Wednesday, August 11, 2004
On Love
St. Polycarp said, in his Letter to the Phillipians, that "Faith is the mother of us all, with Hope following in her train, and Love of God and Christ and neighbor leading the way."
The Christian walk, at it's core, isn't about following a set of rules that, if adhered to, will give you some spirtual power, like a lot of the New Age techniques are about. It's not about reaching that balance point between the abstract and action, like a lot of eastern philosophy is interested in. It's not about merging into the Godhead and losing self in the larger Self.
Christianity, at its core, is about love and relationship. God the Father so loved the world that he sent his son here. Jesus so loved the world, that despite all its sins, hatred, self-inflicted wounds, greed, and anger, that he lovingly laid down his life in a miserable, painful way for us.
We as followers of Christ are asked in turn to walk in those ways which will transform us, individually, into carriers of Christ's love, so that we, each in our own way, can spread that transformation to those around us.
It is about love, about getting ourselves to focus not on "me and my needs" but the needs of those around us. This is how we are transformed - by becoming the very leaven that makes the hardness of this world open to the light and love of God, just the way yeast makes hard flatbread into something light and fluffy.
St. Paul, in the beautiful Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians sums it up wonderfully:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
Love of God put into practice in love of neighbor is how we are transformed and how we transform the world around us. Of all the root truths that Jesus gave us, this is it.
St. Polycarp said, in his Letter to the Phillipians, that "Faith is the mother of us all, with Hope following in her train, and Love of God and Christ and neighbor leading the way."
The Christian walk, at it's core, isn't about following a set of rules that, if adhered to, will give you some spirtual power, like a lot of the New Age techniques are about. It's not about reaching that balance point between the abstract and action, like a lot of eastern philosophy is interested in. It's not about merging into the Godhead and losing self in the larger Self.
Christianity, at its core, is about love and relationship. God the Father so loved the world that he sent his son here. Jesus so loved the world, that despite all its sins, hatred, self-inflicted wounds, greed, and anger, that he lovingly laid down his life in a miserable, painful way for us.
We as followers of Christ are asked in turn to walk in those ways which will transform us, individually, into carriers of Christ's love, so that we, each in our own way, can spread that transformation to those around us.
It is about love, about getting ourselves to focus not on "me and my needs" but the needs of those around us. This is how we are transformed - by becoming the very leaven that makes the hardness of this world open to the light and love of God, just the way yeast makes hard flatbread into something light and fluffy.
St. Paul, in the beautiful Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians sums it up wonderfully:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
Love of God put into practice in love of neighbor is how we are transformed and how we transform the world around us. Of all the root truths that Jesus gave us, this is it.
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