The Primacy of Love: Part VI
The first words I saw online Saturday morning were, “God
has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a strong
mind.” A friend from my days in the gym, Armando Ortiz had posted them on
Facebook. I was immediately reminded of an afternoon when I was alone in a
large church in Rochester, walking up the aisle, and saw these words from 2 Timothy
1:7 in stained glass. Directly across the aisle was another window with these
words from 2 Corinthians 13:11, “The God of Love shall be with you.” I
remember standing there in that church and repeating these two verses over and
over to myself. Love and a Sound Mind.
We tend to think of a sound mind in terms of knowledge, and
a sort of unspoken assumption that more knowledge will lead us to greater
success – both personal success and success in solving this world’s great
problems and crises. Whereas, Ilia Delio reminds us that Bernard of Clairvaux
realized that love itself is a kind of knowledge possessed of its own kind of
logic. “The knowledge of love is not of the intellect alone but of the
heart, an integrative knowing in the field of awareness. Knowledge through love
is performative, for the one who sees the truth of things becomes a revealer of
the truth through the actions of love. True knowledge is never an end in itself
but always a step toward and ever deeper, richer transforming union.”[i]
This is what Jesus is talking about in John chapter 10, “I
and the Father, we are one.” The Judeans who are questioning his identity, “Are
you or are you not the one we are waiting for, the Christos, the Anointed, the
Messiah?” A question for which they have preconceived and prefabricated answers
– characteristics or certain minimum requirements to qualify as God’s anointed
Christ or messiah.
Whereas, Jesus points away from himself to the performative
actions of love which he does on behalf of Abba, God, Father – turning water
into wine, healing those in need, feeding those who hunger and thirst for even
a small sign that God is their protective shepherd as well as literal, aching
hunger for a scrap of a meal shared with others – five thousand others on one
occasion alone.
“The Father and I are one,” he says, in our love, our
mercy, our forgiveness and compassion for all people. The Father and I are
united through our actions of love and mercy. The sheep or our pasture know
this and join us in the unfolding of a world of justice, peace and love for all
persons. We are artisans of the future. God’s future. For God has not given us
a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a strong mind. Join us, and know
that the God of Love shall be with you.
In the very next verse, his questioners pick up rocks to
stone him. They try to arrest him. They accuse him of blasphemy, profaning the
very name of their God – as if God is some sort of possession that needs
defending. They are afraid of such perfect love that cares more for others than
for themselves. This is madness, they must think. And of course, madness it is!
It is a Holy Madness to empty oneself on behalf of others – others you do not
even know. Cannot possibly know. Where outside of Facebook can anyone truly ‘know’
five thousand people! And yet, he gives away all that he has so that they may
be fed – which goes far beyond a morsel of bread and fish, but simply a sign
that someone, anyone, cares about us and our need for love, and care, and wholeness.
So that our fears may be set aside and eclipsed by the source and energy of all
life and the entire universe – love.[ii]
Before we ever met, Armando would see me at the gym,
flailing at the various punching bags until one day he walked over, and almost
gently, demonstrated how one can strike each of the various bags in a manner
that can enhance your speed, your strength and your attentiveness, your focus. For
Armando it was a small gesture of what we used to call brotherly love born out
of a deep faithfulness to the life of his shepherd, the Good Shepherd, who leads
us beside still waters. For me it made all the difference not only in learning
the mechanics of the “manly art,” but was evidence that when we walk together
as children of God the Father we don’t ever have to worry. Through this world
of trouble, we have to love one another. Even in the very smallest of things,
in the smallest of gestures of care for one another. For it is even in the smallest
gestures of love that we and the Father are one.
Elsewhere, our Bible reads in 1 John 4:18, “There is no
fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with
punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”
We are surrounded by much fear every day. We are encouraged
by bad shepherds every day to fear one another. We are told outright that it is
dangerous to love one another. That ‘the Other’ is not to be trusted. Influenced
by such bad shepherds we feel a need to pick up stones and throw them at one
another. Or, worse. Much, much worse.
May we begin each morning, as my friend Armando started my
day, reminding ourselves, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power
and of love and of a strong mind.” That, “The God of love shall be with you.” That
through the eyes of love, we see the face of God. Yesterday, today and
tomorrow. There is no fear in love, for the God of love shall be with you.
Amen.
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