Living the Message Feb. 13

Love

This is from an exposition of Psalm 45.

If I, deeply in love with another, begin describing with passionate appreciation what has been unnoticed or ignored by everyone else for years some people around me are sure to dismiss me, "Love is blind." They mean that love diminishes my capacity to see what is actually there so that fantasy, tailor-made to fit my desires, can be projected on another and thus make him or her acceptable as a lover. The cynical follow-up is that of this did not happen, if I saw the other truly, I would never get involved. Why? Because everyone is , in fact, quite unlovely, either visibly invisibly, or , in some particularly unfortunate cases both. Love doesn't see truth but create illusions ans incapacitates us for dealing with the hard0edged realities of life.

But the popular saying, as popular saying so often are, is wrong. It is hate that is blind. It is habit, condescension, cynicism that are blind. Love open eys. Love enables the eyes to see what has been there all along but was overlooked in haste or indifference. Love corrects astigmatism so that what was distorted in selfishness is now perceive accurately and appreciatively. Love cures shortsightedness so that the blur of the blessed invitations. Love looks at the one who had no "form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him" and sees there the "fairest of the sons of men...anointed with the oil of gladness above your fellows."

If we could see the other as he is, as she is, there is not one we would not see as "fairest" ... all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia." Love penetrates the defenses that have been built up to protect against rejection and scorn and belittlement, and it sees life created by God for love.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I dont love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I 'm bankrupt without love.

I CORINTHIANS 13:3

Living the Message Feb. 10

Geographical

The gospel emphatically geographical. Place names--Sinai, Hebron, Machpelah, Shiloh, Nazareth, Jezreel, Samaria, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Bethsaida--are embedded in the gospel. All theology is rooted in geology. Pilgrims to biblical lands are sometimes surprised to find that the towns in which David camped and Jesus lived are no better or more beautiful than that hometowns they left behind.
If the fallout of our belief in the supernatural is a contempt for the one-horse towns and impatience with their dull-spirited citizens, we had better reexamine what we say we believe in. For supernatural in the biblical sources is not a spectacularly colored hot-air balloon floating free of awkward contingencies but a servant God with basin and towel washing dusty and callused feet.

Philip went and found Nathanael and told him, We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the Once preached by the prophets. It's Jesus, Joseph's son, the one from Nazareth!: Nathanael said, "Nazareth?"You've got to be kidding." But Philip said, "Come, see for yourself."

John 1:45-46