MikePaschall.com

How do we love God? We have put our emphasis on trying to love God, which is probably a good way to start—although we do not have a clue how to do that. What I consistently find in the mystics is an overwhelming experience of how God has loved them. God is always the initiator, God is the doer, God is the one who seduces us. All we can do is respond in kind and, exactly as Meister Eckhart said,

“The love by which we love God is the very same love with which God has first loved us.”

The mystics’ overwhelming experiences are full body blows of the Divine loving them, God radically accepting them. And they spend the rest of their lives trying to verbalize those experiences, invariably finding ways to give that love back through forms of service, compassion, and nonstop worship. But none of this is to earn God’s love; it’s always and only to return God’s love. Love is repaid by love alone.

      —Adapted from Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate…. Seeing God in All Things, by Richard Rohr O.F.M.

If we’re really paying attention to the love that God has for us (beyond mere consideration of salvation—for us and humanity) and relating to the massive reality of what it means to exist (mind, body, and spirit)… along with our amazing capacities to absorb and understand all the ways that God loves us… shouldn’t we be more prone to love others? Is it blasphemy that we don’t love who God loves… which is everyone? I suspect so.. on both counts. —MDP

1 John 4:20-21 – If you say you love God but hate your sister or brother, you are a liar. For you cannot love God, whom you have not seen, if you hate your neighbor, whom you have seen. If we love God, we should love our sisters and brothers as well; we have this commandment from God.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT… LOVE WINS.

The world has suffered much from the various forms of Christian colonialism. Yet the reign of God is an alternative to domination systems and all “isms.” Jesus teaches that right relationship (that is, LOVE) is the ultimate and daily criterion. If a social order allows and encourages strong connectedness between people and creation, people and each other, people and God, then we have a truly sacred culture: the reign of God. It wouldn’t be a world without pain or mystery, but simply a world where we are connected and in communion with all things.  

God’s reign is about union and communion, which means that it’s also about mercy, forgiveness, nonviolence, letting go, solidarity, service, and lives of love, patience, and simplicity. Who can doubt that this is the sum and substance of Jesus’ teaching? In the reign of God, the very motives for rivalry, greed, and violence have been destroyed. We know we’re all part of God’s beloved community.

Jesus called into community a small group of people. They were his disciples and friends. He taught them the essence of faith—the love of God and the love of neighbor—and he became a role model to them. When they asked him to teach them to pray, he taught them to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom: “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” If you want to be children of God, he said, you need to be engaged in peacemaking; if you want to imitate God and be God’s children, you have to love your enemies and to pray for those that persecute you. If you want to resist evil, do not use evil methods. You have to practice forgiveness and reconciliation. You must be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. — Anglican priest, Naim Ateek

Every description Jesus offers of God’s reign—of love, relationship, non-judgment, and forgiveness, where the last shall be first and the first shall be last—shows that any imposition on God’s side is an impossibility! Wherever we’ve tried to force Christianity on people, the long-term results have been disastrous. The gospel flourishes in the realm of true freedom.  

But it’s a freedom we must choose for ourselves. It is almost impossible to turn away from what seems like the only game in town (political, economic, or religious), unless we have glimpsed a more attractive alternative. It’s hard to imagine it, much less imitate it, unless we see someone else do it first. Jesus is that icon of the more attractive alternative, a living parable. Jesus has forever changed our human imagination, and we are now both burdened and gladdened by new possibility. There is good news to counter the deadening bad news, but we first have to be turned away from a conventional way of understanding. 

— by Father Richard Rohr, O.F.M

If I’m honest, I can’t say that I’ve always understood “the reign of God” in this way.  As a young man, I saw this as a power move by God to force humanity into submission. We would either be willing participants (soldiers), or forced to be subservient slaves.  Otherwise, burn, baby, burn. There was a lot of talk about the judgement of God. Fear was a prime motivator, and love wasn’t ever much of any part of the conversation when mentioning God’s kingdom or the reign of God.

Although I did my best to get on board, I was unclear of Jesus’ master mission, outside of “saving” me… or you. It’s embarrassing to say that, but that’s why I say it. Decades later, I can honestly say that I think I see some of the master mission a little clearer. I do imagine a world without dominion politics or bigoted hate. And I do hope for real systems of unconditional love which triumph over our forced rhythms of control and judgment.

I realize we aren’t there. Okay, we’re not even remotely close. But I do have faith that real love will win, and the reign of God will overcome the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into on this planet. The birth pains will be enormous, but the kingdom will eventually come into fullness, and everything will be what it is supposed to be. And the most exciting part of that, is that you and I have the choice to begin NOW,  by living into the very essence of God’s kingdom: love, relationship, non-judgment, and forgiveness.

Someone has to plow in the fallow ground.  Let’s go. —MDP

BE GOOD AT LIFE.   LOVE.

IT MATTERS.