"Album-Worthy"
#92-12Presented on The Lutheran Hour on November 17, 2024
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2024 Lutheran Hour Ministries
No bonus material MP3
Text: Genesis 35:3
Did your family do photo albums when you were growing up, as a kid? Mine did, somewhat sporadically, but we had them. And the ones we had, I treasured. The picture books that you'd see in school were about other peoples' lives, famous people, people who'd made history. But a book with pictures of you in it—that was your history. That was where you came from. It was a clue as to what your life was about.
Sometimes, I'd look at these photo albums. And I'd see a picture and I'd say, "Oh, I remember that—when I broke my arm and everybody at school signed my cast." Other times, I'd look at them and have to ask, "Who is that—next to me in the picture?" I didn't remember them. I didn't even remember being there. I didn't know what made this picture album-worthy—why it mattered enough to put it in an album.
Sometimes, when I had a question about a picture, there'd be a caption that someone had written. Maybe it answered my question. Or maybe it was answering a question I hadn't thought to ask, or maybe summing up the moment from an angle I hadn't considered. That's how it goes, being in someone else's album. But then you start making your own albums, so that you can start to decide what your life is going to be about, or what you'd like it to be about.
Maybe you've never made an actual book of photos. I haven't either—that's my wife's department. But I have made some family videos. I suppose a video isn't technically an album, but it's like one. Really, when you think about it, even when someone asks you the question, "How was your day?" And you give them an answer, that's also something like making a photo album. Because you start with a big library of scenes and images and memories, usually more moments than you know what to do with, and then you have to decide what's album-worthy.
And whether you're like me, and you like to see the whole picture in your head before you start talking, or you like to use your words to paint the picture out loud so that you see it better, it's all a little like album-making. You're bringing some order to the chaotic randomness of your life. You're adding rhyme and reason, or maybe a soundtrack to this strange concoction of experiences you've been given. You're finding the moments that are worth remembering, searching for the photos that are album-worthy so that you can know what your life is about, so that when things get difficult, you'll have a reason to go on living.
My wife made a lot of photo albums when our children were younger. But then there were some seasons when it felt like there was just too much, there were just too many photos to deal with. With kids and jobs and all the activities, life was coming at us so fast we sometimes didn't have time to sit and reflect on what this was all about. So, I tried outsourcing our album-making task to our computer. Now, back then, it wasn't as slick as it is today, with facial recognition and AI and all that. It was more rudimentary. Our old desktop computer that weighed about a hundred pounds and sat on a big desk in the corner of our family room, it would let you turn your screen saver into a photo album. It would pull from all the photos you had saved on your hard drive.
Now, talk about a random concoction of experiences on display there. Sometimes it would show a picture of something you'd forgotten all about but treasured the sight of it. But other times it would just be a blurry shot of the pavement. Maybe we outsource our album-making to machines these days because we have too many pictures in our photo libraries. And so many that are just not album-worthy: the picture I took of the lawn mower spark plug I had to buy last spring, the out-of-focus action shot from the soccer game with my thumb over it, the one I took of the ground on accident, or the 300 photos my kids took of themselves making silly faces when those rascals got ahold of my phone. There's just too much to sort through. And maybe, when you're feeling down on some days, you wonder—is it even worth sorting through?
There's an author from Argentina named Jorge Luis Borges who wrote a short story related to this. And I think he wrote it when he was having a down day. In Spanish, the story is called La Biblioteca de Babel—which is translated, "The Library of Confusion"—the library of Babel; Babel, the big tower mentioned in the Bible's book of Genesis, which we'll get to in a moment. Mr. Borges, in that short story, describes our universe with a metaphor of a library—a library "composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite, number of ... galleries."
He says that if you stood inside this library, in one of those book galleries, you could turn about in a circle, all 360 degrees, you'd see books on all the shelves. But you couldn't do this standing in the middle of the gallery, because in the middle, in the floor, there's a hole, surrounded by a railing, but the railing is too low to prevent someone from accidentally falling down the hole. So you've got to be careful! The hole appears to be some sort of ventilation shaft that leads to the gallery in the floor below you, and the one below that, and so on, down, as far as you can see. You look up—careful of the railing—and notice that the shaft goes up, too, to the floor above you, and the one above that, and there's no end in sight that way, either. So that's the ventilation system. Now, you look again at the room around you. It appears to be almost round, but not quite. You look closer and see that it's actually six-sided—a hexagon, shaped like a cell in a honeycomb. And you see that there are doorways on all sides leading to other rooms, and spiral staircases leading up and down to the other floors, giving the impression that this library is something like an enormous honeycomb, where all the cells and floors fit together like an endless geometric maze.
But that's just an educated guess, because you can't see it all at once with a God's-eye view. Because you're just in one room, one gallery. And there are no windows in this library. Instead, "light is provided by certain spherical fruits that bear the name 'bulbs' and the light they give is insufficient and unceasing." You visit more cells, and each one is the same as the last, six walls that enclose it, and all the walls are lined with books—innumerable books from floor to ceiling, but the ceilings aren't much taller than an average librarian. Soon you learn that you'll die in this library, one day. After spending a lifetime trying to find what your life is about, somewhere in all these books, you will die, just a few hexagons over from where you were born, with more pictures than you know what to do with. And then some compassionate hands will throw your body over that railing. And your fall will be infinite.
Mr. Borges, in this parable, is talking about our search for meaning. We all want to know what our lives are about. We're trying to find it in the album-worthy pictures that will tell us. We're trying to find a reason to go on living in this confused library of Babel. And that task can feel overwhelming. And it turns out, according to the Bible, as illustrated in its account of Babel, the tower they tried to build there, that this wasn't our task to take in the first place. We weren't designed to make our own meaning, but to participate in God's. And the difference between making your own meaning and participating in God's is shown in the account of the tower of Babel, found in the book of Genesis. Genesis tells us that God created humanity to share in His great meaning-making project. But at Babel, they started their own, without God. And God could see where this man-made project would lead. The wide and open and brilliant creation God had made to share with us would morph into a confusing maze. And we would devolve into something like insects, trapped in our cells, with insufficient light, ceilings and railings that are too low, and a fall that goes on forever.
So, God confuses that project at Babel. He confuses it, not because He's jealous, but because He's compassionate. He wants to save us from that dead-end, self-determined, meaning-making project so that we can participate in His. So, God starts over with a guy named Abraham and his family. God invites Abraham to participate in His photo album. But you start to read Abraham's story, and you wonder, "Are these photos really album-worthy?"
For example, God calls Abraham to be part of the family album by starting his own family. But Abraham's wife can't get pregnant (Genesis 11:30). And then there's another woman involved (Genesis 16:1-6). And they have to pick up and start over somewhere new because of a famine (Genesis 12:10). And Abraham lies to protect himself (Genesis 12:11-13). And his lie brings a plague on his neighbors (Genesis 12:17-19). So they kick him out (Genesis 12:20). And he picks up and starts over again (Genesis 13). And you're wondering-how did these pictures make it into the album? You page over to the part of Genesis about Abraham's grandson, Jacob, and it's more of the same. God starts over with Jacob. God promises to go with him, to be at the center of his album (Genesis 28:13-15). But again, we get more photos that don't seem to be album-worthy. Jacob's wife can't get pregnant (Genesis 29:21). And there are three other women involved. Now Jacob has 11 sons and a daughter (Genesis 29-30). But he doesn't get along with his father-in-law (Genesis 31:36-42). So God tells Jacob to start over in a new town. Jacob goes, takes his family with him, but they go to a different town, not the one God had said. And there, Jacob's daughter is abused (Genesis 34:1-7). Jacob's sons murder the guy who did it, plus his whole village, out of vengeance. Jacob does nothing (Genesis 34:13-31). God tells Jacob to get going, to go where He had told him to go originally. Jacob recommits himself and his family to God, and they go. But when they arrive where God had told them, Jacob's adopted grandmother dies. He buries her there, under a big oak, and adds the caption, "the tree of my tears." God appears and promises Jacob that He's still with him, that his life still means something. Jacob builds an altar to honor God. (Genesis 35:1-15). These seemingly random snapshots of Jacob's life continue. They move again. On the way, Jacob's wife dies in childbirth (Genesis 35:18). They start over in a new town (Genesis 35:21). Jacob's oldest son betrays him, brings shame on the family. Jacob does nothing (Genesis 35:22). Isaac, his father, dies. Jacob and his brother, once bitter enemies, meet to bury him (Genesis 35:29). They start over in a new place. The story slogs on as the Old Testament continues. God's people, like all people, keep trying to make their own meaning, building towers, scouring shelves, crafting photobooks. But the fall just keeps going. So, God comes to catch them, to catch us. God becomes human-He puts Himself on the shelf. God's Son is made a Man. He becomes a creature in His own creation. Jesus walks our halls, shares our cells, to give a reason for living, to save us from a life of meaninglessness, so that we can participate in His.
The Argentinian author I mentioned earlier, who wrote about the library of Babel, he guessed that some Christian might say something like this in response to his parable. So, he tries to enclose our faith within his metaphor. He says that, in one of those dimly lit halls of the library, he'd heard of the story about the "the book-man," this belief that on some shelf in some hexagonal cell, there must exist a perfect book, a total book, a book that sums up all the other books in the library, a book that is the key to unlock the meaning of all the others, and justifies the existence of this library. He grants that it's possible that such a book-man might exist, but he says that he's "squandered and spent" too many years searching for it. But this is where his metaphor breaks down. Because when the Creator actually came, when He became a Man, Jesus, some people searched for Him, but most didn't want what He was ultimately offering (see John 6:66). And in the end, even His closest followers left Him on the shelf.
So, what was Jesus offering, that He got such a reception? He was bidding us to come and die-to die to ourselves, To surrender all our self-determined meaning-making projects (see Mark 8:34). To let God pick the photos and write the captions of our lives. But this proved to be too hard for us, to let go of that dead-end dream, willingly. So, God had to die for us, crucified for us, so that we could die in Him—and start over with a new life, a new project, in His resurrection from the dead.
There's a moment toward the end of the book of Genesis when someone asks Jacob his age. Jacob, now a haggard old man, says he's been wandering through this "library" for 130 years. Then he adds a caption: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life" (Genesis 47:9) I guess he was having a down day.
There probably comes a point in everyone's life when you ask, "What is the point?" What even is my life about? But you and I weren't made to answer that question on our own. We were created to share in the answer given in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Put simply: to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself (see Mark 12:29-31). That's the meaning of Jesus' life. And He came to share His life with us. He came because He loves us in the same way He loves God, His Father. And that means He will take all your pictures, every one, every moment—even the ones that don't seem album-worthy. Because even the bad ones will testify of His undying love for you. So, you can trust Him to make something good, to make something beautiful from all of it. And remember that this mortal life, this life that we're living now, these few and evil days, as Jacob said, it's just the start. It's just the first page of a never-ending album that we'll get to make with Him.
Later in the book of Genesis, we get another caption. This one is God's caption over Jacob's family album. We're told that what people meant for evil, God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20). And Jacob, the haggard old shepherd, now in his 140s, he looks back on his life with the eyes of faith, and he sums it up with a metaphor that made sense to him. He says, "God ... has been my Shepherd all my life long until this day" (Genesis 48:15). But we could put it in our own metaphor. God is your album-maker, because it's not your library. It's His. He's keeping the pictures. He's writing the captions. God isn't a page in your book; you're part of His. And He is delighted to have you as part of the family.
Me, I'm still discovering the delight of being part of someone else's album. In that family album of ours that I was telling you about, on a page next to the picture of me with my cast on the arm that I'd broken, there are three photos of my older brother, Matt. The bottom two photos are Matt in his jammies, and he's all smiles. In one, he's getting a hug from our mom; in the other, from dad. But the third picture, the one on the top, isn't one I would have thought is album-worthy. It's an 11-year-old Matt, cleaning the bathroom floor. He's taken a knee, next to the toilet with a sponge and a bucket. And he's got a haggard look on his face that says, "The days of my life are few and evil." But, to the side, there's a caption. It says, "Matt loves his work ... and his mom and dad"—which, looking back over half a lifetime, sums it up pretty well, but I wouldn't have thought to say that on my own.
In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley. Accessed on Sept 13, 2024 at https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Borges-The-Library-of-Babel.pdf
Ibid., 117.
Reflections for November 17, 2024
Title: Album-Worthy
No reflection segment this week.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun" courtesy of The Hymnal Project of the Michigan District of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
"Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying" arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"The Day Is Surely Drawing Near" From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
