“God’s Love for Us Calls Forth Our Love for Others” by Colleen O’Sullivan

 “God’s Love for Us Calls Forth Our Love for Others” by Colleen O’Sullivan

 

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

 

We want you to know, brothers and sisters, of the grace of God that has been given to the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their profound poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich so that by his poverty you might become rich.  (2 Corinthians 8:1-2, 9)

 

Praise the LORD, my soul!
    I will praise the LORD all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God while I live.  (Psalm 146:2)

 

Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? (Matthew 5:43-46a)

Piety

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.  (Psalm 107:1, NIV) 

Study

Our readings today seem rather challenging.  Paul is asking the Corinthian Christians to send a contribution to the embattled church in Jerusalem.  To his way of thinking, this would constitute not simply a charitable act but would also speak volumes about the bonds between Christian churches.  The apostle mentions in his letter that the Macedonian church, deep amid great affliction and overwhelming poverty, has nevertheless managed to send a generous offering joyfully.   The Macedonians have experienced the grace of God and, out of gratitude, have the desire to help their struggling brothers and sisters in Christ. 

I think Paul may have written in detail about the sacrificial offering on the part of the Macedonian church partly because he was encouraging the Corinthians to be equally generous.  St. Paul also realizes that many of us then and now seem to assume the “poor” don’t experience joy or happiness or have much to give because “they” don’t possess wealth or all the material goods that adorn others’ lives.  Paul shoots that notion down.  And as a pastor in my younger days, I sat at the bedsides of many people preparing to depart this life.  I honestly don’t remember a single one of them talking about what they owned or didn’t own and how they would miss any of it.  Nearly all of them spoke of what they were thankful for:  the love bestowed on them by God and the love shared with family and friends. 

Never assume that the poor aren’t wealthy in ways other than material goods. St. Teresa of Calcutta didn’t have two nickels to rub together.   However, what she did possess in abundance was love for those about whom no one else cared.  St. Mother Teresa was kind and caring toward the sick and dying people she found on the streets.  She may have been a tiny person in stature, but she broadcast a considerable message about love and the value of every human life around the globe. 

Paul points out that Jesus could have considered being in heaven with his Father and the Holy Spirit a privilege, but, out of love for you and me, he willingly came to earth as a needy newborn in an obscure village in the Middle East.  Out of his poverty among us came the riches of our salvation.  

If the first reading doesn’t challenge us enough, take a look at the Gospel reading, in which Jesus tells us to love our enemies.   It’s difficult enough sometimes to get along with family and friends, and now Jesus asks us to widen the circle of our love to include people we think of as dubious characters in our life stories.   You know – the family member you haven’t spoken to in years because of a ridiculous argument one Thanksgiving, the ex-friend who voted for the “other” party’s candidate, your transgender child, etc.  What if God hated all the enemies of the Kingdom?  Remember, that includes you and me every time we sin and turn our backs on the Lord.  No, Jesus isn’t asking us to do anything that he and the other persons of the Trinity don’t do.  Fortunately for us, we are loved by God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit every minute of every day.

Today’s psalm sums up the reason for our gratitude by laying out all that God has done for us.  God created everything we see about us - heaven and earth, the seas, and all they contain.  God seeks justice for those treated unjustly, feeds the hungry, sets prisoners free, gives sight to the blind, and raises those overwhelmed by their burdens.  God loves those who act with justice and protects those who find themselves in alien territory.  

It’s not a bad thing for God to challenge our thinking about giving and poverty.  Great things can spring up from practically nothing, whether an offering to help a suffering sister church or a Savior who rescues us from our sinfulness.  The small in this world can still do great things.    Nor is it unreasonable for God to ask us to love our enemies because God loves us even on our worst days as disciples.

Action

today’s Scripture passages so much ground that you could pick just one thing out of all of it:

• Giving when we have very little ourselves,
• Gratitude for all God has done for us and given us, or
• The challenge to love those we regard as our enemies.

Spend your prayer time talking to the Lord about what that means to you.