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Trickle Down Theory

Brother John Ogle, FBC

In today’s Gospel reading we learn something about love. Love gets tossed around a lot in our post-Christian culture. It’s used to describe everything from that girl you just met to your favorite movie, CD, or football team. I would think it hard to equate love of the Redskins with the love of your children. So let’s agree that there are a lot of things we say we LOVE that we really just LIKE a lot.

Love is as much mystery as feeling.  Why is it that you feel THAT way about another person?  Why is it that your heart can lead your head to such heights of passion or such acts of stupidity?  Some aspects of LOVE are clearly a mystery.

God IS Love. He loved us so much that he sent his only Son to die for us ..so that when we forget about loving each other as He loved us ..we can still be assured of His love. 

Have you ever been so mad at someone that you simply COULDN’T forgive them?  I had a friend who didn’t talk to his father for more than 20 years ..over a haircut ..or in his case the lack of a haircut. 

We’ve seen and heard so much about death these last three weeks. The lives of innocent people snuffed out in an instant ..leaving wives and children behind. It looks now like two evil people caused years worth of grief for dozens of families.   Can we forgive them?

God demonstrates Hispower by forgiving.  Far beyond anything we could do.  God demonstrates His Love in His never ending forgiveness. He forgives us the mistakes we make every day ..the sins we commit ..the times we don’t love our neighbor.

We can never equal God’s Love.  But among the joys of being a Christian is the life that happens while we try.  We can never approximate God’s forgiveness but we become better people the more we try.  Better because in forgiving we are loving as Christ loved us.

So ..Love the Lord your God with all your heart.  Let go. Let it happen. Don’t worry ..God won’t ever stand you up ..won’t ever shoot you down ..won’t say He loves you and then hurt you.  Won’t find someone He loves more.  Whatever hesitation you have ..based in whatever life experience ..or TV drama ..have taught you about Love ..this time it’s for real.  Loving God is the First Love of your life.

And the second is like on to it ..Love your neighbor as yourself.  Now wait a minute.  Anyone with any sense of reason can let go ..let God. But my neighbor. If I let go ..he’ll never give it back ..or break it ..or tell my friends I’m stingy or worse ..or sue. There are risks in loving others.  Love is self disclosure, being known.  That can be downright scary.

You need to let the Love trickle down.  Love starts right at the top.  God loves us and shows us how to love.  We love God in response and give that love to others, just as God gives it to you.

..and if God loves you ..who are you not to love you? When you get that straight with God the next part will be easier. Love your neighbor.  Love one another.  It begins with God and ends up being given to all around us. 

You do not love your neighbor the way you love the Redskins or chocolate, or even the way you Love your Mother ..the way you Love your child. The way you love mom or your kid is an intense emotional bond.  You can’t help it.  The love we should have for our irritating neighbor is not emotional, it is a decision about how we will treat them: as we would be treated.

This morning’s  reading from EXODUS demonstrates that.  Just a few chapters earlier Moses gave Israel the 10 Commandments to show them their responsibilities as God‘s people.  First on the Top Ten ... written literally in stone ..is Love the Lord your God with all your heart. 

The commandments move pretty quickly to how we should treat the people around us, which Jesus summarizes as Love your neighbor as yourself. Moses gives some tips on how God’s people ought to behave and what happens when they don’t.  Exodus defines some ways that Israel was to apply the command to love neighbors in specific situations to specific people. 

Moses says that God holds us accountable for how well we love: “and if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.” Love your neighbor as yourself ..it could teach him something and in turn he might pass it on. The Love will trickle down.

Israel had the law. As CHRIST-ians ..little Christs ..we are expected to do what Jesus did.  We are in church because we want to know what he did. We want to hear the Gospel and learn the truth. We want to walk in the light of Christ’s Love, to learn how to take the love He gives us and give it to others.

Love is often described in terms of union.  Two people IN love. Love does lead to community but if we only see it as the joining of the other person to us or us to that person for our own gratification ..we miss many of the secrets of love that are only revealed when we truly give ourselves to another person.

God IS love: the union between Father, Son and Spirit, giving themselves to each other is the divine community of love ..given freely to us ..and we, in turn, must likewise give it to others ..we must pray it forward.

Oxford Theologian John Macquarrie says Love is “letting be.” Not standing off ..mind you ..but “letting” or if you will “empowering.” If you love someone help that person realize their potential to love.  Sometimes “letting be” can mean letting go.  Hurts ..but its true love. 

The very essence of God as Being is to let be ..to confer ..to sustain ..to perfect his creatures. Jesus is God and man because he existed as a human and manifest absolute love and so He is the one in whom we ..His creatures ..converge with the Creator.

Love is the most excellent of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is the culminating quality of Christian life. The Christian ..in conforming his life to Christ ..manifests the letting-be of love and so is adopted as a child and brought into closer relation to God.

Being one with Jesus we are one with each other. Together we are brought into the divine community of the Trinity.  This is what we enact in Eucharist, which unites us to Christ, to each other and to the Trinity.  We are then sent out “into the world in peace, to do the work you have given us to do” that’s the work of love. 

God commands us to love  ..In this morning’s collect we pray for an increase of the gifts of faith, hope and charity and to love what God commands to obtain what He promises.

In loving others we love God. In helping ..offering hope ..offering charity ..we are faithful to God ..we come closer God.  It’s good to offer people the help they need to get to where they need to be. 

Consider ..what do you love more than God?

Let go of pleasures. Let go of addictions. Let go of the life YOU want. Let go of some time ..let go of some money. Let go of sin and evil.  Let go of the dark and learn to love and live in the joy and peace of the light of Christ ..and what ever you do ..don’t forget to pass it on. AMEN