“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).
Christians love to quote that verse when surprisingly good things happen to them, or when surprisingly bad things happen to somebody else. But rarely do we really stop and ask what it means to say something is working for good. What does that mean, after all? Does it mean that everyone who loves God will end up happy and healthy and rich? Does it mean that all such people will be saved, in an eternal and spiritual sense? Or does it mean exactly nothing, functioning, as it does for so many people today, less as a statement with content than as a psychological comfort mechanism that draws our attention away from the evils of life?
Turning our attention to Matthew: In this series of short parables on the kingdom, Jesus gives us several images of the kingdom of heaven: a buried treasure, a rare pearl, and an unpredictable catch of fish. Running through all these descriptions is a sense of the kingdom of heaven as something rare and difficult to find, something encountered with surprise and wonder, something that is, above all, not given—that is, like the buried treasure or the rare pearl, it is not just out there for the taking, but is, rather, available only to those who have learned where and how to look.
This knowledge of how and where to look is, in a basic way, what the Old Testament often means by wisdom. In our reading from Kings, the young Solomon asks God for wisdom, showing already a kind of wisdom in knowing what to ask. But Solomon is an interesting test case, because he does not actually end up practicing all the wisdom he acquires. Solomon, at the end of his days, turned after other gods. He did not turn totally away from the God of Israel, but nor did he wholly serve him. His heart was divided. We see this as early as chapter 3. Just before today’s story, when Solomon has the dream, the writer tells us, “Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father; only, he sacrificed and burnt incense at the high places” (3:3). So at this time, Solomon was still living pretty well; he was still following the Law. But even at this point he maintained a certain connection with the old pagan worship sites. Even then his heart was partly divided.
I think there is a pretty clear message from Solomon’s story—a message that, really, comes over and over in the experience of Israel: knowing the good isn’t the same as doing the good.
We can have a lot of knowledge. We can have a lot of discernment and wisdom. We can look at a situation and know exactly how it needs to be handled. We can tell from a mile away whether something is virtue or vice, whether it is healthy or sinful. We know exactly how we should live and what we should do. But actually doing it is another thing.
Why is this? It’s because our hearts are divided. Solomon’s problem wasn’t with his numerous wives, per se. The ancient world didn’t really have a problem with a man having multiple wives. But those wives, and their various false religious practices, give us a clear example of what it means to have a divided heart. It means that our love is unfocused, split into a thousand different directions. And love, in terms of Christian theology, is closely related to the will. Perhaps I know the right thing, I know the good, but I don’t love it, and so I do not have the will to follow after God’s command. I do not have the will to do the right thing.
God demands our whole love, not a part of it. We can have all the wisdom in the world, but without love, it all amounts to nothing. I can love my work, my friends, my family, my brothers and sisters, my wife, my children—but if I do not love God, all of those other loves will suffer. Because there will never be enough to go around.
But when we take our limited love and give it to God—when we devote our whole lives to him—we find that his love is infinite, and we receive his love back infinitely. And so, if our love is properly directed to God, God gives us the ability to love our family, our friends, our spouses and our children, in the way they deserve. And if our love is properly directed to God, our knowledge follows; we are able to do the good that we know, because our hearts are in it.
You see, Solomon made a mistake: he wanted to be wise, but he thought that would be enough. He thought that if he could be wise, maybe he could handle his own loves, his own desires, his own will. But wisdom without love is powerless. It is not even true wisdom.
Back to Romans: Perhaps we focus too much on the first half of that verse about things working toward the good. What if we were to emphasize the second half? All things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
Does this mean, as a counter-example, that things will not work for good for those who do not love God? Again it depends on what we mean by good. Because there are many kinds of good, and many ways that things can work for the good, for many kinds of people. Certainly you do not need to be a Christian or go to church to do good or to receive good. But there is nothing particularly useful about saying so. Christianity concerned not with offering an exhaustive description of every good under the sun, but with giving a clear way to the eternal good that orients the whole, and, as St. Paul says, that eternal good is found in those who love God.
Paul says that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is because God has put all his eggs in one basket. As usual, it’s tempting to read the parables of Jesus as all about us. But I think in this passage they’re just as much about God. God is like the merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that had and bought it. God, more than us, is like the one who sells all that he has to buy the field with buried treasure.
And so “all things work for good for those who love God” because loving God means opening our eyes to the radical way in which God has totally given himself over for our good, the way that God has given himself to be with us even amid the greatest evil. “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?”
On the whole, we are probably a little bit embarrassed by this God, by this reckless display of affection. We’re like the guy who keeps dating a girl who cooks him dinner but isn’t really sure that he’s ready to make her any promises or commitment. We’d rather have a God who lets us flirt with other gods—the gods of family, of money, of good works—who isn’t bothered by the fact that we blow off our appointments with him to do our own thing. We just need a little space, right?
That God doesn’t exist. Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. And that is why it is so dangerous for us to worship this nonexistent God, this nothing of our own invention who doesn’t really care what we do with our time or our things. The real God, the God of Jesus Christ, has given himself to us wholly, and he wants our whole life in return. He wants to give us the eternal good, which is himself, so that we can truly appreciate all other goods and order them rightly—so that we can see how all things work for good, so that we can actively and consciously participate in that work.
Google’s famous motto is (or was), “Don’t be evil.” If, like so many other companies and people, they have fallen short of that goal, it is mostly because it is not enough to choose good over evil. What is needed is to choose good over good. We are too easily satisfied with our goods. But God is the highest good, the source of all goods, and without his love, all our good will become nothing. Amen.