When he was at table with them, he took the bread. He blessed the bread, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him!(Luke 24:13-35)

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

No greater commandments

 


What God wants from us – far more than ritual or material offerings, is the gift of love; after all, we’re made in God’s own image and likeness and God is love (1 John 4:8).  While it’s not possible for us to fully describe God, we learn of God’s nature and deepest desires from Jesus words, lived example and witness to us.

Looking at our lives through this lens, we can understand that the essence of God’s life is relationship. This deep reality is embedded in creation itself (witnessed even at a subatomic level where matter becomes particles in relationship to each other) and seen in all life that we know (patterns of relationship in nature and the environment and most clearly in the human person).

We are relational beings, made for communion with one another.  In the vision of Jesus this relational circle is widened to incorporate our relationship with God.

To live a life committed to others and to their care, to exercise a nurturing stewardship of the earth, to seek to go beyond ourselves not just in exploration but in sacrificial loving of another – all this is but expression of the innate desire to form union that God has placed within us.

For Jesus to speak of loving with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:28-34) is for Him to name the spectrum of human capacity and to suggest we orient our entire being towards love of God and others.

Jesus knows too that God extends love to us in the same way.  God’s love for us is likewise a total gift of self to us.  God’s love is endless, forgiving, nurturing, sacrificial and conveys joy and grace in abundance.

We’re attracted to this love at our deepest levels.  While some don’t see the source and creator of such love and don’t acknowledge God, they nevertheless experience the warmth of God’s love (and thus God’s presence) in the world.  Our task then is to be the conduit of God’s love as it seeps into human environment.  When we love our neighbor, we share in the mission of God in our world – a mission revealed by Jesus and continued under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This is the reign of God.  Let’s not live far from it.

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