The Irreverent Reverend

Of God’s love we can say two things:

It is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope

to the loneliest wino on the planet;

and secondly,

God’s love doesn’t seek value,

It creates value.

It is not because we have value

that we are loved,

but because we are loved

that we have value.

Our value is a gift

not an achievement.

William Sloane Coffin

In ancient Hebrew times love was an action not dependent on feelings. It doesn’t mean that people didn’t fall in love in biblical times. It does mean that where the word love appears in Scripture it probably doesn’t mean romantic love.

There are many words for love in Hebrew. They range in meaning from the love of parent for a child, the loyalty of family bonds, devotional love, a deliberate choice of affection and kindness, love that is expressed in compassion, the physical act of making love and love as a celebration of joy.

Greek, the language of the New Testament, also has multiple words for love. The meanings include erotic love, familial love, friendship love and the self-giving love that mirrors God’s love for us.

The reason any of this matters is that when we speak of God, we usually speak of God as love. So, it’s important to have some idea of what we mean by the word. In Scripture it usually means unselfish, self-giving action that is not dependent on feeling.

Action that is not dependent on how we feel is hard. It’s the root of loving our enemies. Heck, we have a hard enough time loving the people we are supposed to love. At its best, biblical love desires for everyone else what we have for ourselves. There is a generosity to biblical love that mirrors God’s generosity toward us.

Many of us are familiar with words from 1 Corinthians 13. We hear them all the time at weddings: “Love is patient and kind, love is not envious or boastful or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.”

These words were originally intended for the gathered community of faith. They are words about how we are to be with each other in daily living. It is not a marriage text; it is a guide for living each and every day.

Advent celebrates the coming of God’s most complete example of love into the world. We can learn a lot about love by looking at how Jesus lived in the world. He was always at the margins with the unclean and the broken, with the outcast and the downtrodden. His love in action was about remaking the world.

Welcoming Jesus in this season is an invitation to sign on for the same work in the world.

If we desire a society of peace,

then we cannot achieve such a society through violence.

If we desire a society

without discrimination,

then we must not discriminate against anyone

in the process of building this society.

If we desire a society that is democratic,

then democracy must become a means as well as an end.

Bayard Rustin

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Peace is the bread we break.

Love is the river rolling.

Life is a chance we take when we make this earth our home,

gonna make this earth our home.

Feel the cool breeze blowing through the smoke and the heat,

hear the gentle voices and the marching feet

singing draw back the fire

pull the missiles down

and we’ll call this earth our home.

Peace is the bread we break.

Love is the river rolling.

Life is a chance we take when we make this earth our home.

Gonna make this earth our home.

We have known the atom,

the power and pain,

seen people fall beneath the killing rain.

If the mind still reasons and the soul remains

it shall never be again.

Peace is the bread we break.

Love is the river rolling.

Life is a chance we take when we make this earth our home.

Gonna make this earth our home.

Peace grows from a tiny seed,

As the acorn grows into the tallest tree.

Many years ago I heard a soldier say,

when people want peace, better get out of the way.

Peace is the bread we break.

Love is the river rolling.

Life is a chance we take when we make this earth our home.

Gonna make this earth our home.

There are five enemies of peace that inhabit with us:

Avarice

Ambition

Envy

Anger

Pride

If these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.

Petrarch

Did I offer peace today?

Did I bring a smile to someone’s face?

Did I say words of healing?

Did I let go of anger and resentment?

Did I forgive?

Did I love?

These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and in the life to come.

Henri J.M. Nouwen

 

Click Here to Listen

Go yonder, go yonder and gather the people,

tell all the people that peace is a-come.

tell all the nations their weapons aren’t needed,

tell all the people that peace is a-come.

Go yonder, go yonder and gather the people,

tell all the people that peace is a-come.

tell all the children their hunger is over,

tell all the people that peace is a-come.

Go yonder, go yonder and gather the people,

tell all the people that peace is a-come.

tell all the refugees they can come home again,

tell all the people that peace is a-come.

Go yonder, go yonder and gather the people,

tell all the people that peace is a-come.

 

 

True peace, which is dependent on justice, includes justice for the planet, not just for people. The United Nations developed sixteen principles of sustainability for the earth and its peoples. Number 15 and 13, respectively state, “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt reserve land degradation and biodiversity loss. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resource for sustainable development.”

Sustainable development goals like these move control of natural resources from those who favor commercial development and profitability at any cost to sustainable goals that assure enough for all, as well as protection of the planet.

The roll back of environmental protections by the occupant is frightening. Our planet cannot sustain unbridled development. Scientists and climatologists are increasingly alarmed about global climate change.  This includes rising sea levels, the rapidly disappearing polar ice cap and the capacity the global community has to feed itself in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.

The probability of any kind of sustainable peace is dependent on how we care for the limited resources of our planet and distribute them equitably.  In the second creation story in Genesis 2, humanity was told to “till the earth and keep it.” It is an image of stewardship and care as opposed to Genesis 1, the more popular creation narrative, where humanity is told to have dominion over the earth. The prevailing definition of dominion appears to be abuse and pillage, based on the job humans are doing at the moment.

Thousands of species face extinction and hundreds more are being added to the endangered species list. The most recent animal added to the endangered list is giraffes. In the biblical sense there can be no peace for the people if there is not peace for the planet.

When we proclaim that Jesus came to bring peace, we do well to remember that shalom is a sense of well-being that goes far beyond individual well-being and happiness.  It is a communal and earth based well-being.

It is impossible to speak of peace without speaking of justice.  The two are inextricably bound.  As Dwight D Eisenhower said, “they are two sides of the same coin.” As such, peace is more than individual inner tranquility or a sense of well-being.

Peace, in the biblical sense is not primarily personal. It is communal. Some of us know the Hebrew word for peace as “shalom.” It means more than an absence of war, though I suspect most of us would settle for that. It means a well-being that is primarily a state of affairs. In includes the personal understandings of peace, but extends to the communal. It includes security and safety. It also includes all people, not just individuals. For there to be true shalom, all must be cared for and treated with justice. Shalom assumes a level of wholeness that leads one to give back so that others might experience wholeness.

And there’s the rub. A small percentage of the world’s population owns the majority of the world’s wealth. They will not go quietly to the place of equitable sharing.  Our capitalist roots (at least in the US) run far too deep.  It is very much a “What’s mine is mine and tough munchies for you” mentality. It is the root of shaming and blaming the poor: the notion that I worked hard and if you do, you can succeed too.  If you are poor you must be lazy or stupid or…pick a derogatory adjective.

Embodying a path to equitable distribution of goods and services is part of the United Nation’s 16 goals for sustainable development.

Goal 16 states, “Peaceful societies and countries depend on sustainable development and effective accountable inclusive institutions for all.”  This means that individuals must have equal access. As long as a few people control the majority of the world’s wealth, there will be no peace and there will be no justice.

In the Advent season we prepare to meet the one who came to radically remake the world economy. That the known world was a lot smaller than it is now is not relevant. It was the same system” a wealthy few controlled access to the majority of goods and services. The poor were left to fend for themselves. The radical peace, the deep Shalom,  that Jesus came to bring was and is possible only when there is enough for everyone.

There is enough for the world’s need, not the world’s greed.

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for.

And the most you can do is live inside that hope.

Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.

 

Barbara Kingsolver