Wednesday After Epiphany
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.” Period. The End. Nothing more to say. I suppose for the sake of this reflection, I should add a bit more content, but I encourage you to pause for a moment and think about that statement (1 John 4:11). Receiving God’s love and sharing it with everyone we encounter characterizes the day-to-day life of a disciple.
Notice that the Evangelist addresses us as “Beloved.” Listen as the Word himself calls out to you, “Beloved!” Listen again as God speaks to you, “Oh {fill in your name}, you are my Beloved!” You are the beloved of God; I am the beloved of God. If you don’t believe that, then please pray to silence any lying voice that deafens you to the truth. John’s first letter is a beautiful testament to God’s love for us. A careful, prayerful reading of this letter in its entirety helps to reveal the veracity and beauty of God’s love for each one of us.
Continuing with our key verse, “Beloved, if God so loved us . . .” That prepositional phrase, beginning with “if” indicates that there is something to be done with God’s love – the “if” implies a “then.” God’s love is not a private matter, even though it is intensely intimate and personal for every human soul. My relationship with the Lord is not a self-centered affair, it’s not an exclusive love meant to be kept to myself or withheld at a whim.
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.” How could I possibly refuse to share the extravagant gift of God’s love?! How could I dare to think that somehow I’m deserving of God’s love but others are not or that they are not worthy of my love? And yet if I’m honest with myself, I know I’ve taken that attitude way too many times. Perhaps you have, too? Take a moment and ponder.
I think three basic things get in the way of following God’s command to love each other (notice the use of the word “must” in our key verse). First, we aren’t really sure that God loves us, that we are the Beloved, and so how can we give away what we do not possess? Second, our sinful attachments lead to disordered loves. And third, we adopt a secular connotation of what love is all about. We think of love as romantic or sentimental, as synonymous with affection, and/or as transactional – I’ll love you if you love me. It’s easy to withhold love if we reduce it to such a puny understanding.
The Church has adopted St Thomas Aquinas’ definition of love. Aquinas teaches us that authentic love, God’s love, and hence the love that we are to extend to one another, is “to will the good of the other.” Love is a choice, it is a decision, it requires an act of our will. We love at all times, even when it’s hard. Love does not demand repayment.
Dr. Tom Neal from Word on Fire ministries wrote, “I remember the day when I first heard love defined. It was in my moral theology class, and the professor said very matter-of-factly: ‘Of course, for Aquinas to love means to consistently will and choose the good of the other. To love neighbor as self means seeing their sharing in the good as constitutive of your own sharing in the good. To love God, whose good we cannot will strictly speaking — as He is purely actualized good itself — is to love what God loves, which, of course, is the neighbor’s good. So we come full circle.’” (For the full reference, click Here.)
It is indeed circular! God loves us, we offer that love to others, we love God back. God’s love to us is continuous, it’s like a never-ending river pouring over us and in us, filling us and overflowing from us. Today, let us choose, let us exercise our will, to love – to consistently will and choose the good of the other, whether they are our family and friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, strangers, the people we find most difficult to love, and yes perhaps most especially, even our enemies. And let us love with grateful hearts because we get to be called God’s Beloved.
I’ll see you in the Eucharist,
Elizabeth Wells