Sunday, June 12, 2011

God is Love -- A Pentecost Proclamation

God is love, we say.


When I was a child, I was very confused by that assertion. My teachers believed in hell and in the Day of Judgment on which Christ, sitting on his throne in heaven, would separate good people from bad people and condemn the latter to an eternity of torture. There was no way I would ever be one of the good people, and so I was doomed. And what was loving about a God who would throw me into the fire as soon as I died? Perhaps he was righteous – certainly he was pure – but he was not loving by my way of reckoning it.

I was also confused by the fact that God’s love did not keep terrible things from happening. I and the people around me suffered, and God allowed this to happen. I decided that either God was a wimp or that he didn’t care all that much about what happened to me.

Little did I know that God was present in all the moments of my childhood as a goad to learning and to speaking the truth to myself and others. Little did I know that some of the very things that made me feel like a bad person were prompted by the whispers of God in my heart.  Little did I know that, while the Day of Judgment is a metaphor and hell is not a literal place, a fiery reckoning is part of the walk with Jesus, every single day. This reckoning happens when we look dispassionately, with the eye of truth, on our daily antics, and strive to live as Christ's people in the world.

Now that I’m almost 60, I understand that God’s love is not, in the language of psychologist Carl Rogers, Unconditional Positive Regard. Yes, God accepts me where I am and never gives up on me. We wouldn’t still be in relationship if that were not true. But God’s love is fierce and demanding. It strips away everything I might dream or imagine about myself, down to my essence, and only then does it speak to me, and only to that essence. And then, in a still, small voice, that love begins to make demands.

God’s love feels to me sometimes like the lion’s love for its prey. Have you ever seen this on nature videos, how the lion takes the gazelle in its teeth, caressing it like a lover? God’s hunger for me is like that.

And God is relentless. God will not take no for an answer. God waits outside every door I close. Open the door a tiny crack and suddenly God is inside, working transformation on me.

I have discovered that I was made for this relationship. I was made for following the erratic promptings of the Holy One in my heart. I was made to sing praises and make thanksgivings. I was made to worship, and, in my own unique way, to serve. Living as I was created to live makes me happy as nothing else can.

God is love all right.