Monday, December 9, 2019

Love: Craved vs Offered


The talk at my church in Ann Arbor Thursday night promised to be most interesting, so I set out early to ensure a good seat.  But it was not to be.  Police cars totally blocked the route to Ann Arbor I was taking; there was a serious accident somewhere ahead.  I briefly pondered alternative routes, but the nearby ones were narrow dirt (and muddy) roads, and so I took a moment and asked: “Is there somewhere else You’d have me go, Lord?  Something else I should be doing?”  The nearest main road led to an adoration chapel, and so that is where I headed to pray.
The dimly lit chapel was unusually crowded, and I quietly sat down to pray.  As people began leaving, some paused next to me, smiling and nodding in greeting as I looked up at them --- they were acquaintances I usually don’t see in the chapel.  Then a couple who often stay at my house knelt next to me and whispered greetings; I had not noticed their presence.  They left, then their daughter --- who I had not seen in six months --- knelt next to me to speak.  Enough disruption already, and I motioned to the chapel door, where we exited to talk in the hallway.  She hugged me and cried how much she had missed me, and then her young daughter did the same.  He daughter told me it was her mother’s 40th birthday.  Then they were all talking about some priest they had heard of who was predicting the end times --- now.  Wow!  I guess there WAS something Jesus would rather me do than listen to that talk I had started out to attend.
But what?  On the one hand I felt some consolation that this was a working of God, and it would be easy to believe He did this for me, and perhaps all the chance meetings and greetings WERE for me.  But I did not leap to celebrate, but went back to the chapel and further prayed to understand what Jesus was telling in my heart, and what might be in His.
Later that evening, the leader of my Friday morning Bible Study Group texted that he was out of town, and I wondered if anyone would show up at the coffee shop where we meet.  When I got there early Friday morning a number of men were there, and our conversation there eventually drifted to a discussion of the impact on Christianity of our changing culture --- the very topic of the talk I had missed the night before.  And no offense to our study leader, but I believe this turned out to be one of the best discussions the Friday morning guys ever had.
A lot of our talk focused on relationships and sexual sins.  It was commented that our culture doesn’t seem to recognize the concept of the seriousness of sin anymore; it’s as if Jesus said the two great commandments were to love God and not kill anyone.  And everyone in the culture says: “Well, I haven’t killed anyone, so I guess I’m obeying what Jesus said.”  So, no one feels compelled to confess any sins.  I commented how God has opened my eyes to better understand sin --- and literally He has done it --- when I sit quietly in the church before I go to confession, reading Scripture and asking in prayer: “Lord, how have I offended You?”  And then very often I recall some action or words I said, and I hear a soft voice telling me: “When you did that, you disappointed Me.”  Not that I killed someone or robbed a bank, my sins were actions I took which disappointed Him.  Not huge sins, but examples of how I am not following Him, living in imitation of Him, of not being who He created me to be, and doing what He’d have me do.  Those are the sins that the culture tends to ignore, sins which offend God, the very definition of sin.  You see, God defines sin because He is the One offended against, yet the culture believes WE define sin; it is strictly an earthly matter.
One of the morning guys spoke of how his sins used to be in reaction to people or events which he felt wronged him, and he reacted emotionally in response.  His eyes were opened when his spiritual director informed him it didn’t matter if he were wronged or unappreciated; if he had a strong relationship with God, he was living his life well, even if others didn’t appreciate it, or respect it.  This man could see that emotional, instinctual reactions, not God-like reactions, were sinful failings.
Which transitioned us to sexual sins, which our society has washed away from consideration, because “as long as there is consent, there is no problem.”  One man noted that nowhere in the Bible does it say a man and woman can’t live together before marriage.  We then spoke at length on the importance of marriage preparation classes, and the importance of putting God in the relationship.  One noted that psychologically, men and women understand each other, as equals, better than ever in the past, which should strengthen relationships.  Yet, one noted that a huge proportion of people who marry after having lived together end up getting divorced, at a much higher rate than those who did not live together before marriage.  “If they took the time to live together, to be sure they fit together, why were they more likely to divorce?” was a question we asked ourselves.
One of us found an answer in James, but I found one in Jude, and I quoted his words at the summary of our discussion:
These men revile whatever they do not understand, and by those things that they know by instinct as irrational animals do, they are destroyed.    (Jude, 10)
St. Jude wrote his letter to a group of the followers of Christ, warning them of errors creeping into what Christ taught.  For admission has been secretly gained by some who long ago were designated for the condemnation, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness … just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust.
St. Jude’s whole letter is focused on those who distort the faith in sexual matters.  God gave us a command to love, and sexuality is one of His natural gifts, so our culture (now and then) says if we are in a loving relationship what are we doing wrong?  St. Jude goes on to explain:
Woe to them!  For they walk in the way of Cain, and abandon themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s errors, and perish in Korah’s rebellion.  These are blemishes on your love feasts, as they boldly carouse together, looking after themselves… In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.
Love of neighbor is the commandment, but it is in GIVING love that we obey it.  Love and sex are God’s gifts to us, to be GIVEN to others, for their benefit, not ours.  It is when we change the focus to doing these things for OUR benefit that we distort the faith.  We are acting instinctually, like animals, but we were created to be better than animals.  Our yearnings “by instinct as irrational animals do” for sex, love, or any selfish desires is when we imitate Cain, Sodom and Gomorrah, “looking after themselves, following their own ungodly passions.  My prayer for humility said each night includes this critical line that I might overcome the instincts St. Jude warns of: “From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.”
“But they love one another” is our society’s distortion of God’s commandment, being used to justify living together, homosexual marriage, and abortion.  It is a hidden sin, not called by that name, which existed subtly even in the time of St. Jude.
Thursday night God had thwarted my plans and directed me to a place where I was greeted and hugged by many people.  It would be “instinctual” to think God did that to show me He loves me --- and I so instinctually crave love.  But the place God has for me to “receive” love is called heaven.  He didn’t come to earth to be loved and adored; following Him, this is not our purpose either.  It is to “give” and “show” love.  His putting people in my life Thursday night is an opening, and opportunity, for me to do as He would do, to offer love.
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December 6th was the feast day of St. Nicholas.  The Office I use for my morning prayers that day had a reading by St. Augustine, which seems to re-iterate the lessons from above:
“When those who are tending Christ’s flock wish that the sheep were theirs rather than His, they stand convicted of loving themselves, not Christ.  And the Lord’s words are a repeated admonition to them and to all who, as Paul writes sadly, are seeking their own ends, not Christ’s.
Do you love me?  Tend my sheep.  Surely this means: “If you love me, your thoughts must focus on taking care of my sheep, not taking care of yourself.  You must tend them as mine, not as yours; seek in them my glory, not yours; my sovereign rights, not yours; my gain, not yours.  Otherwise you will find yourself among those who belong to the “times of peril”, those who are guilty of self-love and the other sins that go with that beginning of evils.
So the shepherds of Christ’s flock must never indulge in self-love; if they do they will be tending the sheep not as Christ’s but as their own.  And of all vices this is the one that the shepherds must guard against most earnestly:  seeking their own purposes instead of Christ’s, furthering their own desires by means of those persons for whom Christ shed His blood.

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