Word to the Wise
Friday, May 8, 2015 - 5th Week of Easter - Fri
[Acts 15:22-31 and John 15:12-17]"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." [John]
St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of friendship as the best way to describe our relationship to God. But it is not a friendship that we create. It is God's initiative in loving us and our response to that love that creates the relationship. In today's gospel from the Farewell Discourse, Jesus says: "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain....."
How would each of us describe our relationship to God? Would we use the word, "friendship?" Does that seem like we are putting ourselves on the same level with God? Since that is impossible, why not relax, enjoy the relationship and do what one can to keep it strong! I know that I regard my human friends as one of God's greatest gifts - as a way God has of saying, "I love you." Some folks prefer a more distant kind of relationship, at least on the emotional level. God's utter transcendence seems to place God beyond the messiness that friendship can entail. Yet, God offers us a participation in that transcendence at the same time as offering us a "here and now" everyday love. Jesus promises us that our love for him will "bear fruit that will remain." This comes from the way we live and offer to show others how God does love them.
The old hymn puts it well: "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege we cherish, to take it all to God in prayer." AMEN