October 26, 2014
The love of God,
neighbor and self is a triple mystery that defies analysis.
So let me humbly offer
three pieces of the puzzle that you may fit into your picture of love.
First piece.
In recent years we have
transferred our allegiance from a judgmental God to a parental God.
That is good, since the
greatest revelation of God is as Father.
But, as in many things,
we took a good thing too far and distorted it.
Along with no-fault
insurance and no-fault divorce we want no-fault love.
No way.
Love is done on purpose
with aforethought.
God does find fault with
the way we love and intends to do something about it.
Indeed, something quite
specific.
God clearly said:
"If you do not take care of my people I will kill you!"
That=s serious.
So serious that we
protest, we demure.
We say that the
Israelites had a simple, nomadic economy that depended on personal chanty
whereas we are covered by welfare.
We say that in an
agrarian society at the time of Jesus responsibility was easily traced; whereas
in our global economy we are too far from the seats of power to be held
accountable.
This is only partially
true.
We may not make final
decisions on child labor, food distribution, debt reduction and genocide. But
neither are we illiterate, powerless peasants.
To the extent that we
have money, votes, education, leisure and access to decision makers, we are
responsible for the world we inhabit.
My guess is that God is
very angry at the shape we have allowed our world to take.
And while we try to
excuse, explain and deny responsibility for the incredible suffering of the
poor, there God stands with sword in hand.
Second piece of the
puzzle.
Love is ordered, has
priorities.
We speak of love of God
and neighbor and self as if they were equal. But they are different kinds of
love because they have different objects.
In that sense, love of
self is not precisely love since your self is not an object.
Call it self-concern or
self-responsibility.
And though it is a
profound experience, it should not be mystified.
Call it
self-preservation.
And besides an instinct
for survival,
humans have an innate
tendency toward Goodness and a drive to be joined to everything good.
We call that goodness
"God" and that longing "Love."
We also have an in-built
passion to know and do the truth:
to know the meaning of
life, how the world works, what is the proper relationship among fellow humans.
That is close to love of
neighbor.
These are separate loves
with separate objects.
Love of self is
responsibility for survival of self;
love of neighbor is
responsibility for the survival of neighbor.
Love of God is the
desire to be united with God on a personal basis: to know and love what God
does.
But though these are
separate acts of love in theory that are
united in practice,
Love of self demands
interaction with others, so we love them.
Every neighborly love is
at the same time love of God whether or not we intend it. So much is love of
one piece.
Third piece of the
puzzle.
Love is inclusive.
"Love me-love my
dog is not just homey wisdom -- it is profound psychology.
It is much the same with
love of God----but it is much complicated by the fact that God has billions of
dogs, many of us mongrels.
The problem becomes
acute when we intensely dislike someone.
It doesn't matter if we
are justified; the demand of love is absolute.
Sometimes we simply
cannot deal with them person-to-person so we take it to God, our first love.
We say to God: "Let
us, you and I, get our love straight first."
And that request reveals
our deepest human problem, what the poet called "the error bred in the
bone, not just to be loved but to be loved alone."
Although we know that
God loves others as much as He loves us, we don't want to think about it.
We like to think we are
special.
But God says:
"Sorry, I don't have private affairs."
That is when we discover
that eternal love is eternally binding.
The Old Testament God
threatened: "If you do not love your brother or sister, I will kill
you";
the New Testament God
reluctantly sighs:
"If you cannot love
your brothers and sisters, I will have to live without you."'
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