Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Thou Shalt Love

The answer to this question is universally familiar. Millions of tongues testify to it evening and morning: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might.” Thou shalt love -- what a paradox this embraces! Can love then be commanded? Is love not rather a matter of fate and of seizure and of bestowal which, if it is indeed free, is withal only free? And now it is commanded? Yes of course, love cannot be commanded. No third party can command it or extort it. No third party can, but the One can. The commandment to love can only proceed from the mouth of the lover. Only the lover can and does say: love me! -- and he really does so. In his mouth the commandment to love is not a strange commandment; it is none other than the voice of love itself.

- Franz Rosenzweig, quoted in The Unsettling God by Walter Brueggemann

Can one who loves command another to return that love? Is “Love me” a valid request from the mouth of a lover? Is it a valid request from the mouth of God, or does it make him a narcissist? Do different rules apply to creator and creature?

Perhaps the word “command” evokes the wrong imagery, conjuring up a military scenario rather than the relation of a lover to his beloved. We are not called to love god because he insists, or because arbitrary punishment awaits disobedience to the command. We love god because he is love, and because he first loved us -- and continues to love us -- even when we were at our most unlovable.

“Love me” from the lips of god is not the command of a master to his slave, but the free choice made available to a bride - a bride whose perfect bridegroom has just uttered the most emphatic “I do” in all of history.

In other news, Walter Brueggemann is fast becoming a favourite author of mine after reading only 1.1 of his books. If there are any others of his out there that I need to read then do inform.

3 comments:

  1. Yes Dec! Different rules must apply to creature and creator. He is a jealous God: jealous for his good name and for the affections of the bride He loves. If we see Him through our fallen, finite eyes, we might perceive Him as a possessive control freak.He is also unwilling to share His glory with another' whilst we are encouraged by the same God to consider others above ourselves. This would be textbook megalomania if written of me.
    God is God and man is man. He has great grandeur, as Hopkins wrote. But His grandeur is very real, not delusional. If He is jealous for the one he loves, it is out of concern for the loved one. But He won't coerce, control or manipulate in order to achieve His ends. He even lets us reject and despise Him.

    And, as Paul would say, finally Declan a new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. Of course love can not be compelled, but it seemingly can be commanded. To command is simply to direct with authority. It's just that we're free to embrace that command or to reject it. With all the authority I have I direct you to love one another, even as I have loved you........................

    All that's left for us then is to do it. Now that's a whole other story

    ReplyDelete
  2. If Christians are guilty of one overarching error, I think it is trying to love God as a separate thing from trying to love their neighbour. We split the two when the Bible holds them very much together. Like love and marriage, you can't have one without the other.

    But anyway, one little point to press on the whole megalomania thing. I don't see our duty to consider others greater than ourselves as being un-godlike, in the sense that God is "unwilling to share his glory with another", and so our megalonmania is god's godness.

    After all, the exhortation to consider others greater than ourselves is said by Paul to be part of "the mind of Christ". The Christ-hymn that follows in Philippians 2 tells of one equal with God emptying himself and humbling himself. The thing is (and I can give you a great book that explains this very well if you're interested), this emptying and humbling were not "un-godlike" actions on the part of Christ, but rather they revealed the surprising, counter-intuitive nature of god.

    This Christ-hymn even accommodates for god's glory, for it is the confession that the resurrected crucified Jesus is Lord that brings glory to god the father.

    I'm kind of waffling now, but I guess my point is that somehow god's concern for his own name, his unwillingness to share his glory, must be compatible with the revelation of god seen in Jesus, which is one of self-emptying and humility.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ps - Still waiting for that first post at www.sheepfollow.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete