Today's
2nd lesson is a landscape dominated by 4 great
standing-stones...monolithic concepts that fill the sky-line no
matter where you are yourself.
Love
– truth – action – condemnation....
Huge
concepts to engage with...and taken together they make this part of
John's letter a really tough read. After all, God throws down the
gauntlet in the 1st verse of our reading..He has given us
a powerful practical demonstration of his love, one that it is
impossible for us to miss
“In
this we know what love is – that he laid down his life for us”
and as if that wasn't enough, we're told that HIS way must be our way
too...
“and
we ought to lay down our lives for one another”
Really?
Me? That's truly daunting
On
my best days, when there seems to be love overflowing in every corner
of the world, I still doubt my ability to love LIKE THAT.
Would
I really place myself in the way of a bullet intended for one of my
family?
And
even if I managed that, what if the bullet was heading for a random
stranger?
And
if I can't manage that – well, standing here to preach is a
colossal presumption.
Our
writer makes it very clear indeed that God's focus is on truth and
action, not word and speech.
We
can SAY loving things as much as we want to, but if we don't supply
hard evidence that they are real for us, then there's no chance that
God's love has settled in our hearts.
When
I struggle to practice what I preach, when I come home from Mass and
kick the metaphorical cat, when for all my protestations of love for
God and for his people I seem to live a rather different kind of
life...Well, that's the point at which my heart sets to and does a
very good job indeed of offering quite serious condemnation.
Call
yourself a Christian! Who are you trying to kid? It's all about love
– and you know that, deep down, you're woefully short of that
sometimes...In fact, if you barely seem to know what it is.
Never
mind trying to get on and show it, your best course of action would
be to curl up in a distressed and distressing pool of guilt and
misery, because obviously that's really going to help everybody,
right?
Why
not just wallow in your role as miserable sinner and leave it at
that...
Your
heart condemns you well and truly.
Guilty
as charged.
But
– we're not going to stop there. Our letter writer certainly
doesn't. His stress on truth and action isn't designed to paralyse
but to encourage. The thing is, you see, to stop worrying about
whether either you or I can muster the sort of love that God shows to
us – and to get on with DOING the next loving thing in front of our
noses, never mind the feelings! To be honest, I'd guess that most of
us are pretty unlikely to have to brave the bullets and lay down our
lives for our friends – but we may well have to lay down a whole
host of other things – personal preferences and prejudices, short
cuts and easy ways out of genuine relationship – in order to more
truly show authentic, truthful love and generosity of spirit.
Let's
think about it in terms of our common life here, in a place where
worship, welcome and reconciliation should be our constant
touch-stones. It's fair to say that there's a long journey to travel
if they are to so much part of us that they characterise every aspect
of our dealings...but the message is the same.
It's
a question of moving beyond the words to the deeds.
Of
course we will need to spend time exploring together, trying to grasp
what those words will actually involve, how they will impact each
aspect of our common life and our shared identity.
We
may need to reflect on things we thought we understood already.
Welcome, for example, seems easy and obvious – all about the smiley
face at the door, and good quality coffee served alongside
friendship...but of course it's not quite as easy when you realise
that it extends far beyond the way you smile at strangers, to the way
you open your life to them.
And
that's just a start.
So
we will indeed need to ponder and discuss what these words really
mean – but we can't actually own them until words turn to actions,
and our values shine through our deeds.
The
interesting thing is that, like love, they demand that we focus
elsewhere. It's not about US at all!It's not about what Welcome,
Worship and Reconciliation will bring to our Cathedral – but what
our Cathedral might bring to the world by fully living out its
calling as we focus on the God whom we worship, the stranger whom we
welcome with such opennes that barriers dissolve and disappear in the
perfect mutuality of reconciliation.
Does
that seem an impossible ideal, naïve and unattainable? It's
certainly not where I'm standing today – not yet – but I do think
it's where I'm aiming.
And
our reading helps me along the way. In fact, it's transformative.
Many
years ago, while I was still a child, I read and re-read Rumer
Godden's “In this House of Brede”, set in a community of
Benedictine nuns. I loved it for many reasons – the Sussex
landscape it presented was the countryside I knew and loved, the
music that flowed in and out of its pages was the spiritual
soundtrack to my own life – but I loved too the story of faith that
had drawn the central character from life as a top Civil Servant to
become an enclosed nun. I learned a lot, without realising that I was
learning anything – but perhaps the most important legacy was some
words from the Cloud of Unknowing which lodged in head and heart and
have remained there ever since.
“Not
what thou art – nor what thou hast been- but what thou woulds't be
beholdest God in his mercy”
In
other words, if your longing is to love in deed and in truth, then
let go of your fear of failure and do whatever act of love lies
before you. Your heart may well condemn you- both by the evidence of
imperfect love and dubious motivation that it presents when you take
a closer look and by that disapproving inner voice that so often
threatens to drown out the voice of God's loving compassion.
But
– don't listen to it.
Our
blessed assurance lies beyond ourselves...in God's faithfulness and
knowledge of what we wouldst be – of all that we aspire to, no
matter how often we fall short
Here
is the our calling, expressed in a single verse
And
this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his
Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us
But
if your love is smaller, feebler, than you long for it to be –
nevertheless all shall be well.
Don't
focus on yourself. Look to God and find your reassurance there –
for, though your heart condemns you God is greater than your heart.
All
praise to Him, now and forever.
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