God As Father, Mother, Brother, and Friend

Today I offer a prayer I wrote a few years ago that lifts up different aspects of God's love for us.

Loving God, we give you thanks for your infinite love that comes to us in so many different ways that we can barely comprehend its variety.

You love us like a compassionate father with strength and authority. As a father guides his children, you guide us on our life journeys. You rejoice at our successes and support us through disappointments and failures. As loving father, you wait for us to return home when we stray and, when we return, you welcome us with a loving embrace.

You also love us like a gentle mother. Like a mother, you gave birth to the universe and created us. As a mother comforts her children, you are console us in difficult times, not taking away our pain but easing it by sharing it. With a mother's love you touch our deepest wounds with your healing touch.

In Jesus Christ, you have loved us like a brother. He came among us filled with your loving spirit. As our brother, Jesus shared fully in our lives, experiencing the heights and depths of being human. On the cross, he experienced death and made possible new life for us.

Through your Spirit, you love us like a friend, always near and always ready to help. As our divine friend, you give us strength and courage in the dark times of life. As a friend, you share in our sorrows and joys.

Help us to be obedient children, loving brothers and sisters, and faithful friends to you. Amen.

Peace and Love

The oldest Beatle, Ringo Starr, turned 70 years old yesterday. His requested birthday gift was for everyone to say "peace and love" at noon. Fortunately, the friend I was eating lunch with reminded me of this (however we said "peace and love" at 1 p.m.-- I don't think Ringo would mind). The AP photo above shows Ringo at Times Square's Hard Rock Cafe.

The message of "peace and love" is so very simple, yet profound. These two words describe the ideal relationship with self, others and God. Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of reconciliation. When we have peace in the relational sense we co-exist with others in a relationship of respect.

Love is the ultimate word to describe our deepest relationship need. We need to give love and to receive it. Without love, life atrophies and is diminished. Love is the life-blood of all relationships. By "love" I don't mean "feelings of affection" but a deep commitment to the good of the other. When we love someone, we act in their best interests even if we have to repress self-interest.

While I don't believe saying the words "peace and love" will change the world, I do believe that being committed to infusing our relationships with these realities will change us. I'm glad that Ringo once again called our attention to their importance.

Love As Loyalty

My niece's wedding was this past Saturday and she asked me to read a passage from the Book of Ruth (1:15-18). This passage is often read at weddings and I've transcribed it below.

"Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
and your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die--
there I will be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!"

The words above were spoken by the Moabite, Ruth, to her mother-in-law, Naomi, who is a Hebrew. Naomi has migrated from Judah to Moab with her husband and sons during a famine. After settling in Moab, Naomi's sons both married Moabites. Tragically, Naomi's husband and her two sons die. Thus, Naomi and her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, are widows.

When Naomi decides to return home to Judah, Ruth and Orpah follow her. But she entreats them to turn back and make a life for themselves in their own country. Orpah does this, but Ruth refuses to leave Naomi.

The story of Ruth is a story of deep love, tragic loss and amazing loyalty. Because of her deep love for Naomi, Ruth is willing to leave everything familiar behind. This is an amazing example of love as loyalty. Perhaps this is why the verses above are often read at weddings.

Love-as-loyalty shows that love is a decision, an act of the will. Surely, love-as-loyalty is important to successful marriages, but also to successful friendships and family relationships. Loyalty is what keeps us committed to a relationship when feelings of love are diminished because of an argument, a betrayal or misspoken words. We can't rely on feelings of love alone when it comes to our closest relationships, even our relationship with God. That's why we need love-as-loyalty.

"Broken Embraces"

Pedro Almodovar's film "Broken Embraces" is a complex tale, or rather series of interwoven tales, about love, loss and obsession. It features (of course) Penelope Cruz as the mistress of one man and the lover of another. The other lead actor is Lluis Holmar, who plays a blind film director/screen writer.

This film is so full of images and complexity, I'll focus on the central image conveyed by the title. There is much brokenness in this series of interwoven stories. There is the brokenness of Lena (Cruz) who hates the powerful man she is living with. She wants to escape this loveless relationship, but only does so through death.

Mateo Blanco (Holmar) who, after being blinded in an auto accident, takes on the pseudonym Harry Caine. His brokenness is multiple. He is alienated from his son and the son's mother. He becomes close to another young man, whom he learns is his son. He is also devastated by a former lover's betrayal.

"Broken embraces" is an image that captures the difficulty and complexity of human relationships. The "embrace" stands for the closeness of intimacy and parental love. Embraces are inevitably broken by a variety of acts of betrayal, mistrust and selfishness. However, in these same relationships forgiveness and reconciliation is possible so that a new embrace results. The truth conveyed in "broken embraces" is that life is a series of embraces that are broken and then reassembled in new ways.

The Inseparability of Divine/Human Love

I've been getting prepared to teach a 3-day course on "The Letters of John" this summer. These three brief letters are part of the "General Epistles" in the New Testament, along with James, 1 and 2 Peter and Jude.

One of the major themes of First John is the inseparability of our love for God and our love for each other. The author of this letter puts this theme in the strongest terms possible, "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen" (4:20).

I believe this understanding of the nature of divine/human love is true. We show our love for God by loving each other. Love for God and love for our fellow humans is woven together in such a way that they can't be divided. They are two sides of the same coin.

This truth is sobering. It causes us to look at our lives carefully and examine how we act toward those who are difficult, or seemingly impossible, to love. Again, I return to a view I blogged about earlier: to love is to act in the best interests of the other. I wonder how differently we would act toward others if we understood that we were actually acting toward God.

Love or Respect?

In my World Religions class last night Christianity was the focus. I asserted that the "love commandment" was the main ethical imperative for the early church and remains so today.

One of my students challenged this by saying, "Love is too broad and difficult to define. I think that respect is more important than love in relationships." A lively discussion ensued. Some felt that love could be defined and others agreed that respect trumped love.

I think that the love vs. respect dichotomy is a false one. I can't imagine love existing without respect. Respect is a subset of love. However, respect can exist without love.

I see the point of the student above, especially when the "love commandment" is expressed in loving one's enemies. When it comes to our enemies, feeling love for them is difficult, if not impossible. Respect might be the best we can hope for.

My own definition of Christian love is "acting in the other person's best interests." This takes love out of the emotional realm and places it in the realm of the will. Love is a decision we make in any relationship, a decision to act on behalf of the other's good. This is also how I understand God's love-- as God desiring the best for us.

Important Matters

Not that it matters much, but lately I’ve been bumping up against the word “matter.”

First, I came across this word in a sermon title of a colleague, “You Matter To God.” Next, I saw it in a New York Times review of a book titled, “Success Built To Last.” The first element of lasting success in work is, “What you do must matter deeply to you.” Then, looking for a book on my bookshelf I saw a book titled, “Faith Matters.”

Although the most common definition of “matter” is “what something is made of,” the meaning I’m concerned with is, “something of importance or significance.” When we say that something or someone matters to us, we are saying that they are important to us. And, if something matters deeply to us, then it is of great importance to us.

When I ask myself the question, “What really matters to me?” the answer comes quickly: my family. There is my immediate family of Donna, Brandon and Matthew, and my larger family, including parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins. And there is also my extended family of friends and colleagues.

The people that matter most to me are the people with whom I share life and love. When we love someone, they immediately matter to us, which is to say that they become important to us.

In that marvelous fable, The Little Prince by St. Exupery, the fox who is the wisest of creatures says, “It is only with the heart that one sees rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” I think what St. Exupery was telling us was that what matters most in life are not material things but invisible love.

If my colleague’s sermon title is right (and I believe it is), each of us matters to God. How much do we matter? Tremendously. Not only did God create us, giving us the gift of life, God provided a fruitful earth to nourish and sustain us.

Paul was astounded at how much we matter to God when he wrote, “Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” On the cross, we see how greatly we matter to God.

I believe the reason we matter so deeply to God is because we are God’s children. And, if we are God’s children, then we are brothers and sisters to each other. We are all part of the human family created out of love by God.

So then, let us show others that they matter to us in words and deeds. For showing love is a very important matter!