Not Either Or it is Both And

The Gospel this weekend is a challenging one. It causes a natural discomfort in us. It appears to be telling us that if we love our mother and father or children more than we love Jesus, we are not worthy of Him. Strangely enough, it reminded me of the old adage, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” That always meant to me that you can’t have everything you want. If you choose one thing, then you can’t have the other. Both are good, but you can’t have both. At first, I thought that was what Jesus meant. I thought I heard an either/or, but it really is an invitation to a both/and relationship with Jesus and those we love.

Jesus is saying just the opposite of either/or. He says that if you want the fullness of one kind of love, then you have to know the other love first. If you want a full, pure, whole love with the people in your life, you must learn that love by loving and being loved by God first.

All through the scriptures, we are told that God is Love. In the Gospels, we are told God is Love, and all who abide in love abide in God and God in them. Following that to a natural conclusion, if we abide first in the Love of Jesus, then the passion we bring to all other relationships is blessed by the Love of God that abides in us. 

It is really a question of which way we focus our hearts. If we put all of our love in the people in our lives first, then there will be only leftover Love for Jesus. But if we love Jesus first, our love is enhanced and multiplied by His Love in us. Our love catches fire from the source of the divine Love of God. It allows us to love the people in our lives more fully, freely, and more completely. 

All healthy love in our lives comes through our understanding and acceptance of the unconditional Love of Jesus. If I understand and experience the unconditional Love of Jesus, I know better how to love my mother, father, brother, and sister. We can add to that husband, wife, friend, neighbor, and fellow human being. Imagine a world where love came first before power, wealth, control, judgment, and hate. Try to imagine a world where Jesus was the model for how we interact with one another. We seem very far from that reality.

And yet there are glimpses in the spontaneous heroic and humble acts of some. Those acts of love exist in homes, families, neighborhoods, our country, and the world. We just seldom hear about them, but they are there.

The bottom line is it is all about choice. What comes first in my life? Is it my Love of God or my desire for all the world has to give? Remember, I can have both, only the order is important because it affects how we love the people and possessions in our lives.

As I conclude this reflection, I am left with some questions for myself and for you. 

• Do I love God I do not see, enough to trust him to influence other loves?
• Do I love God I do not see, enough to carry the burdens of my life the way Jesus carried his cross?
• Do I love God I do not see, enough to place all my trust in him without condition or hesitation?

That is the kind of love this passage is calling us to. I want the answer to be YES, unconditionally. If I am honest, though, the answer is usually, or sometimes, or most of the time.

Rather than punish myself for not being all the way there, I need to remember God is not finished with me yet. I need to trust God enough to bring me the rest of the way to unconditional love.

In God’s unending love,

Gwen