3rd Sunday Divine Love Transforms
Love Transforms
The nature of all of creation is to evolve. The universe evolved from a singularity, a point of unimaginable energy and uniformity, to a space and time of incredible diversity.
Life evolved from proteins and amino acids, to single cells, to more and more complex animals, until the human animal came forth.
Yet, there is more with us humans. We evolve yes, but we also are transformed: transformed to be fully who we are to be.
Don’t you love it when children begin to walk? It’s fun to watch and it marks an important phase of their lives. What happens? They first stand, they fall, stand and fall..using furniture and others to be stable.
Then taking those first steps. Again, the falling, but….
As parents, or uncles and aunts, what is our role? We encourage them We stand away and invite them to come to us. We hold them when they cry. They fall, we help them up. We get them going again.
And we rejoice with them as that joy of walking is so evident on their faces
What do we not do, I hope? Punish them for their failure, when the fall down.
If we do, bad parenting. That child will be damaged on so many levels.
People fall all the time. Our kids make mistakes. We as adults make mistakes: sometimes little ones, sometimes big ones.
We fall because we are ignorant of the better way; ignorant of our own actions.
We fall because we are frightened of others, scared of loss, scared of expectations.
And sometime we fall because we simply want to do what feels good, because we feel entitled, because we want to.
Herein lies the human sinful condition: the racism that exists, the sexism, nationalism; all the isms.
Herein lies the bullying and violence; violence in our gossip and passive aggressiveness...bullying with our words, insults and our outright violence.
Herein lies placing so much energy into getting likes and followers, doing anything to gain that fame we think makes us important.
Herein lies condemnation of others. We seek to destroy those who offend our own sense of justice, our own sense of how we want the world to be.
A cycle of violence and suffering continues. It played out once again this past week.
A person falls, and he/she is kept down.
The gospel of John says that Jesus came, not to condemn, but to save.
Jesus, in this brilliant passage from Luke, cites Isaiah, revealing why he has come.
He gives those 5 examples: glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed and a year acceptable to the Lord.
The nature of all of creation is to evolve. The universe evolved from a singularity, a point of unimaginable energy and uniformity, to a space and time of incredible diversity.
Life evolved from proteins and amino acids, to single cells, to more and more complex animals, until the human animal came forth.
Yet, there is more with us humans. We evolve yes, but we also are transformed: transformed to be fully who we are to be.
Don’t you love it when children begin to walk? It’s fun to watch and it marks an important phase of their lives. What happens? They first stand, they fall, stand and fall..using furniture and others to be stable.
Then taking those first steps. Again, the falling, but….
As parents, or uncles and aunts, what is our role? We encourage them We stand away and invite them to come to us. We hold them when they cry. They fall, we help them up. We get them going again.
And we rejoice with them as that joy of walking is so evident on their faces
What do we not do, I hope? Punish them for their failure, when the fall down.
If we do, bad parenting. That child will be damaged on so many levels.
People fall all the time. Our kids make mistakes. We as adults make mistakes: sometimes little ones, sometimes big ones.
We fall because we are ignorant of the better way; ignorant of our own actions.
We fall because we are frightened of others, scared of loss, scared of expectations.
And sometime we fall because we simply want to do what feels good, because we feel entitled, because we want to.
Herein lies the human sinful condition: the racism that exists, the sexism, nationalism; all the isms.
Herein lies the bullying and violence; violence in our gossip and passive aggressiveness...bullying with our words, insults and our outright violence.
Herein lies placing so much energy into getting likes and followers, doing anything to gain that fame we think makes us important.
Herein lies condemnation of others. We seek to destroy those who offend our own sense of justice, our own sense of how we want the world to be.
A cycle of violence and suffering continues. It played out once again this past week.
A person falls, and he/she is kept down.
The gospel of John says that Jesus came, not to condemn, but to save.
Jesus, in this brilliant passage from Luke, cites Isaiah, revealing why he has come.
He gives those 5 examples: glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed and a year acceptable to the Lord.
But these five things all come from one origin, one source: Divine Love.
Jesus proclaims and reveals the Father’s unconditional love, for all. This is the Good news.
The Father has NO interest in punishing us. The Father wills only transformation.
Like the good parent, as we fall as we learn to walk, the Father encourages, supports and lifts us up.
The purpose of this divine love, it is not a cumbaya type, simply to make us feel good about ourselves.
Jesus proclaims and reveals the Father’s unconditional love, for all. This is the Good news.
The Father has NO interest in punishing us. The Father wills only transformation.
Like the good parent, as we fall as we learn to walk, the Father encourages, supports and lifts us up.
The purpose of this divine love, it is not a cumbaya type, simply to make us feel good about ourselves.
The purpose of God’s divine love is transformative.
The purpose of God’s divine love transforms us so that we can know our names.
The purpose of God’s love changes us, so that true to who we are as God’s children, we can ACT as God’s children and rid this world of the violence that comes with our immaturity, with our sinfulness, with our failure to be TRUE to who we are.
Jesus Christ reveals to us the extent of God’s love, so that no longer are we held prisoners by our fears, and therefore oppressed by others who manipulate that fear.
Jesus Christ reveals God’s love for all persons, so that this sin of racism that permeates us; this sin of bigotry that seems to flourish, overtly and covertly...we can see it, and rise above it.
Jesus’ love equalizes all, no matter gender, nationality, religion or lack thereof.
Love raises up, never condemns.
We need proof?...we killed the Father’s son.
The Father’s response: he raised him up from the dead and returned him to us. No punishment, no vengeance, no condemnation.
Therefore, when we have accepted that divine love, it empowers us to choose and act differently
Love within sees the sins, and wishes to transform the sinner, not punish the person.
Loves within sees a person in need, in crisis, in danger...and that divine love in our hearts pushes us to help.
Love within us, knows our sins, and wishes to change so as to be better.
We Christians, this is our faith.
This is why we come to Eucharist each week. To be lifted up in love, and to go and love all, so that they may be lifted up by God as well.
We come to Eucharist to be transformed in God’s love, and to go and share this transformation with all.
We literally extend our hands to receive love in the form of bread and wine, that are the body and blood of the resurrected Christ.
This is our rejoicing; our cause to rejoice is God’s love. Given freely to us; not earned, bought, gained, consumed.
Unconditionally ours for the taking and for the use for the good of all.
Our mission as Catholics, is that empowered through our Eucharist, through the very Divine Love of God, we do two things at the same time:
The purpose of God’s divine love transforms us so that we can know our names.
The purpose of God’s love changes us, so that true to who we are as God’s children, we can ACT as God’s children and rid this world of the violence that comes with our immaturity, with our sinfulness, with our failure to be TRUE to who we are.
Jesus Christ reveals to us the extent of God’s love, so that no longer are we held prisoners by our fears, and therefore oppressed by others who manipulate that fear.
Jesus Christ reveals God’s love for all persons, so that this sin of racism that permeates us; this sin of bigotry that seems to flourish, overtly and covertly...we can see it, and rise above it.
Jesus’ love equalizes all, no matter gender, nationality, religion or lack thereof.
Love raises up, never condemns.
We need proof?...we killed the Father’s son.
The Father’s response: he raised him up from the dead and returned him to us. No punishment, no vengeance, no condemnation.
Therefore, when we have accepted that divine love, it empowers us to choose and act differently
Love within sees the sins, and wishes to transform the sinner, not punish the person.
Loves within sees a person in need, in crisis, in danger...and that divine love in our hearts pushes us to help.
Love within us, knows our sins, and wishes to change so as to be better.
We Christians, this is our faith.
This is why we come to Eucharist each week. To be lifted up in love, and to go and love all, so that they may be lifted up by God as well.
We come to Eucharist to be transformed in God’s love, and to go and share this transformation with all.
We literally extend our hands to receive love in the form of bread and wine, that are the body and blood of the resurrected Christ.
This is our rejoicing; our cause to rejoice is God’s love. Given freely to us; not earned, bought, gained, consumed.
Unconditionally ours for the taking and for the use for the good of all.
Our mission as Catholics, is that empowered through our Eucharist, through the very Divine Love of God, we do two things at the same time:
We recognize our own blindness, our own captivity, our own lameness, our own sinfulness, and make changes; and at the same time, by doing so we proclaim God’s love to the blind, the captive and oppressed.
We work for God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit to truly help make heaven here on earth.
We work for God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit to truly help make heaven here on earth.
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