The Things that Matter

My readings this morning took me to the obscure hinterlands of Genesis 14 where I became absolutely entranced by an ancient battle that somehow precipitated the capture and rescue of Lot, catapulting Abram into a regional power, and resulting in his initial rise to fame.

What strikes about the story is its lists of ancient kings, battles, and alliances, and the contrast between power and futility. This concept, admittedly, is one that has intrigued many a person. The most famous resolution of the matter comes from Thomas Hobbes, who felt obliged to conclude that life is ‘nasty brutish, and short.’ 

But what sparked my wonderment is the fact that these ancient kings and kingdoms have all passed away, lost in the annals of history. Once these men lorded over the masses. Now, their life and times are recorded in but a few verses from Genesis – a background supplement to the narrative of God’s true protagonist Abram.

The tale also reminds me of the sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, titled Ozymandias:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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The point of the sonnet, fatalist though it may be, is simply that all things are destined to run the same course. Ours is a life that rewards only the living, and only for the present moment. Kingdoms, like people, will pass away however great they once were. For most, history will neither record, nor note our existence.

Oswald Chambers suggests a balm of sorts for coping with this reality. He posits living life sacrificially – being open to what ends God calls one to do – as a means for attaining fulfillment. His suggestion is appealing insofar as it ‘loosens the bands that hinder life.’ If one ‘lives for God’, then presumably it is a life that yields eternal dividends, and gets closer to the rub of what things really matter. This interpretation of existence suggests that the aim of life lies not in acquiring actual strength, might, or fame, but in the extent of our willingness to serve God and others.

While I am not sure that Chambers gets it exactly right (one could easily conclude that a life of selfish indulgence is a better route than service by the same logic), my own view of the matter is that faith in this God, and for Christians its attendant salvation through God’s Son, is the only way to cope with the awful futility of Genesis 14, and Shelley’s sonnet. But this is a specific a solution for what is ultimately a very abstract problem.

And the big question still remains.

If even our mightiest works, and conquests ultimately wind up as crumbled statues in the sands of time, then what hope can we have of our much less noteworthy existence ever being more than a grain in so vast a desert?