approach Jesus face to face, grabbed his robe, hoping he would
not notice. He noticed. She learned, like so many other
"nobodies," that you cannot easily escape Jesus' gaze. Why?
They mattered. Then do I matter? Do you matter? We must.
The old Psalmist once again: "What is man that you are
mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made
him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with
glory and honor." We matter.
And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in.
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
It was Sam Shoemaker, one of the great preachers in the
first half of the last century who confessed that during his
seminary days, as he studied and reflected on God and creation,
that he found it difficult to imagine how the Lord could even
THINK about these little specks of life called human beings. How
could God have time for us when there was so much more to demand
divine attention? Shoemaker explained his thoughts to one of his
professors, an eminently wise man. "Mr. Shoemaker," the teacher
said, "your problem is that your God is too small. God takes
care of the sun, the moon, and the stars with just a word. Now,
God has all the time in the world just for you and me."
Fifteen hundred years before Sam Shoemaker, Augustine said
it wonderfully: "God loves each one of us as if there were only
one of us to love."(5)
Do we understand it? Of course not. It joins a long list
of other things in our lives that we do not understand. We do
not understand how brown cows eat green grass and give white
milk, but we still pour it on our cereal. We do not understand a
mother's love or a father's patience, but we count on them and
cherish them. We do not understand how pain can help us grow,
but we know that it does. Yes, there is much we do not
understand, and this is just one more thing.
Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee;
How great Thou art; How great Thou art.
Do I matter? Do you matter? 1/300,000,000? Yes.
Absolutely. Listen to Augustine once more: "God loves each one
of us as if there were only one of us to love."
And again: "God loves each one of us as if there were only
one of us to love."
And once more all together: "God loves each one of us as if
there were only one of us to love."
Amen!
1. Sam Roberts, "A 300 Millionth American. Don't Ask Who," New York Times, 10/18/06
2. Stewart K. Hine, "How Great Thou Art," © 1953. Assigned to Manna Music, Inc. ©
1955, renewed 1981
3. New York: Villard Books, 1990, p. 6
4. Philip Yancey, "Do I Matter? Does God Care?" Christianity Today, 11/22/93, pp. 20-24
5. William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, CD-ROM edition (Liguori, MO: Liguori
Faithware, 1996) used by permission of Westminster/John Knox Press
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