Many things stand at the center of the Christianity practiced in our society–power, profit, position, etc. Just one thing stands at the center of the Christianity portrayed in our Scriptures–love. This is what makes biblical belief so radiantly appealing. This is what makes cultural Christianity so revoltingly appalling. Loving God and neighbor is, according to our Holy Book, the one true intended destination of every human’s priceless life-journey. Love is not a rest stop or a small town we pass by on the way to some other larger destination. Love is the one place we passionately and persistently press toward, at all costs, until we fully and finally arrive:
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Mk. 12:28-34 ESV)
According to Jesus, the most important command, one of greater importance than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices, is to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength. This is why James K. A. Smith proposes a renewed understanding of discipleship:
“Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love.”
Discipleship is not about how many Bible books we’ve interpreted, how many worship services we’ve attended or how much “false teaching” we’ve refuted. Discipleship is not about winning a culture war here and now or confirming a coveted spot in the hereafter. It is about one thing: love of God and love of neighbor.
The earliest Christians, those with the richest experiences of God and the greatest impact on earth, embraced this vision wholeheartedly. Consider Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun who lived in Spain in the sixteenth century. In Interior Castle,Teresa pictures our journey as a movement through a castle filled with rooms:
“Let us now imagine that this castle, as I have said, contains many mansions, some above, others below, others at each side; and in the center and midst of them all is the chief mansion where the most secret things pass between God and the soul.”
The Christian journeys from the outer courtyard of the castle, through successive rooms in the castle, finally reaching the most interior room where complete union with God takes place. Intimacy with God is the point of our pilgrimage. Experiencing and expressing his unfathomable love is the destination toward which we are traveling. Teresa herself was so caught up in rapturous love for God that she died reciting lines from Song of Songs, that extended love-story in Scripture describing the romance between God and us, his beloved.
Consider also Julian of Norwich, an English ascetic in the fourteenth century. In Revelations of Divine Love, she describes the “tender love” of God:
I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us. He is our clothing which for love enwraps us, holds us, and all encloses us because of His tender love, so that He may never leave us.
God is an attire woven out of adoration. We are encompassed by him like a blanket. We are never distant from his devotion.
Life with God was more about romance than it was about religion for these early followers. Their affection for God provides a compelling portrait of just how simple and all-consuming life with God can be.
Andrew Garfield was one of the stars of the Martin Scorsese film “Silence,” based on the book Silence by Shusaku Endo. The film takes place in the seventeenth century and focuses on two Jesuit priests who travel to Japan in search of a fellow priest. In order to prepare for his role as a Jesuit priest, Garfield was led through the Ignatian Exercises. At their heart, these are a series of meditations based on readings in the Gospels. Here is what one interviewer wrote about Garfield’s experience:
“When I asked what stood out in the Exercises, he fixed his eyes vaguely on a point in the near distance, wandering off into a place of memory. Then, as if the question had brought him back into the experience itself, he smiled widely and said: ‘What was really easy was falling in love with this person, was falling in love with Jesus Christ. That was the most surprising thing.’ He fell silent at the thought of it, clearly moved to emotion. He clutched his chest, just below the sternum, somewhere between his gut and his heart, and what he said next came out through bursts of laughter: ‘…That was the most remarkable thing—falling in love, and how easy it was to fall in love with Jesus.’
Falling in love with God, with Jesus, with the Spirit is the central point of the Christian faith. It is easier than we might imagine.
And it empowers us to do more than we could ever imagine. French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery once commented that if you want to build a ship, you have two choices. On the one hand, you can try to recruit a large group of people, compel them to acquire the immense resources needed for the project and sustain them for a long time in the strenuous steps of crafting the ship. On the other hand, he wrote, you can “teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” In other words, you can help them fall in love with the sea. Get them to fall in love with the sea and they’ll be empowered to do almost anything that follows–even the laborious work of shipbuilding.
This is all the more true when it comes to faith. Lead people to fall in love with God, with Christ and with the Spirit, and they’ll be empowered to do almost anything, including the work so needed in our time, the ending of prejudice, oppression and devaluing of human’s lives. Consider this poem by Pedro Arrupe:
Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.
Love God, and it will decide and empower everything. It will, especially, decide who you love and empower how you love them. It will put an end to every form of ageism, sexism, racism, homophobia and xenophobia. Sadly, darknesses like these develop in our churches because, when we prioritize everything except a passion for the One who made us, we end up seeking supremacy over the ones he has made. But faith communities that highlight having a heartbeat for the Father will consequently cultivate one for everyone and everything for which His own heart beats.
