The Unsettling Love of God

I used to have the following sign on my wall at work:

To my surprise, this sign drew very few comments, unlike some of my other postings. Usually my messages got some response, even if it was only an “Amen” or “That’s cool.”

Perhaps it is because these verses concentrate the essence of what the Golden Rule from the Christian perspective is actually about. The term “Love one another” is a warm fuzzy concept until one gets down to the nitty gritty of what that truly means. Notably absent from my top 3 was another of Jesus’ strong pronouncements on love: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”¹ But in that verse the Lord only mentions friends, and it is unclear whether that includes “beloved” enemies.

Jesus could easily be accused of extremism when it comes to this love thing.

• Item 3: It’s one thing to forgive a wrong, but a repeated wrong, committed, perhaps, without regret on behalf of the perpetrator—isn’t that going a bit far?
• Item 2: As for loving enemies (and I don’t mean those who just annoy us), assuming that we have been maltreated over and over again doesn’t this mean unremitting approval for repeated attacks?  Would this not be an invitation for others to join in the abuse fest?
• Item 1: Just what is it that we are denying when we deny ourselves?  Our reactions to wrongs committed against ourselves?  Our feelings toward those who mistreat us, hurt us, damage our dignity?  Our right to justifiable indignation?

The uncomfortable truth is that Christians are called upon to love as our God loves: unconditionally, completely, everyone, no exceptions:

• “For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?”²
• “And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.”³

Accordingly, if we only love and do good to the people who do the same for us, we miss the “recompense” and the “credit” from on high. God sees that transactional kind of love all the time, and his eyes probably glaze over in the presence of niceness to the nice.

That reminds me of another posting on my wall at work, which did get a few comments:

Perhaps this is a bit harsh, but the point is that we get an earthly reward for loving those that love us, so why should God sweeten the pot for doing something so effortless? You don’t have to delve very deeply into the scriptures to discover that the Lord’s awards are for those who do the unpleasant things, who suffer for the sake of His kingdom. And those who choose not to deny themselves—not to live in harmony with the will of the Creator, reap what they sow: losing paradise, never seeing the promised land, essentially missing the deep and abiding divine peace.

As disquieting as all this may be to those of us who believe in only doing that for which one receives immediate compensation, there is something even more disconcerting in the love which God has for us and wants us to have for all others. God’s love most certainly encompasses all of the aforementioned principles, but there is a much more profound aspect to it that is seldom mentioned.

God being the Creator of everything, is outside of time. After all God created time, and consequently is not bound by it. This is commonly called omnipresence—our deity exists in all times, past, present, and future, simultaneously. God is already where we haven’t been yet. This means that God knows all outcomes. Therefore, God loves those whom he knows will reject His love, who will deny His existence, and who would kill Him, given the chance—and He certainly gave it to them a couple of millennia ago.

That means even if we could know in advance that our love and compassion and generosity will not be returned, but instead will be scorned, made fun of, interpreted negatively, or reacted to violently, we still must love, and we must give it “without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”⁴

Both the Bible and the Catechism tell me that I have help from on high for this daunting task in the person of the Holy Spirit. There is a substantial sack o’ gifts (“wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.”⁵) and fruits (“charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity”⁶) just waiting for me.

Notwithstanding, I confess that this “Super Love” is unsettling to a sensually-oriented humanoid like me. In spite of the aforementioned reassurance of heavenly help for those of us who would rather react than reach out to our adversaries, I wonder how God’s love can blossom in a cracked pot like myself.

I suppose it’s the old problem of fear that cuts off my HS connection: fear that I may have messed up the Creator’s work in me by my sins to the degree that I will forever fall short and find myself in a kind of hell on earth. What it boils down to is that I can’t give what I have not received. If I continue to doubt the “Super Love” of God for me, who once dishonored him, how can I hand this same love out freely to those doing the same thing to me?

Yet in the face of my doubts, dread, distress, and disquietude, I must cling to God’s perfect love to cast out these spiritual spectres and open up my soul to the full experience of creation, both in my comrades and in those who disdain me. Our Heavenly Papa truly has the gift that keeps on giving—it is Him. If I can but believe and receive, then I can give and live.

The key to this kind of loving is relationship. Through our relationship with God, we learn spiritual love (“We love because he first loved us”⁷). Then when we make an effort to love as our Lord loves, we are empowered to develop more meaningful relationships with everyone we encounter. Relationships not based on what we get from others, but based on what we give.

¹ John 15:13 NABRE
²Matthew 5:6 NABRE
³Luke 6:33 NABRE
⁴II Corinthians 9:7 NABRE
⁵Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 1997, para. 1831—see also Isaiah 11:2-3 NABRE
⁶Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 2018, para. 1832—see also Galatians 5:22-23 NABRE
⁷I John 4:19 NABRE