Morning Star Talk — 07 August 2022

 

On Sunday, 07 August, I spoke at Morning Star Center for Spiritual Living. Here’s a link to the service. My talk starts at roughly the 26 minute mark and lasts about 20 minutes. Below is the transcript of my talk.

                                   

Thank you, Sara, for inviting me back to speak today. And thank you all for having me. 

I’d like to start today by quoting from the singer / songwriter (and I would contend part-time prophet), Trevor Hall. Trevor ends his song, Different Hunger, with these words — 

… Be humbler than a blade of grass

Be patient and forgiving like a tree

… 

The time has come to speak of this love

Speak of this love, speak of this love.[1]

And that’s what I’m going to do today — “speak of this love.” And the Love I want to talk about is God’s Love. So what is God’s Love and how do we experience it?

My wife and I have finished reading Mary Magdalene Revealed by Meggan Watterson. In it, Watterson explores the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and weaves throughout the book other Gnostic texts, as well as other religious traditions. Meggan’s emphasis is on the Love of Mary and Jesus and the depths of their relationship, as well as their relationships with the other disciples. If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. At one point, Watterson states:

“ … I would tell you that this love [Mary] became is what our world needs most desperately. It’s a love that renders all things sacred, from the animals to the angels, from the poorest to the most powerful. It’s a love that sees the inherent worth in all living things.”[2]

“The time has come to speak of this love.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus said to the disciples, “I give you a new commandment: Love one another. And you’re to love one another the way I’ve loved you. This is how all will know that you’re my [followers]: that you truly love one another” (John 13.34-35; TIB).[3]

St John must have taken that to heart because he wrote, “Beloved, let us love one another because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten of God and has knowledge of God. Those who don’t love [know] nothing of God for God is love. … Beloved, if God has loved us so, we must have the same love for one another” (1 John 4.7-8, 11; TIB).

This is one of my favorite passages — “Everyone who loves is begotten of God and has knowledge of God.” St John doesn’t say only those who believe a certain way or worship a certain way or even if they’re a professed Christian. No. He wrote, “Everyone who loves is begotten of God and has knowledge of God … for God is love.”

What does John mean by, “God is love”? Love is the very essence of all that God is; it’s God’s DNA, if you will. All of God’s other attributes, then, find their foundation in Love. All of God’s dealings with creation, including people, come from God’s Love. In other words, everything that God does or purposes to do flows out of the depths of God’s very being, which is Love.

In the Lindisfarne Community, we have a series of “Understandings,” similar to the belief statements of religions or spiritual centers. Our third understanding states:

Love is to be at the heart of the Lindisfarne Community. “Love your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies.” The immensity of the task makes it naturally impossible! Yet we’re called to be a community of love. We need to remember that it’s God’s love, not ours; perfect, eternal, constant. With God’s love, there are no strings attached, no conditions to be met, and no favoritism. Yet it’s not sentimental nor romantic, for love’s not merely a feeling, it’s an act of will; the “naked intent” of the heart to love God, neighbor, and enemy. There is the deepest of all joy in the love of God. We seek to learn to love, to walk in love, to exult in love, to make love our highest aim, and to let God’s love fill us completely. We desire to be free within the love of our heavenly Father-Mother — to know God’s passionate love for us and to live our lives from within God’s acceptance of us. This love of God is reflected in our love for all, even those who are considered our enemies. It is a reconciling love; a love that seeks peace. It is a love for the whole of creation.[4]

You can hear echoes of Watterson in this Understanding. But, if I could, I’d edit this a wee bit. I’d add that God’s Love is a self-emptying love, a self-sacrificing love, a love that puts others before oneself. In the previous quote, Jesus said we’re to love others the way he loves us. And how does Jesus love? By emptying himself — even to the point of death — into the lives of others, especially those who are marginalized by society and religion. As Watterson points out, “When I empty myself, when I forget myself for the sake of someone else, I’m instantly filled beyond what I could have ever asked for myself.”[5]

“The time has come to speak of this love.”

But what is this kind of Love? How do we recognize it? In a very familiar passage, St Paul wrote — 

Love is patient and kind. It’s not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It doesn’t demand its own way. Love isn’t [easily angered], nor does it keep records of being wronged. It doesn’t rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13.4-8; NLT; adapted).[6]

I remember quite clearly when I combined 1 John 4 (God is Love) with this passage from 1 Corinthians. My whole understanding of God was turned upside down, or, more accurately, rightside up. If we replace the word “love” with “God,” we read:

[God] is patient and kind. [God] isn’t jealous or boastful or proud or rude. [God] doesn’t demand [God’s] own way. [God] isn’t [easily angered], nor does [God] keep records of being wronged. [God] doesn’t rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. [God] never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. [God] never fails.

I know what a lot of us are thinking: That doesn’t sound like the God we’ve heard about growing up nor is it the God we witness in social media and other places. And we’d be right. The god of the Religious Business Institution is not like this. And the people who attend those types of churches aren’t like this. That god does keep records of wrongs. That god does demand its own way with eternal conscious torment awaiting those stray from it.

But that’s another point I want to make today — we’ve gotten it so, so wrong. We’ve misunderstood God and God’s Love. God said, “Return to me and I’ll have mercy; return to me and I’ll freely pardon, for my thoughts aren’t your thoughts nor my ways your way” (Isaiah 55.6-11; TIB). I used to think this passage was about God’s exclusion because we’d take the “my thoughts” and “my ways” bits out of context and say if someone didn’t respond to God’s message, it was because that’s what God wanted. The context, though, is clearly about God’s mercy and compassion. Those things flow out of God’s Love and don’t ever return empty but will fully accomplish God’s desire of Love for all creation. But somewhere along the way we decided what someone should believe, how they should worship, how someone should be, and we killed those who didn’t fit into that box. 

But that’s not God’s Love; that’s our twisting God’s Love to be like our love. God’s Love, as we’ve seen, is a Love that goes far beyond what we imagine. For the first 500 years or so of church history, the prevailing thought was that when Christ died and rose from the dead, he actually rescued all people and the entire cosmos. All people — seen and unseen — were understood to be members of God’s family. Christ came to push past our falseness (those things that hide our true selves), expose the Divine spark within each person, and set us free to be truly human. As St Paul wrote, “ … Just as a single offense brought condemnation to all, a single righteous act brought acquittal and life to all. Just as through one person’s disobedience, all became sinners, so through one person’s obedience, all will become just” (Romans 5.18-19; TIB). And in another place he wrote, “Just as in the first human all die, so in Christ all will come to life again” (1 Corinthians 15.22; TIB). The idea, then, is not that Love wins eventually but, as Watterson states, “Love has already won!”[7]

“The time has come to speak of this love.”

This is the Love Jesus embodied. It’s the Love Mary Magdalene embodied. What Mary Magdalene, as well as all the Saints throughout time have shown us is that we, too, can embody this Love. It’s buried deep within us. With God’s help, we just have to find it, water it, and let it grow within us to the point that it spills out into our actions toward others and all creation.

But, truth be told, a lot of people — especially those of us who claim to be followers of The Way of Jesus — do a poor job loving this way. Some seem so set on making sure others keep to their very strict interpretation of the Bible that people are being harmed — spiritually, emotionally, and yes, physically. My daughter and I talked about this recently.

A few months back, we started having a weekly Bible study. We’ve been going through the New Testament addressing a chapter each time we meet. We started with Matthew and during one of our sessions, we discussed a passage from chapter 9 where the religious opposition confronts Jesus’ disciples because Jesus was eating with “tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 9.10-11; TIB). Jesus overheard the conversation and said, “Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire compassion, not sacrifices’” (verse 13; TIB). In other words, their strict observance of the sacrificial system and interpretation of the Mosaic law lacked compassion and was actually harmful.

But what about us? How often do we hold so tightly to our spiritual or political beliefs that we refuse compassion towards others? 

Watterson addresses this in the section, The Power to Judge, where she writes, “… judgment is the only real obstacle that keeps us from [returning] to … love.”[8] In other words, when we judge others for whatever reason, we eliminate compassion. We terminate mercy. We try to bury the flame of Love. 

Like other monastic communities, the Lindisfarne Community has a Rule and our Rule can be summarized as, “To Love. To Serve. To Forgive.”[9] I feel that a lot of people at Morning Star follow a similar rule. I know a lot of people who do. One of those people was my brother-in-law, Bryant Bickerstaff.

Two weeks ago, Bryant died in his sleep holding one of his grandchildren. He left behind his mother, siblings, wife, children, and grandchildren. He was only 53 and the funeral was last weekend. The one thing everyone talked about was love. Bryant loved big. People told stories about how he loved his family; how he loved his community; how he touched the lives of so many people. Because of that love, Bryant, his wife Tammy, and their four natural children, adopted 4 more children and took care of many more in the foster care system. Of course, he wasn’t perfect — none of us are. But one thing’s for certain, Bryant loved Jesus and he loved people. He taught his children how to work hard, not take the easy way, and strive to always do what’s right even at one’s own expense. Bryant always seemed to put the needs of others before his own needs. Whether those needs came from family, friends, or strangers — it didn’t matter. If he could help, he would.

“The time has come to speak of this love.”

This Love is not outside ourselves but deep within each and every one of us and every person we meet. Too often, though, we bury that Love with our own pettiness and judgment and ego. But it’s never extinguished. As St John wrote, “In [Jesus is] life, and that life [is the light for all people] — a Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never extinguished it” (John 1.4-5; TIB; adapted). That Light is the Divine Love deep within all life. The time has come to put ourselves aside and empty ourselves into the lives of others — human and non-human alike. We are called, as followers of the One who loves All, to go deep within ourselves to find this Love, walk in this love, and recognize that love in others. The time has come, beloved, not only to speak of this love, but to live this love, to be the embodiment of this love.

And may it start with me.

~~~

In the Love of the Three in One,

Br. Jack+, LC

_________

[1] Hall, T., (2011). “Different Hunger.” On Everything, Everytime, Everywhere [MP3]. Santa Monica, CA: Vanguard Records, a Welk Music Group Company.

[2] Watterson, M., (2019). Mary Magdalene Revealed: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel & the Christianity We Haven't Tried Yet, pg. 110. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.

[3] Scripture quotations marked (TIB) are taken from The Inclusive Bible. Copyright © 2007 by Priests for Equality. Used by permission.

[4] “The Understandings of the Lindisfarne Community.” © 2021, The Lindisfarne Community. http://www.icmi.org/theunderstandings.html.

[5] Watterson (2019), pg. 181.

[6] Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation, Inc. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

[7] Watterson (2019), pg. 185. 

[8] Ibid., pg. 117. 

[9] “The Rule of the Lindisfarne Community.” © 2021, The Lindisfarne Community. http://www.icmi.org/therule.html.