Satisfied in God

Matthew 13.44-45

Next week we’re going to kick off a series called Faith with Hands and Feet that will take

us through the book of James and let us learn about what he calls the royal law of love,

and what living a life of love looks like in really practical terms

But before we come to that, though, I felt prompted to share a message for the new

year that comes out of what God has been stirring in me.

Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him,

for he will shield him all day long,

and the one the Lord loves will dwell between his shoulders.

Every morning I read one of the psalms, plus a chapter from the Old Testament, a

chapter from one of the gospels, and a chapter from somewhere else in the New

Testament.

This fall, I began to notice a theme coming up consistently in the psalms I was reading

You satisfy me more than the richest feast.

I will praise you with songs of joy.

Psalm 90.14

Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love,

so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.

Psalm 91.1

Psalm 131.2

My soul has become calm, quiet, and contented in You.

Those lines became the things I began praying for each member of my family, and

because you are my family, they are the things I’ve been praying for you as well.

Part of why those verses stood out is because of where God had me, walking through

several unexpected health challenges, needing to trust God with the direction and

leading of the church when I was in and out of commission.

I just listened again to Phillip Cary’s audio class called Augustine, Philosopher

and Saint, which gives an overview of Augustine’s understanding of love.

I’m also been part of a couple of groups that are reading through and and having

some really rich discussion about David Naugle’s book, Reordered Loves,

Reordered Lives, which is rooted in Augustine’s writing.

I’ve also started reading Catherine of Sienna’s Dialogue in my devotional time,

which constantly echoes Augustine’s teachings.

And I also just finished reading Hannah Arendt’s book Love and Saint Augustine,

Late Have I Loved Thee: Selected Writings of Saint Augustine on Love, edited by

John Thornton and Susan Varenne

As you may know, Augustine was a pastor and theologian who lived in the late 300s

and early 400s. It’s safe to say that his writings shaped the thinking of the church more

than any other person outside of the pages of scripture.

But most of us only encounter Augustine indirectly, through the writings of others whose

thinking has been shaped by his.

Between these psalms, which constantly speak of finding rest and satisfaction in God,

Let me give you a quick tour of the way Augustine frames in a biblical understanding

about love and longing. If I were to give you the lay of the land, I’d say these are the

most important ideas.

I think you’ll be able to see not only how they all fit together, but also how incredibly

relevant they are for us as we think about our own relationship with God and with the

people and things he’s surrounded us with as we head into the new year.

1. We were created by God and we exist for God. He made us for himself.

I love the line from Psalm 119 that says

Psalms 119:73

You made me; you created me.

Now give me the sense to follow your commands.

3. What’s true about us is also true about everything else we will ever look on in

4. We were created by God with a profound and driving desire, a craving, a

in, to have and to hold, some great object of our great desire, and the human

experience is dominated by our pursuit of that satisfaction.

Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing, 3-5

There is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us

incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full peace.

At the heart of all great literature, poetry, art, philosophy, psychology and religion

lies the naming and analyzing of this desire. . . . Whatever the expression,

everyone is ultimately talking about the same thing – an unquenchable fire, a

restlessness, a longing, a disquiet, a hunger, a loneliness, a gnawing nostalgia, a

wildness that cannot be tamed, an all-embracing ache that lies at the center of

the human experience and is the ultimate force that drives everything else. The

dis-ease Is universal.

Spirituality is, ultimately, about what we do with that desire.

sleep

There is some something that corresponds to every deep craving and desire in us/

6. God alone can satisfy that deepest of all desires, that deepest hunger and

Psalm 62.1

My soul finds rest in God alone.

As Blaise Pascal write in his incredible book, The Pensées:

abyss can be filled only with an infinite [] object; in other words by God himself.

(VII, 425)

spouse, work, children, parents, money, health, sports accomplishments, awards

and recognition, fitness, friends, travel, possessions, creation, nation, school,

home

Everything else will always disappoint us. It will never last, and it was never made to

satisfy us in the first place.

My soul finds rest in God alone.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find

their rest in you.

8. Where all that leads for Augustine . . .

Augustine on Rightly Ordered Loves

Quenching our thirst

Leaving us thirsting

. . . is here. Just as there are two objects of our affection – God, who alone who can

satisfy us, and all the rest, which God intends for us to enjoy but is incapable of bringing

rest and satisfaction to our souls – so we are called to two different kinds of loves:

We are to love God by enjoying him, finding our rest and satisfaction in him, having and

holding him eternally.

Tantalus in his pride stole ambrosia and nectar from the gods, so Zeus sentenced him

to suffer forever in the underworld.

He had him put in a pool of water up to his neck, and planted a tree right next to him,

with a branch laden with ripe fruit hanging right over him. But every time in his hunger

that he tried to reach for the fruit, the branch pulled away, and every time in his thirst

that he tried to bend down and get a drink, the water receded. So he was condemned to

hunger and thirst forever.

According to Augustine, if we fail to look to God as the satisfaction for our deepest

Your husband or wife, children, parents, work, health or fitness, sports

accomplishments, awards and recognition, fitness, friends, travel, possessions,

beauty, wealth, nation, school, home?

How capable is that object of your affection able to satisfy you?

One of my favorite parables is also one of the shortest and most mysterious and

provocative ones.

old Shepherd, two year old Rosie, even six week old Eli – we put a small gift in it for

each of them and then we hide it somewhere in the house: in the hall closet, in the

dryer, behind pillows on the couch, under a chair.

When they walk in the door, usually before they even take off their coats and shoes, off

they go on their hunt to find it, playing warmer and colder with us until they finally

unearth it.

Matthew 13.44 is about a similar treasure hunt.

Second, about hiding the treasure again and then going and buying the field. Because

of the way we think about property law that sounds like some pretty unethical behavior.

But according to property law in the ancient world, where the finders keepers rule was a

real thing, this man is actually going out of his way to be ethical and fair, instead of just

walking off with the treasure he found.

Third, the point of the parable: “in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that

field.” This is not the story of sacrifice and loss and hardship. This is the story of absurd

good fortune, as he comes into great riches and abundance and experiences incredible

Nothing else will satisfy like this will.

So everything else is less important than it is.

And having it is having real and lasting joy.

And Jesus says that treasure, that one of a kind source of joy and satisfaction, is a

relationship with him.

I think it’s easy for us to go through life seeing the treasure box jutting out of the ground

but letting it stay there and letting it be just one thing among many things that we look to

G

We go through life with indiscriminate desire, and we seek its fulfillment indiscriminately

in all that surrounds us, God included. God is just one of many loves of our heart and

for his sake. (Letter to Proba)

According the Jesus, and the scriptures, this is how God would have us reorder our

lives and our loves.

G

________________________

What place does God occupy in your life?

In his Confessions Augustine writes

How noble is each rational creature you have made, for nothing less than

yourself can suffice to give it any measure of blessed rest, nor indeed can it be

Think for a moment about your own life.

What have you attached your affection to?

What do you look to for satisfaction and rest?

What is the object of your deepest desire?

What’s the treasure on which you’ve bet all that you have?

What’s the thing in your treasure box?

What do you hear God saying to you this morning?

Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich (1342-c1416)

God, of your goodness, give me yourself. You are enough for me. And if I ask

anything that is less, I shall always lack something, but in you alone I have

everything.

Psalm 90.14

Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love,

so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.