We’ve been following Bernard of Clairvaux who, in the 11th century, described four stages we move through on our way to the real goal of the Christian faith:
Love of self for self’s sake.
Love of God for self’s sake.
Love of God for God’s sake.
Love of self for God’s sake.
This morning we’re at the third stage. It’s where spirituality moves toward health and vitality. We stop viewing God as some means to an end, and start simply falling in love with him. Let’s explore what it means to dive headlong into a faith that is a divine romance.
Learners.
James K. A. Smith proposes that this is our dominant view of ourselves as Christians. Ever since this Enlightenment, we’ve tended to think of spirituality primarily as a matter of what people think, what people believe. And this, he writes, reduces us to this:
“…we imagine human beings as giant bobblehead dolls: with humongous heads and itty-bitty, unimportant bodies…[we] reduce human beings to brains-on-a-stick.” (You Are What You Love, 3)
God is the scholar. We are the learner. Faith is the mastery of information.
Lovers.
Jesus proposes that this should be our dominant view of ourselves as Christians:
And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” (Matt. 9:15 ESV)
Jesus doesn’t speak of faith as a seminary. He describes it as a ceremony. Faith isn’t something we believe. It’s someone we behold. We’re not learners. We’re lovers. God is not here simply to educate us. God is here to enchant us. Jesus imagines faith as a wedding.
Ancient Jewish weddings were grand celebrations. They could last as long as 14 days. And the feast itself could last as long as 7 days. For up to two weeks people’s attention was on one thing–a beautiful relationship between a loving couple. Jesus uses this image to describe himself.
Jesus is evoking texts from the Old Testament:
4 “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. 5 For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name (Is. 54:4-5 ESV)
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. 5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. (Is. 62:4-5 ESV)
This is what Bernard of Clairvaux was writing about. Faith becomes flourishing when we realize that it’s all about romance. It’s about loving God for God’s sake. It’s about falling head over heels for the One passionately pursuing us–not because he’s a great giver of all the things we want in life, but because he’s the greater giver of the One, himself, we need in life.
Julian of Norwich was an English ascetic who devoted herself to prayer and spiritual counsel. Notice Julian’s focus on romantic religion in her book Revelations of Divine Love:
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. (Reading Eight, Chapter Five)
Andrew Garfield is one of the stars of the Martin Scorsese film “Silence.” The film takes place in the 17th 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, who describes himself as someone who is not a devout Christian, was led through the Ignatian Exercises. At their heart, these are a series of meditations based on readings in the Gospels. Essentially, Garfield spent long days reading about and reflecting on Jesus.
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.’”
It’s so easy to fall in love with Jesus. And this, Bernard of Clairvaux proposed, is what it’s really all about.
German poet Rainer Rilke wrote the 135 poems which were published in his book The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. Again and again Rilke describes the great love of God:
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart–
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God–spend them however you want.
Pedro Arupe summarizes it in this way:
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.
