From the Core Values Series: Love for God

Love for God

Today we’re going examine what it means to love God and why we should.

First of all we are taught these commandments from the Old Testament:

Exodus 20

1 And God spake all these words, saying,

2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

In Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Moses tells the Children of Israel this:  

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Then in the New Testament, in Matthew 22, when asked by the Pharisees which was the greatest commandment Jesus said,

37....Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

Why would we be commanded  to love God above everything else and with all our hearts, souls, and mind? In fact, how can we be commanded to love anything? Isn’t love a feeling? Isn’t it something beyond our control that suddenly swells up in our hearts as if we have been shot by Cupid’s arrow?  It certainly can be, but feelings, emotions, and infatuations come and go.  

We often don’t think about love beyond feelings. It’s very important to understand that love is also an act of the will.

The Greek language makes distinctions between different kinds of love.  It has four different words for love.  When Jesus spoke of loving God, Matthew uses the greek word, “agape.”  What is “agape?” Quite often “agape” is defined as the type of love God has for us.  C.S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia books, in his book The Four Loves, calls agape “gift-love.” It’s a love that is a gift of self.

Remember, God did not need to create anything.  He is perfectly happy in Himself from all eternity.  But St. John tells us in I John 4:8 , “God is love” - agape.  God created us to partake and revel in His own joy and love.

Being made in God’s image, we too enjoy creating and giving.  

For example, how many of you have made something to give to your parents, grandparents, or even boyfriends or girlfriends? I’m sure your refrigerators are full of pictures and artwork you have proudly and lovingly given to your parents.  That is an example of gift-love, or agape.  You didn’t have to make anything. (Well maybe Mrs. Klempin or  Mrs. Arrington made you make something!)  You could have just gone to the store and bought a card, gift card, or something else to show your love or appreciation.  But when you make something and give it to someone, you are giving a part of yourself in the gift, and that makes it very meaningful.

Again, God created us for no other reason than to give and share his great love, His agape, with us. In the gospels we see Jesus, the Son of God, the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:13), demonstrate gift-love or agape, throughout his life and ministry.

He was always giving to people.  He forgave people their sins, he healed the paralyzed, cleansed lepers, cured the blind, raised the dead, fed thousands, proclaimed the true love of God to all the people, and finally showed the greatest example of gift-love or agape by paying the penalty for our sins through his death on the cross.

Nevertheless, in His day many people refused the the love and gifts Jesus offered.  The rich young ruler is a perfect example.  Jesus offered him to opportunity to join him in his ministry.  But when Jesus told him he needed to go sell everything he had and give it to the poor, the gospels tell us “the young man went away sorrowful, for he had many possessions.”  He could not receive the gift Jesus offered him, because he had made an idol of his possessions. They were more important to him than the love and blessedness Jesus offered.

The Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders  of the day, also rejected Jesus’ offer of God’s love. They thought they knew better than him and thoroughly rejected Him.

It's the same with us today. Jesus offers his gifts to us, but we either think we know better than Jesus, are too distracted to pay attention to him, or are more interested in the idols we make for ourselves to care.

So now we come back to the question I asked at the beginning, “Why are we commanded to love God above everything else?”  Because nothing else can perfectly satisfy us as can God.  No created thing can give us what God can give us.  Things cannot bring us permanent joy, lasting satisfaction, or peace of mind.  

We all know how it works.  The minute the next new “thing” comes out, we have to have it, because it’s better than the last thing we got.  That can apply to phones, tablets, clothes, food, cars, and the list could go on

We look for love, and the peace, joy, and satisfaction that go with it in all the wrong places.  And besides, what “thing”, and I’m not talking about people or even pets, but what other created things can love us back?

So to go to the true source of our happiness, we have to stay focused on loving God by listening to him in worship, prayer, and reading the scriptures.  

God cannot give us His gift of love is we are unavailable or not paying attention to Him.  If we are looking in all the wrong places rather than at Him, He can’t give His joy and peace that pass all understanding.

St. Augustine, who lived from 354 to 430 A.D., spent many years looking for love in all the wrong places. But finally gave up his self-made idols of worldly fame and the fleshly pleasures of having a live-in girlfriend for nineteen years, and surrendered himself to God.

Having thought on his search for deep, lasting love, peace, and contentment, he summed it up better than anyone, when he wrote in his masterpiece The Confessions, “For You (O Lord) have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in you.”

We all need to work on loving God and resting in Him.

From the Core Values Series: Love for Neighbor

Love for Neighbor

Last week, I discussed God’s love for us and the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,and with all your mind.” Then if you remember, Jesus mentioned a second commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  

In Luke 10 Jesus tells this to a lawyer, and then the lawyer, “desiring to justify himself”, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” The Lawyer simply wanted Jesus to say, “ Your neighbor includes all your friends!” But instead, Jesus replied with this parable:

30 ... “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

We all know this story as the parable of the Good Samaritan.  You see, the Jews and Samaritans hated each other, and no one would ever think either would do good for the other.  So to make His Jewish audience really think, Jesus didn’t talk about a poor Samaritan who was robbed, beaten, left for dead, and then helped by a nice Jew.  No, by making the Samaritan the good character, his audience would have been taken surprised and maybe even scandalized.  After all Jesus was a Jew.  Why would he make the Samaritan “the good guy?”

But the point Jesus was making wasn’t about good guys vs. bad guys.  He was responding to the question, “Who is my neighbor?”, and His response was basically, “the person you least expect to treat you nicely.”  That would have shocked His audience as much as it shocks us!

It’s easy to love people like ourselves.  It’s easy to love those who love us back and treat us nicely.  But when it comes to people that are not like us or people who don’t like us, we tend to gather in our own little groups and treat everyone else as if they were not as good, or smart, or cool as we are.

So Jesus is telling us we have to love everyone, those like us and those not like us, and the love to which Jesus refers is still agape - gift-love.  Gift-love doesn’t set conditions on love.  It doesn’t say, “I’ll be your friend if…” or “we will make you our friend if…” or “you can be in our group if…”

No, Jesus is telling us we are to say to all people, “I will give you what you need.  You need friendship? I’ll be your friend.  You need help? I’ll help.”  Jesus tells us that loving our neighbor is about being generous to others with our time, our abilities, and even our money.

Sometimes we have to get over our fears of people unlike us before we can love them and show them generosity.  Jesus doesn’t say so, but the Samaritan may very well have needed to get over his dislike of Jews in order to do the right thing for the poor man at the side of the road.  Then he took the time to help the man, bind his wounds, take him to an inn, and even pay for the poor man’s stay there.  The Samaritan was very generous with his time and money by caring for this Jewish stranger.

Francis Bernadone, a young man who lived in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, knew he could not love God completely without loving his neighbor.  Francis was a very good looking, vain young man.  He was the life of the party; he also had a great fear of lepers. Leprosy is a very contagious, disfiguring, and debilitating disease.  But Francis knew in his heart that according to Jesus lepers were his neighbors just as much as his friends were.  

One day Francis saw a leper coming down the road.  His first instinct was to keep his distance, but realizing this was his chance to show his love for God and neighbor, he overcame his fear and revulsion, went up to the leper, hugged him, and kissed him on the cheek.  

Now, suddenly, Francis was truly free to love God and neighbor.  He was able to conquer the one thing that held him back.  Through an act of kindness to a leper who craved the friendly touch of another, but never got it because of his disease, Francis became so generous he no longer wanted anything for himself but depended totally to take care of him. We know Francis Bernadone now as St. Francis of Assisi.

We cannot love our neighbor the way God loves us without first loving God.  Because God is very generous to us, and we must in turn be generous to others.

And what are different ways we can show generosity?

• We can offer to meet other people’s real needs.
• We can put our talents at the service of others
• We can do things for others, even when it’s inconvenient
• We can listen to others without being judgemental.
• We can do good for others without expecting or asking for anything in return, for example when we participate in Operation Christmas Child.
• And finally, we have to forgive others. Don’t hold grudges!  As we say every day in the Lord’s prayer  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  If we want God’s forgiveness, we must absolutely offer our forgiveness to those who sin against us.

If we can do these things daily, if we can be generous with all people, we are on the path to loving “our neighbors as ourselves.”

From Core Values Series - Respect for Self outline

Self-Respect

·      Where it does not come from

o   Does not come from what others tell you to think about yourself

o   Doesn't come from a need for "self-expression."

o   Doesn't come from drawing attention to ourselves

o   Doesn't come from a false sense of "feeling good" about oueselves

·      Comes from the acknowledgement we are made in the image of God

o   Allows us to live lives of sanity.  Means you are living in accordance with God's law, just as we do with the laws of physics

§  This means we take our ourselves seriously as a people with freedom and responsibility and not just as mere animals driven by instinct and the desire for pleasure

§  When we don't seriously accept ourselves as people with freedom and responsibility, and do what we shouldn't,  we damage ourselves interiorly just that little bit, and those little bits add up over time and that damages our self-respect. (used lying as an example)

o   Self respect is the basis for our happiness and participation in the world

o   If we don't have self-respect it will show in our in our attitudes, our appearance, and our dealings with others

§  We don't think we can contribute to group activities such as music, sports or theater

§  We begin to think we are not worthy of being loved and then we can't develop true friendships

§  Then our self-esteem suffers, and we begin to look to gain self esteem in the wrong ways and from the wrong places I mentioned at the beginning

o   We must show respect for ourselves because of God's respect and love for us.

§  God gave us free will.  We can always choose to do right, but we can choose to do wrong and often do. It's called sin.

§  And likewise, we can choose to respect and love ourselves.

o   God's love for us is a reality even though we might not always feel it.  Don't be fooled!  Nothing we do can make God quit loving us. Of course we can do things that cause us not to love God.  But God is always faithful.

o   John 3:16 " “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

·      Christ did not come into this world for the fun of it.  He became human to show God's love for us and to die on our behalf for us out of a sacrificial love that has its perfection only in God.

o   God's Everlasting Love - Romans 8:31-39

·      31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

·      32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

·      33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

·      34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

·      35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

·      36 As it is written,

·      “For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

·      we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

·      37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

·      38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

·      39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Repetition builds Fluency and Fluency Builds Understandng

A great article by Barbara Oakley in Nautilus  http://nautil.us/issue/17/big-bangs/how-i-rewired-my-brain-to-become-fluent-in-math-rdtitled, "How I Rewired My Brain To Become Fluent in Math."

Ms. Oakley discusses the way she applied her approach to learning and becoming fluent in Russian to re-learning the mathematics she didn't quite "get" in school.

This quote is especially pertinent to STE's pedagogical approach:

"Time after time, professors in mathematics and the sciences have told me that building well-ingrained chunks of expertise through practice and repetition was absolutely vital to their success. Understanding doesn’t build fluency; instead, fluency builds understanding. In fact, I believe that true understanding of a complex subject comes only from fluency."

"In other words, in science and math education in particular, it’s easy to slip into teaching methods that emphasize understanding and that avoid the sometimes painful repetition and practice that underlie fluency."

The entire article is well worth your time.

H/T to John Graves!

From Core Values Series - Talk to Student Body about Respect for Authority

If you think about authority do you view it as something positive or negative?  Our first encounter with authority usually involves our parents.  Maybe you got your hand slapped gently when you tried to put your fingers near the hot stove.  Our maybe your mother or father reacted to something you did quite harshly, like the first time you ran out into the street without looking or wandered off from mom or dad at the store and they couldn’t find you.  When we are little and really don’t know better, these first brushes with our parents’ authority can be tough, tearful experiences.

As we get a little older and realize we are subject to authorities besides our parents, it’s can be very easy to grow up thinking that people use their authority to keep us under their control.

After all isn’t that what happened in the Garden of Eden?  Satan convinced Adam and Eve that God didn’t want them to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because He didn’t want them to be like Him.  To paraphrase, “God wants to keep you down and under his control, but if you disobey God and eat the fruit, life will be so much better because you’ll be like God.”

Fortunately for us, we know how things turned out.  Satan lied, as he always does, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, and life became a struggle for them and continues as one today.

So our negative view of authority tells us that authority besides our own exists for others to boss us around, make us do whatever they say, and keep us from having control over our own lives.  If that is what authority is about, there’s not much to respect, is there?

But let’s look at authority from another angle.

At it’s most basic level, the purpose of authority is to provide happiness in life by making sure everyone is playing by the same rules.

For example, think of sports without rules and someone to enforce them.  Hockey players would just fight all the time, football players would hold and interfere.  Basketball players would constantly foul, and baseball players would get in arguments about balls and strikes.

What if there were no traffic lights or stop signs?  It wouldn’t be safe drive or ride a bike.  Drivers would never know when they had to stop for oncoming traffic. Then there would be mass chaos.  No one would be safe.

What if there were no rules at school? Then everyone could do as they wish.  Teachers wouldn’t have to teach, you wouldn’t have to go to class, you wouldn’t have to play fair at recess, you could eat at anytime, and so on.  You could even cheat on tests!

But as we can see from just these few examples, life would not be much fun either.  No one wants someone to get a good grade because they cheated. No batter wants a pitch outside the strike zone called a strike. No quarterback wants to throw an interception because his receiver was held.

It’s not fair, but more importantly it’s not right.

Good rules (i.e., those that conform to the moral law) are made to remind us of what is right and wrong, they set boundaries for us, and allow us to choose to do what’s right.  Good rules or laws never force us to choose to do the wrong thing.

It’s the purpose of those with authority to enforce laws and rules - make sure people do what’s right, and in many cases, punish those who do wrong.

Who gives people authority?  God does.

Here’s what St. Paul said about authority in Romans 13:1-3:

“ Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval.”

Because we are so singularly privileged to be made in the image of God, the moral law and knowing right and wrong are written into our nature. It’s a part of who we are as human beings.

An Englishman named Frank Sheed once wrote that “...the moral laws are in man’s structure just as the laws of diet are.”  If we don’t eat the right foods, we will suffer from malnutrition and tummy aches. If we don’t follow the moral laws, our consciences will protest against us and upset our contentment by making us sad, nervous, and even fearful and afraid.

So, if the purpose of authority is to provide happiness in life by making sure everyone is playing by the same rules, how can we gain that happiness?  We have to obey those in authority.  Those who don’t obey mess things up for themselves and everyone else.  They make sports no fun to play.  They make driving dangerous. They make a mockery of their education.

Who should we look to as our model for respecting authority?

Jesus Christ.

As an adolescent in Jerusalem

The Gospel of Luke, in the 2nd chapter, tells us that when he was twelve, Jesus went to Jerusalem with his parents to celebrate the Passover.  In those days, people from a village would travel together in a caravan.  It was safer than travelling alone, and it provided company and entertainment during the journey.  The children would hang out together and play, and this would allow the adults to visit with each other.  

After the families had fulfilled their Passover obligations and it was time to go home, the caravan traveled for an entire day before Jesus’ parents realized he wasn’t with the group!  

Joseph and Mary turned back to Jerusalem and spent three days looking for him.  Can you imagine their worry?  

They finally found him in the temple sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking questions.  Mary asked him why he had done such a thing to them. HIs response: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?”  And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them.” They didn’t get it, but he did not try to explain himself or argue with them. He went home and was “submissive to them.”  He obeyed.

As an adult

Roughly twenty-one years later, when Jesus was probably around 33 years old, he attended a wedding at Cana. Jewish wedding feasts in those days could last up to a week, so there was always a lot of food and wine around, and for the one hosting the feast, the more food and wine you had, the the greater people respected you.  

Well, disaster struck at this wedding feast.  With the party in full swing, the guests had finished all the wine.  This was a huge embarrassment to the father of the bride, not to mention the bride and the rest of the family.  

Mary, knowing full well who Jesus was and what he could do, told him they had run out of wine.  That’s all she said, but He knew what she meant - “make some more wine!”  Then he says something very strange to His mother, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

Now never call your mother “woman!”  You won’t like the consequences.  But Jesus was not being disrespectful.  The term “woman” in this context is full of theological meaning we’re not going to go into here.  Try to think of him say “Madam” - still very formal, but not rude.

Jesus was saying to Mary this public miracle will begin the chain of events that would lead to HIs full-time ministry of traveling around Palestine preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God as well as His eventual execution.  It was if he were saying, “Are you sure you want that to happen just yet?”

But her response wasn’t to him, but to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Thus Jesus obeyed his mother and turned roughly 400 gallons of water into wine.  We see Jesus, even as an adult, respecting the authority of His mother and obeying her.

Jesus had His own authority, but still respected His Father's authority.

Immediately following the miracle of turning water into wine, Jesus’ ministry began in earnest, and He began demonstrating His own authority as the Son of God:

With the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expounded on the Mosaic Law so thoroughly that Matthew tells us in his gospel “... the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes”

He demonstrated his authority over nature when he calmed the wind and the rain on the Sea of Galilee and when he fed the five thousand from only two fish and five loaves of bread.

He showed His authority over demons and illnesses.  He made the paralyzed walk and the blind see.

And He even demonstrated his authority over death through His resurrection.

But although Jesus demonstrated His authority throughout His ministry, he also showed respect for the Father’s authority over him and His obedience in following the Father’s will.  He said, “My will is to do the will of the one who sent me.” And he was obedient to the Father even to His death on the cross.

So let us follow Jesus’ example by being obedient to those in authority and respecting them, whether they be our parents, teachers, the crosswalk guards, coaches, or even sports referees.  We need to respect the authority of our government leaders, the laws of our country, and the rules of our school.  

Let us also pray for those in authority as we did for President Obama this morning.  Those with authority carry heavy burdens and need our prayers, because, being human, they make mistakes. Pray for the authorities closest in your life - your parents and teachers. Please pray for us who run the church and school.  

Work hard now on respecting authority by obeying it. Then as you mature and find yourselves in positions of authority, use that authority properly and justly in your dealings with others.