Friday 22nd May - Occasions to love God

DAILY BYTE

We’ve discussed this week some of the ways that God’s love abides in us and how we share that love with others.

A lot of songs about Jesus being our friend and lover can get quite campy. But, if you really think about what it means to be a friend and lover, it’s actually anything but campy – it’s quite daunting. A good friend emailed recently and said, “I am reminded today of how most people are lucky if they make it through life with just three good friends.” And it’s true – that friendship can be so challenging that we are blessed if we make it through our lives with a few that survive!

But being a friend and a person who loves is also divinely beautiful because it is only through God that we are able to love those who can seem different or unlovable to us.

During seminary, we came across a lot of people in ministry who were challenging to love. And our standard catchphrase was, “Well, I only have to love him with the love of Jesus.”

Which, as we know, happens to be the greatest love of all. It truly is only through the love of God that we can both give and receive such great love and reconciliation from those whose love we want to reject. It is through God’s love and grace that we can allow people who have opposed us and hurt us to help fill our buckets, becoming through Christ, a part of what makes us whole, completely fulfilled.

According to the Scriptures, Jesus never “fell” in love. That phrase really makes it sound like people accidentally trip and bonk their heads. No, as far as we know, Jesus never was “in love” and never got married, despite The Da Vinci Code’s best attempts to make us wonder. But Jesus lived filled to overflowing - out of the source of God’s love in friendships with people he intentionally chose – people who were often unlikely.

Jesus didn’t go looking for these tax collectors and fishermen and women of the city, thinking to himself, “Now, what does that person have that will benefit my ministry and life.” - Thinking things like, maybe Zacchaeus can get me a substantial, but legal, break on my taxes…

No, Jesus chose those whom God had created and loved, and he abided every day with them. He lovingly sacrificed everything for them so that they – and we – might love one another. Hannah Arendt said in her book on Love and St. Augustine that “every beloved is only an occasion to love God.”

And this is at the heart of the gospel, which says, living out of the source of God’s agape love is for those who have “fallen in love” and it is also for those who think they cannot love or be loved. It is for those who think they are complete and those who are continually grasping at others and things to try and fill the voids.

And so, no matter who you are, may the words “faith, hope, and love abide, and the greatest of these is love” live in your heart today, drawing you closer to Christ’s sacrificed heart so that it may complete you and bring you fullness of joy so that you may learn to lay down your life, living out of the source of God’s love for others.

GUIDING SCRIPTURE

1 Corinthians 13:13

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Loving God, you have created us simply because you love us. Help us to recognize that your love is the core of all life. It is what makes us complete, filling us with joy. And so, help us to soak in that love, pour it out on others, and keep soaking it in even more for as long as we live. Amen.