Word to the Wise
Thursday, January 10, 2013 - Thursday after Epiphany, or Jan. 10
[1 John 4:19-5:4 and Luke 4:14-22a [Luke]]If anyone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. [1 John]
I once saw a cartoon from the famous "Peanuts" series in which the character says, "I love humanity. It's people I hate!" This statement seems akin to the quotation from the first scripture for today. Some folks (perhaps I should say more than "some!") seem to think they can love God and still hate another human being. Jesus even warned the disciples once that the time would come when their persecutors would consider persecuting Christians as doing God due worship! Most of the religious families of the world would stand convicted in that light! The gospel today which has Jesus preaching for the first time in Nazareth ends a bit too soon because the ultimate reaction of the audience was to run him out of town!
The Letter of John puts it in a very interesting way. How can we claim to love God, whom we cannot see, if we hate our fellow human whom we can see. As disciples we are called to "put skin on" God's love, which became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Jesus pointed out to the inquiring lawyer that we cannot separate love of God from love of neighbor. Love of God carries with it the responsibility to love God who is found in the human dignity of another person. A great deal of violence would disappear if we could only embrace this teaching wholeheartedly and live it daily. AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
98 ms
4
