The Christian is the one who seeks to live their life in response to reality that God has first loved us (1 John 4:10). St Paul has suggested that we do this by making an offering, that is, by presenting our bodies as living sacrifices unto God. In other words, by faith we offer back to God that which he has given to us. The offering consist in the very act of cultivating, developing, and using – to the best our abilities – both the gifts of creation and the individual ones in service to our fellowman, God, and ourselves. My contention is that God meets us in the midst of this offering of our total selves with gift of His own self – presence and communion.
I have argued throughout this blog that “matter matters” precisely because it was given by God to be a means through which we live into communion with Him. One of our primary dialogue partners, Staniloae, expounds on this idea in stating,
“The world is necessary for the human person not only because he needs it to be given to him, but also because he himself has need of it so that, in his turn, he may make a gift of it for the sake of his own spiritual growth. The things given us by God can become our own gift to God by the fact that in the return of these things to God we are free. We transform things into gifts of our own through the act of our freedom and through the love we thus show to God. Having this aim in view, we can be endlessly transforming and combining the things of creation. God gave the human person the world a gift characterized not just by continuous fertility, but also by a great wealth of alternatives that man has the capacity to make actual through freedom and work. As talents given by God but multiplied by the human person, this process of actualization is the gift the person returns to God.”
Before we consider his statement a little further, I want to jump ahead by calling attention to God’s response to this “gift of the person”. Succinctly put: God receives this offering of love from us and returns the gift of His very on Self – Divine life – to us. In this offering there is an exchange that takes place, a life for a Life.
In this quote, Staniloae, highlights the necessity of the created world, and not just merely for our physical needs, that is, a place for us live, food for us to eat, work for us to do, and play for us to enjoy. No, in addition to these wonderful gifts of creation, God has given us the “things” of the world so that we might come to know Him more fully – as he put it, “for the sake of our own spiritual growth”. Another important point he makes is that the very nature of creation is such that we can truly make it our own gift. The created order is “fertile” offering seemingly endless possibilities for us to make positive use of it. In addition to this “fertility”, creation has a certain malleability that also makes room for the freedom of own creative abilities. In other words, we have the freedom to take what we have been given (our talents/ aptitudes) within what we love (our desires) and make it a gift of love back to God. In exchange for this gift that is offered up to God, that is in return, God gives the gift of Himself.
The Christian Athlete responds to the gift of God and lives into this Gift by offering back to God all that s/he is and all it takes to become the best s/he can be at their sport. In giving back it is God’s desire that (He even enjoys when) we put our own stamp upon these gifts. It’s our freedom and privilege to add our work, our creation, in bringing the “gift” to fruition in order to make it truly our gift that we offer back. In other words, God has given us the freedom, talent, ability and rational faculties in combination with the inherent nature of creation to be rational, adaptable and malleable so that we might create something unique out of love for God and our neighbor. In this way the gift offered becomes truly your own gift, your own creation. The important point to keep in mind here is that it is not merely the end product (e.g. for the athlete the performance) we are offering up to God, but everything that leads up to that performance as well – the blood, sweat and tears. For the athlete, the gift offered back includes all the practice and sacrifice it takes to become your best. In so many ways the performance is secondary. The gift offered back to God is the “all it takes” to make use of and not waste the gift God has given. In short, your gift to God is your attempt to make the best of what you have been given. Again, not to be too repetitive, but to drive the point home, it is in the midst of this faith offering that God shows His face, and often times in the most unexpected moments and ways.