2020 January 5 _ Epiphany Sunday _ • Isaiah 60:1-6
• Psalm 72 • Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6 • + Matthew 2:1-12 •
Title: The Greatest Love
of All
[_01_] It’s easy to quantify that some people are
easier to love than others. It’s harder
to measure – in ourselves – whether we ourselves are easy to love or hard to
love. Am I hard to love or easy to love?
I think the trick answer to this trick question,
regarding me, is: YES ! We use this expression: “to know him is to
love him.” Or “to know her is to love her.”
What we mean is that it requires intelligence and inquiry
to know about another person.
Whitney Houston was on to something in her famous
ballad/song – The Greatest Love of All – in that there’s a connection between
“loving and learning” (we have to learn to love ourselves) and also between
charity and children. (the first line of the song: “I believe the children are
our future”)
[_02_] It seems that there is strong connection
between the Christmas season and children, and the love of children, the
connections of:
è The
child you are. The child I am. The children of God we are. We are called to
love ourselves.
è The
children of God in our neighbors. We are called to love our neighbors.
è The
child, our Savior. We are called to love God, born for us.
I’d
like to reflect on these 3 aspects of the child in our midst while considering
Gospel verses known as the greatest commandment:
“Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and
with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the
second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)
I’d like to reflect on God’s love and presence in this
Epiphany Gospel in 3 dimensions.
His
Love is Mysterious. It is a mysterious long journey to
know and love ourselves as children of God.
His
Love is Precarious. It is broad and vulnerable journey to
know and love our neighbors as children of God.
His
Love is Victorious. It is a high and heavenly journey to
know and love God as the Christ child.
And, at the end, I will close with a quote from Martin
Luther King, Jr. about the love of God and the greatest commandment.
[_04_] First – Love is mysterious.
It is a mysterious and long journey to love ourselves as
children of God.
There is a famous song about this. Whitney Houston’s
song.
Whitney Houston has 150 million “views” on her video to
indicate the “The Greatest Love of All” is ‘learning to love yourself…..’ Lots
of people would agree.
However,
sometimes, I am not naturally or immediately love-able. Believe it or not, I am not immediately or
naturally loveable at all times.
Yet,
somehow even at my worst, I can encounter the love of God and love of
neighbor. Here’s the thing – I want to
be loveable, sometimes I am not. But I
am loved anyway.
This
“high love of Charity” may even seem outrageous, unnecessary and bad news.
C.S.
Lewis wrote: “In reality, we all need .. Charity from others … but this sort of
love we need, is
not the sort [of love] we want. We want to
be loved for our cleverness, beauty, generosity, fairness, usefulness. The
first hint that anyone is offering us the highest love of all is a terrible
shock.” (C.S. Lewis, The Four
Loves, “Charity”, p. 168)
God’s
love is mysterious.
[_05_] God’s love is
PRECARIOUS. It takes precariousness and vulnerability to love others as
children of God.
Born as a child in Bethlehem, the Son of God makes
himself precarious, vulnerable. He is a child who had to become aware of his
divinity and calling.
That’s precarious.
A teacher of mine once asked – did the Blessed Mother
instill in her son a direct revelation that he was the Messiah? Did she
declare/discipline with: “Do your
homework. Clean your room. Save the world.”
We don’t know the answer directly about Mary’s words to
Jesus. I suggest that Mary – like all mothers -
did not want to reveal or prescribe directly ..but simply nurtured Jesus
so that he could become aware of his calling.
That’s a precarious love, a vulnerable love.
You and I live lives of vulnerability. Love is precarious
[_05.02_] God’s love is
PRECARIOUS.
C.S. Lewis writes – in The 4 Loves – that “insurances
against heartbreak are not our highest wisdom. Jesus himself comes at last [on
Good Friday] to say, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’” (Psalm 22)
While C.S. Lewis was not giving financial advice, he uses
this metaphor of money:
“There is
no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your
heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure
of keeping [your heart] intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to
an [favorite pet] animal.” (C.S. Lewis, The 4 Loves, p. 155).
[_06_] To
review so far.
Love is mysterious. That makes it part of our REALITY,
because even real and present things and people are mysterious.
Love is precarious. That makes it part of our REDEMPTION.
Only the vulnerable are ransomed and redeemed.
In the parable of the lost sheep, we read: “There
is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 righteous people with
no need of repentance.” (Luke 15:7)
It’s precarious for the Good Shepherd to rescue one lost
sheep, to love that one lost sheep to such a degree. That’s you, that’s me.
[_07_] Love is VICTORIOUS.
In the Gospel, the Magi are on a mysterious and
precarious journey. But they are also on a victorious journey.
They are not just searching for a child, but searching
for God.
How is God’s love victorious?
C.S. Lewis writes that that there is in every one of us
things that require forbearance (patience)
and forgiveness (compassion). The necessity of practicing forbearance
and forgiveness may make us feel like we are losing, but we are really winning.
It enables our “personal emotion” of natural love to be
transformed into the “perpetual motion” of God’s divine love and charity. This is not always easy. But, it is a
victory.
The very things or people which frustrate us also enable
us to change and be changed.
Herod – King Herod – is an example of someone unable to
change or be changed. He was stubborn.
In Whitney Houston pop-song terms, he found “his strength in love”, but
only in a deranged preoccupation with himself. That was his loss.
C.S.
Lewis’ point is that in this way it is hard for the rich enter the kingdom of
heaven. (C.S. Lewis, The 4 Loves, p. 174).
[_07_] In a few weeks – Monday January 20 – we
will observe the memorial day of Martin Luther King, Jr. the civil rights
leader who also preached and acted and wroted based on love and about the
Greatest Commandment in 3 dimensions:
The dimensions are both divine and geometric.
1st
Dimension. The Long Journey. The Mysterious Dimension.
[MLK:
Love yourself if that means rational and healthy self-love. You are commanded
to love yourself. That is the length of life. ]
Yes, sometimes it takes a long time and longer than
4-minute Whitney Houston song to learn to love yourself.
2nd
Dimension.
The precarious and broad journey.
[MLK:
Love your neighbor as your love yourself. You are commanded to do that.]
This wide journey and love of neighbor is also precarious
because people may not love us in return was we wish or expect.
3rd
Dimension. The high and heavenly journey.
[MLK:
Never forget there is first and even greater commandment. Love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy mind. That is the height
of life. Only by painstaking development of all 3 of these dimensions can you
expect to live a complete life.]
Jesus Christ was found by the Magi – the 3 Kings – on a
journey that was mysterious, precarious and victorious. Jesus, the Son of God,
is the Word made flesh.
As we sing in this season:
“Mild he lays his
glory by, born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born
to give us second birth. Hark the Herald Angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn
king’.”
That’s the greatest love of all.
There is no greater love than this.
[_08_] [__fin__]
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