If Not You, Then Who?

Professor Abraham Maslow, one of the most widely-read social scientists of our time, often challenged his students with questions like …

Which of you is going to be a great writer? Which of you is going to be a great saint like Francis of Assisi? Which of you is going to be a great humanitarian like Albert Schweitzer?

Presented with such big ideas, the students would squirm and giggle. But the famous psychologist would tell them that these were not idle questions; that he really meant what he said. “If not you,” he asked, “then who?”

When we come together to hear the Word of God proclaimed, in one way or another we are confronted by the same kinds of questions, as we hear the New Testament writers telling us, over-and-over again:

… that blind chance did not put us here;

… that a loving God put us here as part of His plan for the fulfillment of all creation;…