Extreme love

In thinking about love, as I have said before, we tend towards a mushy expression of romanticism which has been conveyed to us by the ever helpful media and social mores of the world. In coming to terms with love as it is expressed by Christ and God we have to enlarge our view and overcome our own inbuilt biases. The passage from 1 Corinthians (15.35-50) outlines what appears to be totally un-achievable for those that are mortal. The very fact that we are mortal seems to suggest that we cannot achieve that which is only available to the spiritual. Yet why would Paul suggest this if it were not achievable within our own mortal bodies.

The issue perhaps is how we understand and how we cope with the feeling and ideology of love in the first place. Too often perhaps we relegate it to a forgotten world of pinks and hearts and softness that enfolds us in comfort and bliss. However, the love that is from God is not this marshmallow style of love. Yes, there is an element of protection and forgiveness but there is a much harder aspect that forms and moulds us into something other. Let's look for example at the speech that Joseph makes to his brothers in Genesis (45.3-11). We see this often as a lovely reunion of a family split apart from each other and forgiveness on the part of Joseph. Midrashic sources delve much deeper into the psychological processes that are in play here. From these sources comes an understanding that this speech is a result of an about face almost in Joseph's thinking that has been brought about by the impassioned speech from Judah in the foregoing chapter. Joseph has been trying to piece together a story over the period of his interaction with the family, a story that he casts over the familial members and creates the conditions for them to participate in. Yet, following Judah's speech he comes to the realisation that his story will bring shame upon the family, a shame that will cause even greater divisions than have already been wrought. His love for them makes him abandon the "revenge" and holds out a branch that will draw the tattered remnants of the dispersing family into a whole despite the cost to him. It is this love, which breaks us down, so that we can reform ourselves and our families into a new understanding.

Christ offers us an alternate way of looking at the other through the eyes of love. In Luke's gospel (6.27-38) the actions of love are broken down into what can only be described in this day and age as the "Idiots Guide to..". Perhaps, this is actually all we are good for, being spoon fed the requirements of this extraordinary love that comes from God. Unless we are prepared to unpack ourselves and understand our agendas like Joseph, who almost mid story, returns to himself and begins to understand the sacrifice it takes to re-draw the family. Christ re-draws humanities response to the other on the cross through his sacrifice, making holy, and re-drawing our relationships in the midst of chaos. The steps are simple. They are laid out in black and white in Luke's gospel (Lk. 6.27-38). These are the simple steps that lead us into the moment of re-drawing our lives around love. It is we who have to sacrifice the story that we build around ourselves in order to accommodate the stories that are told by others. In the same way the other also sacrifices there story once they have heard our re-interpretation of our lives so that they can do the same for themselves and have the courage to return to the basic format of love that is acceptance of self and other.

Love that transforms our lives is harder than we think

In taking the route of extreme love we open ourselves up to transformation. In re-writing our story we understand what has been hidden by the mushiness of our understanding. We transform ourselves so that we become spirit. The malleability and ease with which the spirit is accepting becomes our physical home. We are able to transcend the limitations that our earthly life places upon us and are able to embrace the strange, the unusual, the other in an accepting love that is not only transformative but also deeply protective and life giving.

Where has all the faith gone?

It is not particularly surprising to ask such a question at this time. As a faith community we are meant to lead the way in terms of faith. This is after all what we proclaim to do as a community.. have FAITH! Yet, this is perhaps the one thing we tend to struggle with on a constant basis as it is asking us to place our whole being into an unknown. If we look at Jeremiah (17.5-10) we can see God saying something along the lines of: Have faith in me and you will grow like a tree beside life giving waters, if you do not you will be similar to a tree in the middle of a harsh desert. A similar theme is struck in Psalm 1. The early Christians also struggled with belief and faith but I suspect for different reasons (1 Cor 15.12-20).

Today faith and belief are not well known commodities, at least not in the esoteric sense. Faith and belief actually imbue our culture and our times but in a very different manner to what we think of within our Christian sensibilities. We actually have an undying faith in science and scientific progress, we have a strong faith in economic progress (whatever that may mean) and above all we have an absolute faith in everything technological. We have left behind us any thought of the nebulous faith that is associated with, well, faith. We are so concerned with what our rationality can undertake that we forget the other side of ourselves. One of our major issues in society today is that of mental health. I do not know but I suspect there is a correlation between our ability to sustain faith and our ability to retain our mental composure in the light of change. The world is changing rapidly and often which leads us towards an inability to integrate the things that are happening around us. We are so driven by our faith in things that are physical or rational that we do not cater for the needs of the other side of our own being.

It looks good but sometimes too much of a good thing is not good

In the Lukan beatitudes Christ puts the two sides of our being into perspective (Lk.6.17-26). Both the negative and the positive, the up and the down. Unfortunately today we look only to the one side, always looking for the up, never recognising that there is a down that corresponds. It is the integration of the two that brings us to Christ because it brings us to a wholeness of being. We cannot have one without the other. Any person who is involved in recovery or involved in bringing others out of pain know that for this to happen both the negative and the positive need to be embraced. IF we are unable to uderstand the flip side we are unable to understand ourselves. In order for us to maintain our faith we need to overthrow our faith. That sounds weird. In reality it is not we have a dependency on a faith with regards to the rational often as a result we find we have no place to turn to other than into disturbance and illness. If we overthrow this and move into the madness of faith in something other than the rational we find our equilibrium and begin to understand ourselves.

In beginning to understand ourselves we can see both sides of the equation, as it were, and are able to accept who we are. We begin to love ourselves. In this acceptance we are able to see the other not as other but as part of ourselves and are therefore able to begin to love our neighbour as ourselves. We begin to have faith in Christ and all the extraordinary claims that come with that faith because they are extraordinary. Like the tree in Psalm 1 that is beside the water we need to have an eye on the waters of faith and the dry country of rationality in order for us to become whole. It is not this or that it is rather both this and that.

Called to ...?

We are in some manner called to follow God from baptism onwards. God's call is not the same for each and every one of us. Isaiah is called to be a prophet to the people, a call he responds to when he hears God ask "Who shall I send?" (Is. 6.8). The fishermen follow when they are called to become "fisher of men" (Lk 5.10). Sometimes we fret about the fact that we are not called to this or that. Occasionally we find that our call is so different to others that we are unsure about our own call because it does not conform with, or is not traditional, or is perceived not to be a call because it falls so far outside of our known understanding that it cannot possibly be from God. So how do we know to what and to whom we are called? How can we understand the impossible that is possible in God's eyes?

Sometimes when we dream large we get caught up and leave others behind us. Sometimes when God calls we seem to think that others will automatically follow us. It took many days and indeed forty years before the Israelites understood what Moses and God was calling them to. Even when we dream small dreams we still think that others will automatically follow those dreams. Even the prophets led by God had problems and the disciples continually failed until after Christ had left them. Christ knew that when he called his disciples and the fishermen from Galilee that they would not be ready immediately. His words are "you will be fishers of men" not "you are". It is a future dream that will become a reality. We are often too impatient to see the reality. I cam across a story recently about a funeral of a person with DMD (Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy). It intrigued me because I worked with a research group looking at DMD in an earlier incarnation.

There is always danger in following God's call.

The story reported that the young man's funeral was attended by a few mourners mainly relatives. This was to be expected as typical for this disease the young man did not socialise, nor was he able to go out. However, a different story emerged during the funeral as there were a number of strangers unknown to the family who had turned up. They had met with the father the day before and one of them spoke at the funeral. Unbeknownst to the family, the young man did indeed have friends all over the world. The young representative of this group told them that candles were being lit for him all over Europe. The reason was that he had been an integral and much loved member of a community that met online as immersive gamers. So, his calling was not visible to those around him but was to many whom he met and gamed with during the long hours of the night. What does this tell us about our call and how we need to behave. (Perhaps there is even a place for missionary gamer!!)

Simply put we can never as the old saying goes, judge a book by their cover. Indeed sometimes we need to remind ourselves never to judge according to our own desires, needs and criteria. Isaiah was called out in a vision seen by himself. He responded and did not have an easy life. He was not necessary well liked doing things which I am sure he did not necessarily want to do. But his calling was from God and he responded to that call. Our calling may not appear to be fruitful, be hard work, be boring , be something other than dramatic but it is still a call from God to be what God wants us to be and to which we need to respond. We all make mistakes but we need to learn from them and approach life knowing that God is about change and movement not about stillness. The Israelites took forty years to discover their true purpose. The disciples had to wait until after Christ's death before they produced fruit. Sometimes it is a question of accepting and not fighting. Sometimes it is about fighting and not accepting. Which ever one it is it is always about listening to God speak and lead and not about allowing others to pressure us into decisions that are theirs and not God's. God is happy to wait. Sometimes waiting is the hardest but sometimes it is the most productive period of our lives as we prepare to bring God's word into the community through our actions.

The better part

At the end of 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes about the greater gifts, which we would probably now call ministries, but then says, "But I can show you an even better way" (1 Cor. 12.13). This he does in the following chapter, which if you do not know it is the treatise on love (1 Cor 13). So, if we are to be ministers to the body of Christ what should our goal be: the gifts of the greater part or love? Perhaps too often we generally focus on the gifts of the greater part and neglect the better way that is the way of love. Yet, the whole of the gospel is the way of love not the way of the gifts. So, why the big focus on gifts?

Our understanding of what love is may be at the root of our ability to successfully deal with this vexed question. I think that often we think of love as a romantic notion that is filled with soft, cuddly feelings that enhance our well being. Or else it is the romanticised understanding of Mills & Boon or the cinematographic portrayals of romantic love. These are the cultural portrayals of love that are fed to us through screen and the written word. An escapism, if you will, from the drear normality of the world that we inhabit. In our emphasis on this aspect of love we cannot see how love can be effective in the building of community or in bringing the Gospel into the hearts of those around us. Rather it is the prosaic and sometimes spectacular gifts of the greater part that can be seen as showing God's presence through the effects of an evangeliser, teacher, prophet (Jer 1.4-10) or speaker of tongues. These will bring in more people to the heart of worship and all the implicit gains that this means for the faith community. Yes, these are required, yes these are gifts that need to be nurtured in an appropriate manner not to bring fame but to show God's love and mercy. Each gift is there to encourage or enhance the community not the individual, something that I feel we are inclined to forget. It is a gift of a moment and once that moment is past such gifts may become boorish and un-motivational. Just think of Jeremiah's life at the end.

Are we only part of the community as a result of our greater gift or because we are loved?

At the end of the day the issue is a simple one. The greater gifts we can acknowledge and respond to with ease knowing that someone else is fulfilling the necessary work. They can be assessed as to their effectiveness and if not fulfilling the criteria set, forgotten about or let out to pasture. The better way is actually hard work. It is not easy and simple, it is not something that we can handover to someone else but rather requires our personal involvement and effort. Just looking at the criteria that Paul sets reminds us of the difficulty that is faced: "Love never boastful, conceited, rude, selfish, quick to take offence"; "Love is patient, kind, envies no one, delights in truth, etc"; "Love can face anything, has no limit on its faith, hope and endurance". Can we honestly say that these criteria are not hard work? More importantly can we measure these in a simplistic and rational manner to say that you are good because we can see these effects of love?  All of us, at sometime or another, fall on our faces in terms of these demands and are quite often condemned for the fact (displaying once more our failings). Once we start that route we begin to turn our backs on God and the community that we have been asked to form (Luke 4.28-30).

Love is the long term commitment asked of us by God. The same commitment that is placed before the Israelites at Mt Sinai. Indeed, if we are truly to be honest with ourselves the gifts of the greater part, if they are of any worth to the community, have to be cultivated on the base of love and not the other way around. So when we extol the greater gifts we need to be very careful that they are gifts given by God, for the benefit of the good news that is the Gospel, which is based in and on God's manifest love. The metanoia or turning back to God in repentance is the requirement of love as we acknowledge our own failings towards our selves and our community. It is hard work and it is made even harder when we turn our backs on each other.