Thursday after Epiphany
It’s not unusual for Christians to wonder now and again what being a Christian ought to mean for our lives. This is especially true when times are confusing, complicated, and fraught as our time surely is. Thankfully, we are not alone with this question. It was anticipated long before we were born.
The reading from 1 John is clear that what we are called to is all about where we come from. We owe our existence to one thing and one thing only: God’s love. God chose to bring us into existence because God loves. That’s it. God is love, and God loves. That’s why we’re here. And we are called to take that with the utmost seriousness.
What does that mean? It means that we are called to love. And not in the abstract. He means for us to love the brother (or sister) next to us—including the one who might be especially irritating (or worse) of late. If we say that we love God but not our brother or sister, then the text says, we are liars. Ouch! That is no mincing of words there.
Now, of course, how we love is a matter of discernment. If a brother or sister is, say, abusive to us then we will have to figure out how to love them without enduring more abuse. There are lots of ways to love. And ways of loving can change over time. In short, there is plenty of contingency in the specific matters of love. But that we are called to love is not in doubt. Because we (who surely don’t deserve it) are loved by God, we are called to love.
We’re also called to follow the one God sent to teach us how to obey his commandments (there’s long been a lot of confusion about how to do that!). Reading from the great prophet Isaiah, Jesus is teaching us what the Kingdom means. And if we are to be part of that Kingdom, this is what we need to do: serve the least among us. That might mean bringing the poor good news (perhaps relief from back-breaking debt), helping to liberate captives from their detention centers or prisons, assisting the blind or anyone struggling with an affliction that makes life really difficult, or working to enable the oppressed to finally gain the freedoms that every child of God deserves. I fear that our culture has grown largely deaf to this call that is at the heart of Jesus’ teaching and ministry. We need to start hearing it more clearly and responding like Jesus did.
In short, we are loved and therefore must love and in ways that bring the promise of liberation and the fullness of life to those our world cares the least about. Now more than ever, I think, what the world needs is a whole lot of God’s love. And as we have been given it so abundantly, we are called to give it away. This is no easy call. But it’s ours. Amen.
- Sue Trollinger