Seeing Things Differently

Romans 14:1-12New International Version (NIV)

The Weak and the Strong

14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
    every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

Our scripture for this morning serves as a great reminder of how God’s love links us together.  The way Paul explains God’s love in this section of his letter to the Romans is something we ought to implement into every single one of our relationships.  There is an English proverb that says, “Faults are thin where love is thick.”  If we listen to Paul’s wisdom, the English proverb stays true to form.  But when we choose to interact with others outside the guidelines Paul has explained here, the opposite of this English proverb is true: love is thin because faults are thick.  As recent as two weeks, Paul’s words have impacted me in a way that has allowed me to gain a new perspective.

I recently completed another audible book called The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge.  I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I started listening but it came highly recommended on Audible and so I thought I would give it a try.  It is somewhat of technical book when it comes to biology and other life sciences so it can be easy to get lost in some of scientific aspects but the author does a great job tying so many things together.  It’s technical enough that I don’t know that I completely understand the depths of how humans and nature are tied together through our DNA but I do know that living things carry DNA.  All of them.  The biological makeup DNA does not vary from one species to another.  The order in which the proteins of DNA are arranged is the only thing that varies.  This means that everything that lives from humans to grass to fish to bacteria carry DNA that is identical in its molecular makeup.  Outside the scope of our human interactions, looking at the world knowing that everything in nature is connected through DNA may offer us a much different perspective than the one we currently hold.

There are some amazing facts found in this book.  For example, if you would stretch out out all the DNA in a single cell it would be about 2 meters in length.  And if you connected all the DNA from the cells in your body, they would form a circle that is twice the diameter of our entire solar system.  Yes, you heard that correctly.  Twice the size of our solar system... Beyond the somewhat confusing and technical nature of the book, the author talks a lot about defocalizing our point of view.  He uses the example of those pictures that look like odd shapes but when you blur your focus there is a picture within them.  Google “magic eye pictures” to see more of them. We have a tendency to look at things within the perspective of our particular lives.  There is nothing wrong with this since we may know nothing different but this narrow point of view means we may miss some things around us.  We may miss some of the connections that draw us closer to one another.  It seems counter intuitive but sometimes we need to blur our focus to see more things around us.

“Love is thin where faults are thick.”  As this book progressed, I started to get frustrated because I felt the author was missing an obvious connection in his work.  My frustration almost led me to stop listening.  Then I would recall Paul’s advice and I kept going.  The author used the connection of all living things through DNA to dispel some aspects of Darwin’s theory of evolution but my frustration was that he never looked to a higher power.  He even makes the comment that the probability of DNA forming within the cosmic soup that many scientists believe to be the origins of our solar system is unbelievable low.  Like impossible.  And yet, he never points to God as the driving force that planted the origins of life.  After thinking about it, if the author wants his work to be taken seriously within the realm of science as it currently exists, he has to prove his point rather than looking to heaven for the answer.  Later in the book, the author does give a nod to the possibility that something, from somewhere, had to plant the DNA because the likelihood of it existing otherwise is almost impossible.  It is a little odd to think about how to love an author of a book I am listening to but my way of thinking nearly led me to think the author’s faults were thick rather than my love being thin.  Loving people we have no connection to is odd for us to think about.  

However, the perspective I gained from this book allows me view my last statement differently.  Before, I thought there was no connection between the author and myself.  The way he explains our connections through DNA allows me to better understand the true connection we all share.  God’s love is shown in many different ways.  As a body of believers, the one way we hold most dear is through Christ and His death on the cross.  So we are connected that way.  But what about those whose faith steers them to hold a different belief about the death and resurrection of Christ?  God’s love is still demonstrated through them through our shared connection of DNA.  If the possibility of DNA being created out of the cosmic soup that is believed to be the origin of solar system, and it is my belief that God is the Creator then this means God is the technician that orchestrated this connection that all living things share.  To me, it is the proof that He is the creator.

Paul writes to the Romans “Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.”  Paul continues on to say “...each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.”  Faults are thin where love is thick.  Not only are we connected to one another through the love of God but we are all connected on a molecular level through our DNA which I hold to be placed there by God.  When we stop looking through the lenses that tell us how different we are and focus on the connections that tell us just how close we really are, we are able to see God’s loving hands at work.  “So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” as Paul writes.  You belong to the Lord but so does that stubborn coworker you don’t get along with and that jerk that just cut you off on the four lane.  When we make the effort to defocalize our narrow point of view, we can see more of who God really is.  Faults are thin where love is thick.    Amen.