Saturday, December 15, 2012

(What Is) Love, Actually?

Today's readings:  Psalms 90,  149; Isaiah 8:1-15; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-18; Luke 22:31-38

If you didn't already know, or didn't pick it up over this past week, the traditional theme of the second week of Advent is love. We throw the word "love"around a lot, and tend to use it as if its meaning is consistent and apparent to all. We use just one word to describe feelings, actions and attitudes toward dissimilar things. "I love pizza." "I love God." "I love Blazing Saddles." "I love making love." Sophisticated, precise users of language may choose different words to better express nuance, but in the common vernacular, love is love is love.

As we've reflected on different types of love - romantic, divine, merciful, charitable, etc. - what questions has it raised for you? Through your own experiences and studies, how has your working definition of love changed? Do you experience love primarily as a feeling, an attitude or an action? A mix of all three? Or something else entirely? If we are actively engaged in the world, our understanding of love is endlessly evolving. Take marriage as an example. The passionate intensity of a new love can not sustain twenty, forty or sixty years of marriage; as the years pass, the landscape of the relationship changes. Self help books that teach us our relationship is floundering if we fail to hold onto or rekindle that early passion have it all wrong. Stubborn insistence that love must look and feel the same five, ten or thirty years down the road is deadly to a marriage. Movies, TV and books tell us a relationship that loses its youthful intensity is somehow lacking, but the opposite is often true: just as mature people gain depth, gravity and patience so do mature relationships.

Our love for God and people must be allowed to follow a similar path if it is to mature. Sometimes we need to let go of what we think love is before we can reach that next level of depth. That can be scary, or feel like a loss, especially when the letting go is forced on us. At the close of this second week of Advent, can we commit to bravely exploring a deeper understanding of love over the coming year? We might find God in the most surprising places!

Evening readings: Psalms 80, 72

Friday, December 14, 2012

Sometimes it's better to receive...

Today's readings: Psalms 102, 148; Isaiah 7:10-25; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5; Luke 22:14-30

How do you feel about being loved? The answer may depend on the kind of love we are talking about. Romantic love? Most of us are happy to receive it. Love in the form of mercy? We are often surprised by it, but almost always welcome it. How about love in the form of charity? Ah! That's a tougher one. As Christians, we are usually happy to dispense it, but many (most?) of us are far less comfortable on the receiving end. But wait ... if we believe receiving charity somehow diminishes us, what does that say about our true feelings about others who accept it? Are we thinking of them as equals? How we receive tells us about the underpinnings of our giving.

Before Jesus broke bread and poured wine at the Last Supper, he stripped to the waist and washed the feet of everyone present. Later he told them "the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves" (Luke 22:26). This passage is usually used to teach the importance of being servants, but it contains another, often overlooked lesson: we must be willing to be served. How does this idea sit with us -- particularly us capitalist, by-our-own-bootstraps, modern Americans? Not very well, that's how. We are immersed in a secular culture based on a merit mentality with an implicit asumption the virtuous are rewarded and the lazy and other "sinners" are not. We have to be deliberate about disentangling ourselves from this notion, or we can't truly be givers in a Christian sense; nor can we get past the insecurity (masquerading as pride) which prevents us from receiving with a glad heart.

The requirements we have chosen to place on all the communion tables that are heirs to that Last Supper say more about the people making the rules than the people they exclude. The necessary flip side of believing some are not welcome at the table is the idea that the rest have somehow earned an invitation. Christ's gifts to us can never be earned but are given freely. Until we believe it is acceptable - necessary - for us to receive love from God or people without earning it, we can't truly believe it for others. Let's receive joyfully!

Evening readings: Psalms 130, 16

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Oh, for the love of God...

Today's readings: Psalms 18:1-20; 147:12-20; Isaiah 7:1-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Luke 22:1-13

How does one love God? It would seem obvious we are supposed to: today's first psalm opens with "I love you, o Lord, my strength" (Ps 18:1), and Jesus told us the greatest commandment was to love God with all one's soul, heart and mind (Matt 22:37). But what does that mean exactly? God is not present to us in the immediate way of a parent, child, spouse or friend. Yet it doesn't seem quite right to love God in a more abstract sense like we might love a book or a song or a favorite flavor of ice cream. Gratitude, wonder, fear and awe - these all seem likely responses to the creator of the universe ... but love? How does one love something that at times seems like little more than a hopeful idea?

Yet we find ways. Perhaps we respond to God's love for us as manifested in Christ. Perhaps a sense of awe infuses our exterior and interior landscapes, illuminated by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps some of us do experience God to be as close as a neighbor or relative ... or imaginary friend. There are as many ways to experience God as there are people to have the experience. Yet experience and/or belief do not necessarily translate into love. How do we, with all the limits of human existence, love a limitless and ultimately unknowable God? Especially when tragedy and injustice obscure God's love for us... Is it possible to love something simply because one is supposed to?

The truth is some of us do, and some of us do not, and some of us want and try to. Sometimes the best we can do is take our cue from the man who told Jesus "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). "I love; help my lack of love!"

Fortunately, just as love for people can be expressed in actions and attitudes even when feelings aren't quite there, our love for God does not have to ebb and flow with our sense of God's nearness. When James tells us "faith without works is dead" (Jam 2:20), he is describing the inability of true faith not to manifest itself in loving works. Similarly our desire to express love to others is a sign that true love of God is within us, whether it burns brightly or flickers but dimly. Either way, it guides us through the dark times.

Evening readings: Psalms 126, 62

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Justice or Just You?

Today's readings: Psalms 50, 147:1-11; Isaiah 6:1-13; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12; John 7:53-8:11

Today's readings contain a lot of words about justice. In Psalm 50, God is portrayed as a devouring fire and a mighty tempest delivering judgment (v 3-4). Smack in the middle of the verses of praise from Psalm 147, God is casting down the wicked (v 6). In Isaiah's vision cities are laid to waste and the land made desolate and reduced to stumps as a result of God's wrath and justice (6:11-13). In his letter Paul tells the Thessalonian church that "it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you" (v 6).

Then we get to one of the most famous stories in the Bible, the story of the woman who is about to be stoned for adultery. She gets to walk away when Jesus challenges anyone without sin to cast the first stone. Before he speaks that famous line, he squats down and starts writing on the ground. The Bible does not explain what he wrote, but several theories are floating around: he was stalling to collect his thoughts; he was cataloging the sins of her accusers; he was writing their names as a subtle way of displaying his supernatural knowledge. There's an intriguing case to be made that, per the prophecies of Jeremiah, he was the only one present actually interested in delivering justice as prescribed by the laws of the temple (which also required the presence of her conspicuously absent male cohort) and writing in the dirt was part of the ritual.

Whether any or none of those speculations is true, there is a powerful message in the uncertainty. Any one of us could think of something we would prefer Jesus not know about, let alone write down for the world to see. Thinking about our own shortcomings shifts our focus from justice to mercy. Too often justice is what we want to happen to other people, while mercy is what we hope for ourselves. Of course justice is important, but without mercy it is only revenge. When we stoop to pick up a rock, we're in a perfect position to read what's written in the dirt at our feet. Justice may be blind, but Jesus restores sight.

Evening readings: Psalms 53, 17

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Act Now, Love Later

Today's readings: Psalms 133, 46; Isaiah 5:18-25; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28; Luke 21:29-38

Yesterday we looked at the relationship between God and humanity as a love story moving from estrangement to reunion. Today's espistle reading from Paul to the Thessalonians also addresses how we express love, but rather than from a romantic perspective, it looks at the practical sort of love we are called to implement in our community. This type of love, also known as agape or charitable love, is not about how we feel toward someone, but about how we act toward them. When Paul advises his audience not to repay evil with evil but to do kindness always (1 Thess 5:15), he does not add "and like each other."One of the hallmarks of Christian love is that we do right by others no matter how we feel in the moment.

Our pop psychology culture puts a lot of emphasis on exploring how we feel. Reality shows and bad therapy model a sort of emotional purging that may be cathartic for us, but which leaves those caught in our emotional wake to flounder. Acting contrary to our emotions may even earn us the title of "hypocrite." We should be careful not to buy into the notion that our emotions define us or should define our actions. Good therapists and wise spiritual leaders teach us there is a deeper self that lies beneath our emotions. When Paul asks us to repay evil with kindness (and he asks us this because Jesus asked first), he is encouraging us to engage that deeper, truer self. The love of God that is the foundation of the deeper self may sometimes be experienced through emotions, but it precedes and follows any emotional expression, and it never promotes the self at the expense of others.

We act in love toward others because they are beloved of God, not because we are fond of them, or because charitable actions "feel" good. Though we can reap a benefit from these actions, especially if our actions are loving when our gut is not. In a culture that encourages us to let feelings guide our actions, we tend to forget that our actions mold our feelings. Acting in love transforms us into loving people who reflect the love of God. What more could we aspire to?

Evening readings: Psalms 85, 94

Monday, December 10, 2012

Love Story

Today's readings: Psalms 122, 145; Isaiah 5:8-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Luke 21:20-28

"The course of true love never did run smooth."
- Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Scene I

Every classic love story involves obstacles the lovers must overcome before finally reuniting. Whether it's warring houses a la Romeo and Juliet, or Heath Ledger's bad boy reputation in 10 Things I Hate About You (a modern take on Taming of the Shrew), problems both tragic and comedic arise. The basic storyline has become cliched if not outright hackneyed, yet its appeal endures.

Maybe that's because history's ultimate love story, that between God and humanity, has repeated this pattern over and over. In this case though the obstacles are all one-sided. We repeatedly abandon God, but God never abandons us. It may feel that way when the fallout of our actions leaves us in an unGodly place - whether metaphorically or in the case of Isaiah's exiled audience quite literally - but God never initiates the "breakup."

If today's readings about destruction were part of a dramatic plot, we'd be squarely in the middle of Act IV: the lovers who thought they were destined to be together forever have been torn apart by [insert plot point here], while the party who seems more in control - in this story, God - is actually the one more wounded by the split. Our story is tragic in the sense that we are undone by our own pride and foolishness and must suffer terrible consequences we were warned to avoid. We know that in the end love triumphs in the person of Jesus Christ, but during Advent - and all the Advent-like seasons of our lives - we live into the uncertain waiting.

Advent helps us focus on what aspects of our love affair with God need tending so we might avoid or bridge that separation. We are called to ever deeper levels of communion with God, and this season encourages us to examine the personal and communal obstacles we need to address before that can happen. As the cycle of obstacles continues, so does the cycle of reunion - at Christmas, at Easter, at Pentecost and at various points in our lives when we reach Act V, and are reunited with God all over again. Be sure to stick around until the credits roll!

Evening readings: Psalms 40; 67