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Greetings, SBT Readers:
I'm running late, carried away by this week's reflection, and so will keep my introductory comments brief. Love of neighbor is summoning me to help rake the leaves around the house while there is still daylight and before there is a downpour; love of self is telling me to abandon my computer while I can still enjoy "outdoor time," without which I am not my best self. The leaves beckon and as there are now at least 15 naked trees surrounding the house, I need to respond!
I hope each of you is doing what is necessary to find balance and to repsond to the call to love!
Many Blessings!
Elizabeth
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
Link to Readings
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
an expert on the law tested him by asking,
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?"
Jesus replied,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
Mt 22:34-40
As a small child, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around loving God with all my heart. After all, if God had my whole heart, what space would be left for my parents, sisters, grandparents, friends, and even my pet terrapins and goldfish? Surely, they deserved to be loved as well? For me, loving God with my whole heart and loving others seemed mutually exclusive, and there was nothing I had found in the catechism that suggested otherwise. In fact, from my uninformed perspective, it was rather selfish of God to want all of me, to the exclusion of others. To me, love was like a pie with God wanting all the slices! My "stage of faith" was literal and I was too young to understand on a spiritual level; instead, finding the catechism's prescriptive approach to religion disturbing, I questioned everything in the silence of my own heart. Even at seven years of age, I had a standard response to religion lessons that I never dared articulate: "If God is really like this, then God is not worth believing in!"
Years of study, reflection, and "growing up" have fortunately brought me to a different place. I now see love as an infinite commodity that increases with use, deepening, expanding, pouring out like the living water that Jesus discusses with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:7-26). Of course, I am speaking of real love here, not of sentimental romanticism, nor possessive love, nor smothering love, nor addictive love, nor "feeling good" love, nor transactional love... Real love -- that tough, selfless loving that transcends our narcissistic impulses and, in so doing, increases and multiplies like the miraculous loaves and fishes (Mt 14:13-21) or the amazing catch of fish in the post-Resurrection story (Jn 21). Paradoxically, the more love we give away, the more we have to give -- and the more we love, the deeper our experience of God's love for us, not because we have earned it but because we have a deeper capacity to receive it, to embrace it and to feel it embrace us in turn...
But while most of us know what it is to love another human being, or a group of people, or even a pet, many of us have a hard time when it comes to loving God. For some, loving God is synonymous with keeping the commandments and fulfilling religious obligations such as keeping the feasts, fasts, and holy days. Like the rich young man in Mt 19:16-22, they believe that all this is enough -- until they hear Jesus' response, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come, follow me" (Mt 19:21). Then there are others who imagine that working for God is the same as loving God; whether as religious professionals or as volunteers, they pour themselves out in different ministries and for different causes, working tirelessly as clergy, teachers, preachers, healers, social workers, community activists, etc. And then there is a third category of "would-be lovers of God": those who write about God, speak about God, but have no knowledge of who God is beyond the realm of ideas.
God, however, is more than an employer, more than a taskmaster, more than a theological concept. God is an infinite Being who infinitely desires relationship and love -- not only that, but because "God is love" (1 Jn 4:16), the Holy One wants nothing more than our love -- not our work, nor our deeds, nor our ideas, but only our hearts. That is not to say there is anything wrong with works, deeds, and ideas but when they become a substitute for the love of God, then they are merely idols. If we really love God, then all that we do flows from that love and is not a substitute for it. Instead of our being merely "religiously observant," our practice of faith becomes a reflection of our love and devotion to God; instead of "working for God," we find ourselves collaborating with God for the sake of the Kingdom; and instead of hypothesizing about God (as I am doing now!!) we allow God's thoughts to become our thoughts and God's words to become our words. To love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our minds demands nothing less than complete surrender to the Beloved -- and that is enough...
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