Stephen
Terry, Director
Choose Life
Commentary
for the November 20, 2021, Sabbath School Lesson
"And now these three remain: faith, hope
and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13, NIV
The greatest principle is to reflect
the character of God, but we are not particularly good at it. The Bible tells
us. "God is love."[i]
Despite that, the character displayed by so many of his followers and therefore
imputed to God is the exact opposite. It is why so many struggle with a loving,
benevolent God amid so much evil, much of it perpetrated by his professed
followers. Some, as in the case of Sarah driving out Hagar,
is done because she could not see into the future and how her descendants and
the descendants of Hagar through Ishmael would be at war for thousands of
years, even to the present. Sarah's actions betray a hardness of heart that
seems to underlie so many of the harsh statutes of the Old Testament and their
draconian penalties.
Jesus tried to awaken people to
the idea that the problem was not with God's character but their own. For
example, when the question of divorce came up, he said God only allowed it because
of the hardness of their hearts.[ii]
As novel as this may seem, it was not a new concept. The prophet Ezekiel
identified the same problem centuries before. He said that people with hearts
of stone needed to receive a new heart from God.[iii] Only
then could we find it possible to be in harmony with God's character of love.
We too often fail to understand
that this is what makes Christianity unique. A Christian seeks a heart change that
will make it possible for them to love God and love their neighbor. If there is
a test to determine who is and who is not in the Kingdom of God, it is this. It
is not a multiple-choice test where we get to choose to love God without loving
others or loving our neighbor without loving God. The two are inseparable.[iv] But
this idea is hard for our stony hearts to accept. We find it much easier to
follow the Ten Commandments than to let God change our hearts. It is ironic that
those commandments, carved into stone, do not contain the word "love." It is as
though when we look at them, we are peering into our own stony hearts. Their
existence condemns us for what we truly are, a hard and unforgiving people.
Those commandments cannot
change our hearts. They can only bring condemnation and death.[v]
But if we are honest with ourselves and recognize that those stone tablets are reflections
of our own stony hearts, we can begin the process of seeking hearts after God's
own. Until we recognize what we are, we cannot begin walking toward what we were
meant to be. In the beginning, the Bible tells us that we were made in God's
image.[vi]
Then it goes on to say that we were made so to rule over the earth. Unfortunately,
we really homed in on the "rule over" part and completely missed the point that
we were to rule as God would, with love and compassion. We have stumbled over
this ever since.
This has been an essential
element that has separated the Kingdom of God from all other belief systems,
even, sadly, from the power structures of institutional Christianity. Much of
the reason for this is the distortion of the character of God that humankind
has continually propagated. God, however he is represented, is filled with
anger and must be placated, or he will torment mankind endlessly. The ancient
Aztecs, in a twisted turn on the idea of humankind having a heart problem,
would offer human sacrifices by cutting out the heart of living humans and
presenting the still beating heart to the sun, worshipping it as a god. The
deed done; they would then toss the lifeless body down the stairs of their
temple to the people below. While they may have maintained that they did this
out of their great love for the sun god. It was about power and control over
the people. It illustrates the result of trying to separate love of God from
love of others. I doubt the human sacrifice felt very loved.
In the time of ancient Israel,
it was common for the surrounding cultures to offer human sacrifices. And the
Jews admired those nations. In the days of the prophet Samuel, they demanded to
become like them with a king ruling over them[vii]
instead of God.[viii]
But it did not end there. They also saw how those nations used their forms of
worship to consolidate power over the people, up to and including human sacrifice.
Over time, the kings they chose to rule over them went down the same path.[ix]
It is not hard to understand that if we believe God to be a tyrant, and we believe
we are made in his image, we will become tyrants toward one another as well.
Then no matter what level we find ourselves on in life, we consolidate what power
we can to have godlike dominion over others in fulfillment of our created purpose
to rule.
But all of this is a distortion.
We have decided we know exactly where God would have us go, and like small children,
we run on ahead in the strength of our own vision with little felt need to
consult with him. Little wonder that we go astray, become hurt, and construct
unhealthy defense mechanisms that cause us to hurt others. All of this is because
we lose sight of God's loving character and our need to emulate it. Despite
ruler after ruler coming to a bad end, we continue to believe that is the path
God would have us walk. Like the disciples, we think it is all about punishing miscreants.[x] In
contrast, Jesus who revealed the character of love and compassion, when
confronted even with open sin, sought to provide healing and hope. We were
created to do the same. But like Adam and Eve after the Fall, we tend to point
fingers, blaming, and denying our own culpability. In fact, like Adam, we are
more apt to blame God for our circumstances than ourselves.[xi]
How much more so then to blame others. This causes us to turn from loving others
to criticizing them and judging and condemning them. Then instead of being the
hope and support they have a right to expect from us, we become judge, jury,
and jailer. We may purport to do so in the interests of justice, but our failure
to understand the compassionate nature and intent of God warps our idea of
justice and we go astray, even if we did not do so maliciously. In doing so, we
not only uproot the evil we feel we have discovered, but we also distort the
image of God and lead others astray that might have otherwise found their way
to God's love.[xii]
But this not only harms them.
It harms us. Love is the way of life. If we cannot turn ourselves over to God
to find the path to love, empathy, and compassion, we are choosing against life
and all the bright joy and hope it promises. Every time someone wrongs us, and
we harbor that small piece of darkness in our hearts, the stoniness it creates,
however small, is a hardness that shuts out the life-giving grace of God. When we
choose to embrace that feeling of being wronged, that
anger at being made to be the victim, we are not choosing life. Instead of choosing
the path that leads to the Tree of Life, we are walking toward the briars and
thorns that fill life outside of Eden. That anger will continue to prick our
minds, both consciously and subconsciously, until life ends, or we choose to
seek healing and grace.
Some feel they have the will
power to clean up their lives and try to because they think they can only come
to God if they are clean. Many souls have died upon
that mountain, trying to reach the summit to present themselves to God in that
perfection. But this is not repentance, nor is it grace. It is simply the same distortion
of the character of God, implying that he would rather condemn a person than
save them. This is contrary to Christ's ministry and the hope he brought.[xiii]
According to Peter, even the Parousia is delayed because of God's loving and
compassionate character that would rather save than lose someone.[xiv]
Lest we think that we must become
someone more loving, more compassionate, more empathetic on our own, this also
feeds into the temptation to seeing God as a demanding tyrant. Instead, we need
only come to him as we are and ask him to create the change in us that we need.
There is a reason we call him Creator. He is great at making something from the
dirtiest dirt. If we give him our heart, he will make something beautiful.