Love. That four letter word---we love to use it
don’t we? Notice how many different ways
we use the word love. People will talk
about “Gee I just love that dress you’re wearing.” Or they will say, “I really love sports”, or
“I love to go to the movies”, or, “I love pizza”, whatever it might be. Then of course we turn it around and somebody
else will say, “We’ve been in love for 51 years”. Then somebody else will say, “First time I
saw her I knew it was love right away for the rest of my life.” Or, “We fell in love” with somebody. Or, “You are the love of my heart”. For some people love perhaps means
sexuality. For other people it might be
the thrill of something, “Oh I love it when I get out there, when I’m just, you
know, skiing down this mountain”, or “I love it when I’m doing this, when I’m
going 80-miles-per-hour in my car”. We
talk about it as thrills, sensation, excitement.
And then we come this
morning and Jesus says, “Love God with your whole heart, your soul, your
mind. Love your neighbor as
yourself.” Now Jesus was taking these
quotes from the Old Testament scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures as we call
them, from Deuteronomy and from Exodus.
So to anybody steeped in the Hebrew scriptures those were not new
commandments. But what was new about it,
Jesus was saying love of God and love of neighbor are the same. You can’t separate and say, “Well I love my
neighbor but I hate you God,” or “I love you God and I hate those closest to
me”, or “I hate the strangers and the orphans and the aliens and the poor
people” as the first reading reminded us.
What was the last line to
the first reading, “I am compassionate.”
That’s God speaking to you and to me today. “I am compassionate.” Compassion is different from pity. Pity is sometimes when you and I give what’s
leftover to somebody else. Pity is when
you and I will see someone begging and we throw them a dollar and we keep on
moving. Pity is when I won’t even look
in the eye of somebody else who is suffering or vulnerable because perhaps it
reminds us of ourselves. Compassion is
being just as vulnerable and weak as the person next to you, in front of you or
beside you.
You know it makes a
difference. Perhaps another way to say
it is from deep down inside you and me why we do something or what makes us do
it.
There was a father one day
and he was rushing out of the house as usual.
And his little three-year-old son was sitting there in the living room
playing with adobe blocks. And the dad
kind of patted him on the head and said, “Love you son, catch you later” and
went roaring out the door. He got about
half a block away and all of sudden it hit him like a bolt of lightening. Gigantic guilt trip came across him and he
said, “What am I doing? That was my son
I just patted on the head playing with blocks in the living room. Before I know it he’s going to be a teenager
and I won’t be able to play with him again.”
So he turned around and he went back into the house and he sat down on
the floor and began playing blocks with his three-year-old son. And after a couple of minutes his little boy
looked up at him and said, “Daddy, why are you mad at me?” Even the little three- year-old boy knew,
from the pace that his dad was playing with him.
It makes a difference if you
and I do something out of guilt or if we do it from the heart. You can sense it can’t you? You know if someone is patronizing you. You know if someone is treating you with love
and respect and care and concern because they really do care and have concern
about you, or it’s just because I want to get past you to something else that’s
more important for me right now.
The place in the heart, or
do we do it out of a sense of obligation, or because this is expected of me, or
this is my job therefore I have to treat you now. Makes a big difference doesn’t it. You can tell when you go into the grocery
store, you go into the doctor’s office, wherever it might be. Does this person really care about me? Or is it just a job?
I think that’s what Jesus
was talking about when He said, “You love God with all your heart. Not with the mind,” he said, “your soul and
your mind too.” But what drives you and
me. What makes us really do something
for other people.
There is a beautiful story
about a daughter and her mother. Her
mother had had a stroke and so the daughter had, after she came out of the
hospital and they knew eventually she would be able to go home to her own
apartment. But the daughter said, “Mom,
I’m bringing you home while you go through therapy because I want you to be
here.” And her daughter began to list
all the reasons why she was doing this for her because one night they were
sitting there together around the kitchen table and the mother just kind of
said, “Why are doing this for me, honey?”
So the daughter began to list all the reasons why she brought her mother
back home. “Well mom, you know when I
was younger I really didn’t appreciate all the things you did for me. You know there were those times when I kind
of really disrespected you. There were
times you know when I ran away and I just said forget it, I didn’t appreciate
your love. I guess maybe what I’m trying
to do now is make up for some of those hurts and some of those differences and
so forth.” She said, “I was giving her
all these beautiful reasons why she was sitting in my home.” She said, “Mom just looked at me and said,
‘junk’.” She said, “In my heart I was
taken aback.” I thought, “Oh boy, Mom,
you really blew it . You’re telling me
that all these things I’m doing for you, these reasons are junk? You don’t get it mom, do you?” And her mother looked at her again and she
said it more quietly this time, “Junk, honey it’s all junk. And honey you don’t need it any more. I love you and you love me. That’s the only reason we need, our love.”
You see her mom needed to
hear what her daughter was doing from the place in her heart. Not for all these beautiful and noble
reasons, great, wonderful. But what is
the source from where inside her was she doing this? Because she really did love.
That’s what Jesus was
saying, because when you and I love God from our heart, from what’s deepest
within us, we in turn then will love those around us because also we realize
the love and respect for ourselves. And
that makes all the difference.
Now we will go forth from
this Eucharist today and try to live our lives as best and fully as we
can. Maybe one way to do this.
But when you and I love from
our hearts then all those differences, all those faults and failings, all the
embarrassments, the hardships, the misunderstandings, the anger, the pain are
endurable because you and I know and we believe that we will be with each other
and for each other until the end. Until
finally we get to that wonderful embrace of heaven and God will say to you and
me, “Welcome home. Welcome home to this
eternal dwelling place that I have prepared for you.”
So go forth today and love
from your heart.