Called to Love (Why Love?)

• Strawberry Social on June 27th at 2pm with a 50/50 Raffle to benefit North Quabbin Animal Control.
• JUST ADDED: Summer Death Cafe on July 11th at 4pm (no rsvp needed).
• Discussion Circle is today after Church. These discussions are here to to inspire, teach, guide, and challenge us–all are welcome to join us (this is an exploration of sacred passages, poetry, and words to inspire us toward freshness, surprise, and wonder).

Visit our Calendar of Events to explore our upcoming dates and times

All are Welcome. If you are uncomfortable with the word God, please feel welcome to insert your own word for the divine or Mystery in your life (Universe/Grace/Spirit/Divine).

These Reflections are written to be read aloud, please forgive any writing errors. You can find the recording HERE later on Sunday morning.

SUNDAY REFLECTION:

When was the last time you practiced “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”?  Maybe it was yesterday.  Maybe last Sunday.  Maybe last night before bed or this morning as soon as you woke up.  Perhaps it’s a moment before each meal.  

Perhaps it was last year.  Last decade.  Or never.  

Perhaps you feel a little lost and confused about God.  Perhaps you been a bit angry with God.  Perhaps you feel you don’t understand God.  Perhaps it feels like a crumbling world and a crumbling faith.  Perhaps it seems that all the foundation stones have crumbled and fallen away.  PAUSE.  It’s happened before.  Out of the crumblings, there is always a rebuilding.  A rebuilding from lessons learned and hearts opened that make those foundation stones of faith even stronger.  They fit together better. They hold you up more deeply.  

Saying we love God is often easier than actually loving God.  

We’ve been grappling with loving God since the very beginning.  What does it mean to love God?  What is that love?  Nuns were considered “married to Christ”.  The mystics  talked of ecstatic love.  There’s the Song of Songs. There’s God as Father or Mother.  God as Teacher. God as Brother or Sister, Sibling.  God as Soul Friend.  

How do we love God?  What are we loving?  How do we love something intangible?  Immense?  Beyond us?  The all-powerful?  Everything?  This incredible Mystery? And also the right here now?

The most honest song I’ve ever heard about loving God is “I Don’t Know How To Love Him.”   

Entangled in loving God is this idea that God also loves me!!  Is that even possible?  That God loves us?  That God even notices me?  That I’m worthy of that notice?  That I’m worthy of that kind of incredible love?  And what’s expected…in return?

Maybe it helps to think of the ways in which we see God’s face.  In moments of forgiveness. When we expect the worst and we are instead embraced. In moments when we feel most forsaken and suddenly are held.  Victor Hugo said it well: to love another person is to see the face of God.  That, in some ways, brings this entire passage together.  

We barely understand Love itself.  Perhaps this is why it’s the greatest commandment.  To learn to love.  We shy away from love.  We cringe when it’s offered to us.  We’re afraid to offer it.  There’s so much “baggage” around “love”.  We have a hard time just using the word “love”.  Are we deserving?  Are they deserving?  What are the “rules” of the reciprocity of love? What’s expected of me in return? What’s the “deal”?  Is it safe?  

A friend admitted that she often finds herself calling herself imperfect, even ugly.  Definitely “not pretty”.  Her daughter said to her one day, “if everyone says I look exactly like you, and you think you’re ugly, does that mean I am ugly too?”  PAUSE.  Perhaps it’s a “God Moment”.  A “Love Moment”.  We are the image of God.  That makes God the image of us. If we don’t love ourselves, what does that mean?  If we don’t love God, what does that mean?  

See?  Love.  It’s hard.  It’s complicated.  Or maybe we just make it complicated.  

Love of all kinds takes faith and trust. Perhaps this is why love is our hardest call and our first call.  What does it look like?  It looks like kindness. It looks like forgiveness.  It looks like compassion.  It feels like mercy.  It feels like hope.  It feels like pardon.  It is a bowl of soup and a single dollar bill. It feels like an embrace.  It looks like ease, but it is constant work, intention, and attention.  

Perhaps this complexity is why we have a tendency toward skipping from love thy God to love thy neighbor.  There’s a face. There’s tangibility.  We think we know what kind of love we’re to extend toward our neighbors.  And loving thy neighbor is hard enough.  Especially when they are gruff and cranky or downright mean.  

Loving our own families can be hard.  Talk about “baggage”.  Love ourselves….oh my.  That’s often a bag of baggage.  

Nothing is easy about love, even when it looks easeful. It’s work, intention, and attention.  It’s Good Work.  

Love is a complex thing and yet it is our first and highest call.  “Love the Lord. your God. with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  When was the last time you loved God?  When was the last time you love God that deeply?  

Take a moment now to consider loving God.  Maybe it’s easy. Maybe it’s hard.  

Maybe this is why we need Jesus.  Jesus becomes a tangible focus for our love.  A human form to  love.  A human form to emulate.  A guide to teach us what love is.  To teach us to love Him. A guide to remind us to love others.  A beloved friend to remind us to love ourselves.  And to help us to take up the work that comes when we truly love ourselves.  

Maybe instead of how to love and what is love and who are we loving…let’s consider why we love.  

Why do we love God?   

Why do you love God? 

Ten reasons.  Yes, go ahead, begin to list them.  Notice which ones are universal and shared.  Notice which ones are deeply personal and private.  Notice the reasons why that are hardest.  Notice what reasons feel like they lighten the load.  

There is room in your bulletin.  Please, write down one reason why you love God.  If you’re at home, grab a piece of paper or a post it note.  Write down your why…

Then post it somewhere you can see it every day.  Bathroom mirror.  Fridge.  Tucked in your wallet or in the corner of your calendar.  Someplace you’ll see it often.  

We don’t have to know how.  We don’t have to know or understand what or who.  There are times when what and who are impossible to know and that’s okay.  We just have to remember our why and from that the love will follow exactly as it is meant to. 

Imagine mixing into that why a little work, intention, and attention…just imagine.

When you get lost and confused, come back to your why, that why that calls us back to our greatest work: The call to Love. It’s always Love.