I heard a story about a couple that had two children through childbirth and two children through adoption. They made no bones about it . . . that was just the way the family was. When one of the children asked one of their parents, “Which one of us is adopted?” The parent replied, “I don’t remember.”
What a testament of love . . . or poor memory!
I’ll go with love. That is what we are talking about in our reading this morning . . . love. God’s love for us, our love for God. Sounds simple but let me warn you . . . love is complex. Love is a favored topic of philosophers, poets, writers, and scientists for generations, and different people and groups have often fought about its definition. Love is a mix of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs associated with strong feelings of affection, protectiveness, warmth, and respect. And, while we all use the word, we don’t always agree with what it means.
I can agree that love is all those things . . . emotion, behaviors, beliefs associated with strong feelings of affection, protectiveness, warmth, and respect. I can accept that love can be a strong attraction . . . a discovery . . . a soul mate. I will grant you that love is many things, but in the end, I fall firmly into the belief that love is a choice.
Love is a choice. If we listen to the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians this morning, we hear God choose . . . God chooses to love us. God doesn’t have to love us, but God chooses to love us. And, so we are loved. In return we choose to love God. We don’t have to love God; we choose to love God. It is a choice.
Think back to that story about the parent being questioned about which of the children were adopted. The parent replied, “I don’t remember.” Here is a parent whose love was so deep and profound that he or she could not remember which of the children were adopted . . . they were the parent’s children worthy and equally loved.
Take a moment to consider the love relationships you have in your life . . . your spouse, your children, your extended family. Think of all the good times . . . and, the bad times. We know that relationships are tough. Our spouses do not always make us happy. Sometimes they make us sad, sometimes angry. Sometimes we just want to throw up our arms and run out of the house screaming . . . but we choose to stay and love. Think of our children . . . they weren’t perfect little angels all the time. Oh no! There were moments we wonder whose children they were . . . they had moments when they broke our hearts, moments when they made us mad. But we choose to love them through thick and thin. Same goes with all those relationships outside of the family . . . aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, the whole clan! We choose to love them. We don’t have to, but it is our choice.
Emma Swanson shared a story in the Montana Quarterly magazine about how shattered her family and life became when her father asked to divorce her mother when she was twelve years old. She was devastated and angry. She was angry at her father for abandoning her and her mother. She was angry with her father’s parents—her grandparents—because they seemed to side with her father over the divorce. She was angry to be thrust into a new family . . . a family with stepsiblings and step-grandparents. In her anger she refused to have anything to do with her father’s parents—her grandparents, or with her new step-grandparents. For nine years she let this fester.
Nine years later her father encouraged her to mend the tear in the relationships with her grandparents and her step-grandparents. Reluctantly she called her grandparents wanting an apology for the hurt they caused for siding with her father in the divorce. She told them that they had hurt her. They told her that she had hurt them. She told them that it hurt that they had ignored her for all those years . . . and, in return her grandfather said, “We didn’t think that you wanted to talk to us, but we never stopped loving you.” Unsatisfied with the conversation her grandfather finally tells her the road runs both ways and that if she must, go ahead and blame him. In the end, it is up to her . . . it is her decision, her choice.
That’s the way love works . . . you must choose.
Also, in the story, she visits her step-grandparents. She is shocked to see her middle school picture up on the wall with all the other family pictures. She is leery of the kindness these strangers are showering her with . . . the kind things that they are doing for her. They are loving her, but she doesn’t trust them. Then one evening at the dinner table her step-grandmother puts a beautiful ring upon her finger. She tells her that it is hers and she wants her granddaughter to have it. Of course, she protests the gift. But the woman will have none of it and tells her, “I want you to have it.” Suddenly there is a release within her heart as she realized that these people . . . her step-grandparents . . . have been waiting all these years for the relationship. Waiting because they chose to love her.
Love is a choice.
Love only works if we choose to make it work.
God chooses to love us. Through Jesus we are shown how that love works. In return, we love God . . . we love one another. In the person of Jesus, we witness that love is a choice. Too often we slide by the human side of Jesus in favor of the divine side. We forget the humanity of Jesus. He was one of us. When I think of Jesus in his humanity, I see a Jesus that struggled at times with his relationship with God. Probably the best example of that is when he is in the garden praying. There in the garden we witness the struggle with what God wanted from him. Yet, despite the realness of that struggle, in the end Jesus chooses to love and do as is expected of him.
Love is complex.
Love is difficult . . . especially when it comes to our love for God. We need to be honest with ourselves and admit that there are moments that we struggle in loving God . . . moments when we are angry with God . . . confused with what God wants from us . . . times when we are estranged from God. Yet, God chooses to love us. And, if we want to love God then we must choose to love God . . . it doesn’t just happen.
We may never understand why God chooses to love us . . . each and everyone of us . . . just as we have been created. All we know is that God chooses us. From there it is up to us. What will we do with this “gift of love”? God will not make us do anything, including loving God or others. It is our choice what we do with such love. Do we embrace it and in return choose to love God . . . to love others?
We are the children of God . . . created in the image of God, we are all chips off the old block. We are a mixture of everything under the sun . . . we are good, we are bad . . . we are saints and, we are sinners . . . we re kind, we are mean . . . we are a conglomerate of opposites. Yet, God chooses to love us. The emphasis is always on “chooses”. Thus, in the end, it falls back upon us as individuals . . . what will you choose? Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment