Knitting a Conundrum

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.

Mother Teresa

Loving is not easy. When we love, we are open to the bruises and bumps of the ones who touch our lives, and yet, love is demanded of us by Christ.

He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling. But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. 1 John 2: 9-11 RSV

Having anger gnaws away at the heart, and creates the ground that evil breeds in. We see this happening all over the world...in countries ripped apart by civil war, in places where groups traditionally hated each other and therefore, when social control comes off, they attack each other. Ruwanda was like that, where blood flowed as hundreds and hundreds of people were slaughtered because of traditional hatreds. When Yugoslavia fell apart, people who had been neighbors for years suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the ethnic divide, and began attacking each other.

But it happens in homes, too. Hardly a week goes by without hearing about someone who killed their spouse or exspouse, their parent or their children because of anger and hate and desire to force those people into behaviors they don't want to be. Honor killings. Spousal and child abuse. Neighbors who get into fights, sometimes leading to injury or death.

Yet as Christians, we are meant to be salt, to preserve goodness in the land where anger and hate live. Light, to show there is another way. Leaven, to be that matter that opens up the heaviness that a sin-stained life breeds, to let the light and peace of heaven spread across the land.

Mother Teresa also said something worth pondering: "Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world. " Love, the light that comes from Heaven through our hands starts at home, with the world around us. Things are transformed one heart at a time, one selfless action at a time, one smile at a time, one "I understand" at a time.

And it's an ongoing action, an ongoing need. One never loves enough.

Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?"

Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

"Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents; and as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, `Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.'

"And out of pity for him the lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

"But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat he said, `Pay what you owe.' So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, `Have patience with me, and I will pay you.'

"He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.

"Then his lord summoned him and said to him, `You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt.

"So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."

Matthew 18:21-35 RSV

Labels: Love