I dedicate this meditation to Ruth
Robertson (neé Shoch) who died this week aged 87. Ruth was working for the South African
Council of Churches (1968-72) as personal assistant to Bishop Bill Burnett when
I joined the staff in 1968. She was the
first woman to study theology at Rhodes University. A committed ecumenist and worker for justice,
in later years, after marrying John Robertson, Ruth with John were deeply
involved in the life of Volmoed. Ruth
was one of the most loving and generous people I know which is part of the
reason for the choice of my theme.
LOVE IS THE BEGINNING AND END
I John 4:16b-21
John 17:17-25
"God is love."
"You loved me before the
foundation of the world."
We were just
three old friends sitting and having coffee while we gazed out over Walker Bay
from the terrace of Burgundy restaurant.
We were hoping to see whales , but only saw a school of Dolphins in the
distance. Did I say "only" as
if that was second best to whales? Of
course, not. Dolphins are amazing,
graceful creatures, every bit as wonderful to see as a Southern Right with its
calf swimming beside her. While we gazed
into the distance, my friend, a trained theologian, asked whether I believed in
a personal God, not just a mysterious force that might pervade the universe and
give birth to the beauty we perceived. It
is not difficult when you see dolphins at play to believe that there is a
mysterious force at work in the universe. But is that force Someone with whom you can
have a relationship? Someone to whom you can pray, Someone you can love and be
loved in return? Someone we call God, and
relate to as to a Father or Mother?
I know that
people living in poverty don't contemplate the majesty of the universe while
leisurely drinking coffee and discussing theology, and yet many of them
ardently believe in God who enables them to cope with life. I also know that many people don't believe in
God because the world as they experience it is ugly and full of suffering and
violence. How can you believe in God in
a world plagued by disease and war, they ask us. My friend who was probing the meaning of
mystery with me over coffee was fully aware of all of the arguments against
faith in God. But this did not detract from our shared awareness,
as we sat and chatted together, that we were surrounded by a great mystery, a
mystery we glimpsed as we looked out into the vast expanse of Walker Bay and
watched the dolphins at play. But the
question persisted, was this mystery "in whom we live, move and have our
being" personal? Can we relate to this
transcendent mystery as children relate to their parents, or lovers to each
other? And therein lies the clue. I believe that the mystery we call God is
personal because I believe God is love. That
God loves the world and loves us. This
is the good news of Jesus the Christ.
One of the
doctrines of Christian faith about which you seldom hear these days is what is
called the "pre-existence of Christ."
That is, the notion that the Word who became flesh in Jesus was with God
from the beginning. "You loved me
before the foundation of the world," Jesus says in his high priestly
prayer as told by St John in the gospel passage we read this morning. In other words, God's love for the world that was revealed in
Jesus did not only start when Jesus was born.
God's love for the world was there from the beginning. God's love for the world was not an
after-thought which God had when the world went skew and needed redemption. It was God's love that gave birth to the
universe. It is God's love that sustains
the world. Love is the foundation of
everything else.
When we say
that "God is love" we are not describing an attribute of God, we are
describing the essence of God, what makes God God. If God is not love, God is not the God
revealed in Jesus, the God Jesus called "Father." Of course, we are not thinking here of love
as something sentimental, like the so-called love that oozes out of too many
magazines, movies and the like. The love we name God is holy love, it is the love that
expresses itself in mercy and compassion, and justice for the oppressed. It is self-giving costly love, redemptive
love, the love that heals and makes whole.
It is beautiful, creative love,
the love we see as we gaze out on the ocean or welcome a new born baby into the
world. Love is the power that brings new life and beauty to birth; love is the
power that heals and restores. This love is the beginning and the end of the
story of Christ and of the universe.
Listen again
to the majestic words in the first letter of John. "God is love and those who love abide in
God, and God abides in them... We love because he first loved us." The only
way in which we relate to the God is through the love which God evokes in us,
something so evident in the life of our friend Ruth. "Those who do not love a brother or
sister who they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen." To
believe in the God who is love is to
love God what God loves -- justice and mercy, the creation given into our care,
the families and friends who surround us, and the strangers who meet us along
the way. Julian of Norwich, Isobel's
favourite "saint," understood this profoundly:
...love keeps us in faith and hope;
and faith and hope lead to love.
And at the end all shall be love.
I had three kinds of understandings on this light of
love;
the first is love uncreated;
the second is love created;
the third is love given.
Love uncreated is God;
love created is our soul in God;
love given is virtue --
and that is the grace-filled-gift of action,
in which we love God for Himself,
and ourselves in God,
and all that God loves,
for God's sake. (From A
Lesson of Love: The Revelations of Julian of Norwich,
ed. John-Julian, London 1988, 211)
John de Gruchy
Volmoed 12 May 2016
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