Teresa of Avila helps us envision the goal of our life’s journey as deeper and deeper intimacy with God. What she articulated through her castle imagery in the 16th century was built on something called the “threefold way” that goes back at least to the 5th century. The threefold way proposed that “union” with God is the destination toward which we are traveling. Each day we strive to move through the room’s of life’s castle, drawing ever closer to God who resides in the center of the castle, experiencing greater degrees of union with him. Jesus spoke of this as loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mk. 12:30).
This is a critical piece of spiritual cartography, because, as James K. A. Smith writes in You Are What You Love, too often the Christian faith has been portrayed as content to be learned rather than a relationship to be enjoyed. Christianity has produced “brains-on-sticks,” assuming that discipleship is primarily about acquiring knowledge and information about God. Biblically, Smith argues, discipleship isn’t about the head but about the heart. It’s less about what we know and more about who we love.
But just when we feel we’ve got a hold on this truth, another spiritual cartographer warns us that it’s a slippery truth. Writing in the 12th century, in his book On the Love of God, Bernard of Clairvaux warned that the goal of our journey is not merely love of God. He showed that there are actually two types of love of God. And a vital move in our life’s journey is to leave one of those types of love behind and live fully into the other type of love.
Bernard urged Christians to grow beyond “love of God for self’s sake” and to progress toward “love of God for God’s sake.” He saw, as Jesus saw, that many religious people just use God to get what they really want in life–like the spiritual leaders in Matt. 6 who pray, fast and tithe in order to get applause and approval from others. We love God–but for self’s sake. Loving God for God’s sake requires surrendering all agendas and personal goals into the hands of God and drawing near to him simply for him, not for anything he may or may not do for us.
Loving God for self’s sake rather than loving God for God’s sake may be the greatest course misdirection of our time, causing churches and Christians to veer far off the map in ways that are tragic, not only for them, but for the world they’ve been called to serve. The racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism and greed connected to “good Christian people” and silently tolerated, if not also vocally nurtured, from Christian pulpits points to the sorrowful way in which so many of us have chosen the wrong terminus point for our travels. Far too many today use God to acquire and maintain the two great desires of our time–power and privilege. And once acquired, religion is misused and abused in order to maintain this power and privilege. Ours is a country where the driving ambition to love God for self’s sake, rather than for God’s sake, comes with a deadly cost for all others.
Bernard’s prophetic call is to recalculate the true goal of our Christianity journey. No matter what else we or our churches seem to have gotten right–big buildings, large budgets, notoriety in the community, celebrity pastors with large platforms, etc.–until we get this right, we’ve got nothing right. Our journey is one in which we learn to love God for God’s sake–growing ever deeper in surrendering and self-sacrificial love with him, with no concern at all for how that love might benefit ourselves, exalt ourselves, or fulfill our personal quests.
