Apr 13, 2016

God is Love (13)
1 John 4:8

Love keeps no record of wrongs (1)
1 Corinthians 13

You mean that God does not keep a big book in the sky that monitors every movement we make and every thought we think? What happened to that promise in Exodus 20, where we read “For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,—“ That statement certainly points out that the god of that time was thought to hold a grudge as well as any spiteful person, and being a god, would inflict punishment forever if it so felt like it, never relenting in it’s zeal for revenge.
But now we read that “Love keeps no records of wrongs.” This is almost a disappointment, for we really wish that we had a god of revenge, not a God of Love, for we relish deep in our hearts that everybody else’s wrong-doings be recorded and due punishment annexed at the proper time. Not our own of course, for those were only little mistakes, (except to ourselves, where the horror of our innermost thoughts create havoc in how we think of ourselves) that can be laughingly tossed off as being inconsequential and of no import.
But God has never kept a record of humanities errors, but instead looks upon them as mistakes made by toddlers and children who did not know better. Look at the history of Christianity, and all the wars and killings and acts of injustices that were made under the name of Jesus over time, even into today’s hatred of others who are different, whether it be different religions or different life styles.
But luckily for us, God is tolerant of our behavior, for buried deep in every one of us is that “Kingdom of Heaven” that will someday be found and become the norm of action. Yes, the Old Testament is filled with tales of the god who waged war against other gods, war against those who were different, as the people chosen by God at that time to exemplify the Love of God but could only do that within their own community, unless chided by the prophets to include at least the foreigner residing within their boundaries. For even during that time, until the time of the scattering of the Jewish people during the Babylonian occupation where the people of Israel were scattered, the people were convinced that other gods did indeed exist, but they had no sway in the lands of “the chosen”, that only their G0d had say in that land, but was pretty limited beyond their land boundaries.
All that changed after the Babylonian occupation and later when the land of Israel was occupied finally by the legions of Rome, and the Jewish people began to understand that their God indeed held sway over all the other gods, and was the God of all, and just maybe was the only God that there was. So they waited for the earthly messiah to free them from the occupation of the Romans, and, since their God was king over all, they felt that it was only fitting that they be rulers over all. Little did they realize that God uses the poor and marginalized to be the basis of the Kingdom, and until we realize that material stuff does not open up our insight into the Kingdom of God that lies within, that only by becoming poor in our hearts, we too will not see the glory of God that is ours by birthright. Perhaps the most damaging thing that happened to Christianity was to formally be made the religion of the empire, throwing out the power of the poor and marginalized that was the hallmark of Christianity up to that point, and which was the hallmark of the preaching of Jesus, installing instead the rulers of the empire, which most bishops and leaders of Christianity quickly adopted.
It took the prophets, Isaiah and others, to present the understanding of the One Eternal Force that we today call God to be the one and only God that we acknowledge, but do not really understand as the God of Love, Love unconditional, and that indeed, this God keeps no record of our deeds, no accusations of our deeds, but sees only our perfection as the physical Face of God in our physical reality.

As for humanity, their days are like the dust;
They flourish like a flower of the field;
For the wind passes over it,
And it is gone,
And its place knows it no more.
Psalm 103: 15-16

Meditation

Eternal Wisdom, my Creator and the very Heart of my Being, I am grateful for all that You have granted me in my life, including the pain and means to recognize my own inability to be my own strength, but by my failures to be able to surrender to You all that I am. Thus I see my strength: by my surrender, I became united in Your strength, and found that indeed, the Power of the universe is mine to use. My own weakness is my greatest strength, as St. Paul said, and by my weakness I remain surrendered into your Love. It is Your Love that provides my strength, and Your Love that I abide within. I but seek Your Love in all that I do, and I keep Your strength around me as my wrap of Wisdom in this life of physicality. My trust in Your Goodness fills my life, and I am grateful for the past pain I have had in order to reach and penetrate the wall of my ego so as to see Your Kingdom within.

 

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