We know and understand that God is the ultimate demonstration of Love as this is what God is. So, when the Gospel from Matthew has Christ saying that Love of God and Love of neighbour are the two most fundamental aspects of the Law we have no issues with the proclamation (Matt 22:37-39). Over the past few weeks we have heard of the generosity of God and how we should be committing everything to God's purposes and if we have not yet realised why, the present Gospel passage gives us no better reason but love. In working out love in our lives we commit to God's purposes for in what other way can we show the abundance that God gives to us but by following in his footsteps of love as shown by the Christ. Yet almost in the same breath of the word love we are also reminded of things that spring not from love of the other but from our own selfishness (Lev. 19:15-18).
This, then, is the paradox within which we have to work out God's love in our lives. We are enjoined by God to live the life that is reflective of God's love, but we are almost always ruled by the desires of our heart. If the desires of our heart are not God centred love then we are a long way from being Christ centred. The idea that love is at the centre of our hearts is a valid one, however, more often than not our idea of love is not God's idea of love as the latter does nothing for us in the immediate future or in the present now. Our love is more often than not something that is heart bound but centred on our own selves rather than on the idea of the other. So how do we see the working out of God's love in the community if our hearts are centred on ourselves? Following Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian, the outpouring of God's love needs to be concretised in the instrument of justice, not just for humanity but also for God's world. To often we are prepared to let things take their course in the world, as surely our laws and those in charge are just, in working out the benefits for citizenship. Martin Luther criticised this approach as facere quod in se est or to put in in modern terms doing the best we can in the moment. In this case the best we can is to leave it to others and allow the peace of our hearts to dwell in the love of ourselves and forget about the other.
In recent weeks we have been speaking about commitment and specifically our commitment to our God and God's call upon us. In using justice as an instrument of love in the world we engage in a political future that creates the impossible as a reality. It is only when we concretise love into the reality of our everyday do we begin to see love in action. A reminder of this is the protest song out of the American South "Strange fruit" which even today brings out the horrors of what Christians can do in the name of God for the sake of our own self-deluded beliefs. In our commitment to God's love in the world we also commit to its outworking using the instrument of justice. Not the justice of the self, which is so often seen in the halls of politics and the dramas of our 'civilisation' but rather the justice of God that does mean putting to the side our own dreams and wants for the dreams and wants of God. Does this mean that we all should line up with the protestors or become involved in the 'climate strike'? Only if God calls us to this but God does call us to see that justice is the reality and not the parsimonious wants of the rich and powerful. It means that we cannot let things take their course, as we so often do, believing in a better future while allowing the injustices of the present to continue into the future.
Love demands an action; love demands a commitment; love demands solidarity. Our commitment begins within our hearts by bearing our gifts before God. By giving ourselves to our local communities to bring God's love; by working for justice locally, nationally and globally. Our local actions will reflect onto the national scene, if and only if, we are committed to the task as the body of Christ acting with the one heart of love that is Christ's own. The consequence of influencing and demanding local justice that is national we begin to impact globally as we bring the needs of love to the attention of the world. So often we begin at the top and try to work down whereas love begins with our hearts and then outwards. This means that our start must be where we are, not where we want to be, in other words locally for we live locally. Only when we fulfil our commitment to our local communities in terms of justice and love can we begin to reach outwards. In transforming our local communities, we begin to transform that which is greater as others take heart from God's love poured out by our shared communal experience.
God's love demands much of us but most importantly we need to recognise that we are asked to ensure that justice is done to the living, however horrifying the past may be. Christ showed us the horrific side of personal injustice when he died on the cross but God is a God of the living (Matt. 22:32) and it is to the living that we owe God's love by seeking justice. We have too many witnesses (martyrs), from Christ's death on a cross to the Rwandan genocide and the George Floyds of recent times, to humankind's ability to do evil; we have too few witnesses to God's love in action that changes our world towards that which Christ proclaimed in truth. So we are reminded to be committed in our giving of ourselves as a sacrifice and witness to the truth of God's transforming love, no matter what it takes for it is a requested sacrifice.
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