Love

Every culture tells stories. The stories they tell shape, form, texture, and ground their existence and their place in the world. America, for example, tells the story of their Independence from the power of Britain. The quest for freedom is America’s story and this story shapes, forms, textures, and grounds, in her mind, America’s place in the world. America’s self-professed aim is to export freedom and democracy around the world. In popular culture we tell our stories typically through the visual media. The television and the cinema have become our favorite storytellers. We live and die with our favorite characters, living vicariously through their triumphs, failures, or whatever else comes their way. The visual media shapes, forms, textures, and grounds our existence and provides us with the lens whereby we look at our own lives and the world. The lines are blurred between the world of the screen and the world of reality. Is it any wonder that in this blurred world that “reality” television has captured our attention the way it has? Yet, is it really reality when the cameras are on? Our contemporary conceptions of love, for example, are more formed, shaped, textured, and grounded by the cinema than any other medium at our disposal. The dashing and charismatic leading man, who reads his fabricated, cleverly written, and witty lines so convincingly that he never misses a cue, wins the heart of the woman he desires. In the world of the cinema the characters we see “fall” in and out of love, meet their “soul mate,” lose their “soul mate,” in the span of two hours. Often times their love is very complicated. Many times it is something like, “Two” are vying for the love of the “one.” The “one” is torn between the “two.” Typically of the “two” there are contrasts that make the decision for the “one” difficult. There is conflict in need of resolution and we the audience silently choose sides as to who we think the “one” should choose. If the character makes the “right” choice, that is to say, the one we wanted, the audience goes away happy. The movie that best describes the power of the cinema in shaping our cultural conception of love is “Bridges Over Madison County.”
The story of love as told through the medium of the cinema is not only the story of love that is competing for our attention. The Jewish people also told a story of love and this story shaped, formed, textured, and grounded her existence and place in the world. The story was the story of the creator God, the only God, who, out of His own good pleasure, set His love upon Israel and chose her to be His very own people in the world. This relationship with Israel is described in different ways in Scripture. Two of those ways are Israel as God’s Son (Hosea 11:1) and Israel as God’s bride (Ezekiel 16). Israel’s response to God, often many times in her history, was to be a wayward Son and a faithless bride. This love for Israel by God was not built for a sprint. Rather, it was an everlasting love, a love so strong and true that God enacted a covenant with Israel as a sign of His fidelity and commitment to Israel as His very own possession. Despite Israel’s many failures, God did not abandon her and send her away. For the sake of His Name God was going to keep that promise (Ezekiel 36). Indeed, God so condescends in His love for Israel that He says if even if it were possible for a mother to forget her child, He could not and would not forget Israel (Isaiah 49:14-15). Why is God’s love so faithful, so enduring, so patient (literally long-suffering), with Israel? While we get a glimpse of the answer to this question in the Old Testament, it is to the New Testament we must turn in order to better answer this question. The answer is simply this; God is love (1st John 4:16). Now what does it mean to say God is love? For starters, it does not mean “love is god.” Many erroneously believe this. That would make “love” god and thus, any form of love would then be legitimate and good, in and of itself, because love would be god. If love is god then you could do and should do, as the pop song tells us, “anything for love.” It is this conception of love is god that lurks behind the contemporary push for homosexual marriage and same-sex unions. If two people “love” each other then who are you to stand in their way of love? Love, however, contra our contemporary world, is not god. God is, however, love and because God is love He is not only the ultimate object of our love, He is also the One who deems and establishes what true love is. Thus, any “love” that God forbids cannot be love in any meaningful sense of the word. So what then does it mean to say God is love? As has been stated by many others, God has not always been Creator but He has always been Father. In saying that, we are not saying that creation did not always exist in God’s mind but that there was a time when creation did not exist. Creation is not eternal. God, however, is from everlasting to everlasting. There never was a time when God was not. And there never was a time that God was not Father. Now in saying that there was not a time that God was not Father, we are implying that there is One whom God is Father to. If the Arian heresy were right that Jesus Christ was a creature, the highest of creatures, but a creature nonetheless, and if Islam is right in their understanding of God, then that would mean God is only one person, and as such, there would have been a time when God was not Father, for there would be no one to be the Father of. That also would mean that there was a time when God was not also a God of love, for there to be love there requires an object of love, a beloved. But the Scriptural description of God presents to us God who is always Father and God who is love. Who is God always Father to? His Son, who is the Beloved Son. The fact that God has always been Father means that the Son has always been the Son, that is to say the Son is consubstantial with the Father and the object of the Father’s love. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the love of the Father and the Son. The Father gives glory to the Son, the Son gives glory to the Father, and the Holy Spirit glorifies both the Father and the Son in the divine economy. Therefore, before there ever was a creation to love, God was already a God of love. He did not need a creation in order to become a God of love. He also did not have a need for creation as though He were lonely, as I once heard someone preach. That is wrong. As St. Paul told the Athenians, God has no needs. God is completely sufficient within Himself which is what makes the love of God all the more profound and glorious. This love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is offered to us to share in with God, as the Scripture says, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God” (1st John 3:1). This love is opened up to us through God’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. In Christ alone are we adopted into God’s family as His children and made partakers of the divine nature and by the Holy Spirit God’s children are led (Romans 8). Since God has always been love, love must be enduring, persevering, lasting. Love, if it is love, is not fleeting. It does not come and go. Contrary to our cinematic presentations of love which depict love as something one “falls” into or out of, those who belong to Christ, calling God “Father,” by the Holy Spirit, are to be shaped, formed, textured, and grounded by this love, God’s love. If this is not the case, then why does Paul root marriage in Christ and His love for the Church? Love that not is shaped and formed by the love of God is a false imitation of love. The famous “Love” chapter in 1st Corinthians tells us that love is the greatest of faith, hope, and love. Why? For love will forever remain. Love will never be done away with. How could love be done away with if God is from all eternity a God of love? Since those who trust in Christ are called to be imitators of God, then the love we have must reflect the love of God in the world, in the here and now. Thus, our love must be faithful, enduring, lasting. It must seek the good of those we love. Love does not seek its own interests but the interest of the beloved. Just as Christ sought not His own interests but ours, so too our love must seek the interests of those we love. This good is most evident when we assist those we love in their love for God. In turn, this assistance to those we love will lead to a stronger and more faithful love with each other.