Great Love – 10th Sunday in OT B 2018

After the man, Adam had eaten of the tree,
the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”

It was really not a question of location but of spirit. It reminds me of when I come home and ask loudly to Helen my wife, where are you? Or maybe just “I’m home” and wait for a response…I don’t usually care where she is, whether it’s in her home office or in another room…It’s more of a checkpoint. I am waiting to hear her voice. Her tone will tell me more about how things are going than the words I hear next. Because I want to know how she is doing inside here. (point to chest)

My question, “where are you” is more of a “how are you.”

I want to know from the woman I love more than any other, who is all of womanhood for me, …how she is doing?

Her response is usually, I am on a call or I am busy or I am up here.

I usually go to where she is so I can see her. Make sure she is good and if she isn’t too busy, kiss her before going back downstairs.

I think it’s the same for most of us, when we see a loved one we haven’t seen in awhile. Whether a few hours, days or years.

We might ask them the fundamental questions, how are things, how’s the spouse, the children, job, what’s going on??? etc. …we are really just trying to find out if they are alright.

We ask out of love.

For while we are challenged by sin throughout our life, we are not owned by sin but by the one the Father sent to bring us salvation. We are owned by Christ and his love. And being made in God’s image to love is our nature too. And the closer we come to being full of love the more ready we will be to face God one day.

And that is our goal.

For many people, life is simply about enjoying as much as we can get as long as we can.  For us who follow Christ, life is about becoming as much as possible like Christ so that we reflect the glory of the Father in our hearts and lives. Hopefully we strive to sin less, love more.

 

And God, asks us today; How are we doing? What is life about for us? Where are we?

It’s a question he knows the answer to, but he wants us to ask ourselves. Are we like Adam and Eve – who are standing there not only naked but exposed spiritually and ashamed for their sin?

Have we put pride ahead of obedience to God?

Have we decided we know better than the teachings of Christ on how to live our life…. Christ who in the Gospels gives us a handbook for living the best life. Even still, so many people decide to wing it, throw away the manual given by the creator on how to live and adopt what the pundits in the news or our local bar tells us is a good idea. You know, good ideas like if you don’t love him you can easily leave him. Which is choosing selfish pride over love. Or the advice that living together will make sure you are compatible…you know try before you buy. Which is choosing flawed advice and pretend marriage instead of truth and the holy sacrament. Or the advice that is becoming more and more a problem, its just pictures. Those images of violence and pornography online don’t hurt anyone. Everyone’s doing it. … choosing death and violence instead of love and honor.  Tragic advice begets tragic lives.

Where are we? Who are we?

Do we follow the commands of the Father and Jesus? Do we count ourselves as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ?

Or are we like the leaders and relatives in the Gospel and are embarrassed by the things Jesus teaches. Most of our world today would say yes…he is an embarrassment to them and they do not follow him.

Jesus words today that “…whoever does the will of God

is my brother and sister and mother,” are meaningless to many people.

 

Today we need to ask, where are we? Hopefully, we have put pride aside and have strived to follow his commands and are full of love.

Hopefully, we have remembered like St Paul that this world and this body is temporary and to those who follow Christ there is a greater reward and house waiting for us. One where all the sisters and brothers of Jesus will be.

 

Jesus put following the will of the Father ahead of everything, even eating or sleeping. His family was concerned, the religious leaders of the time were outraged. But to those that followed Jesus and were committed to him, he made perfect sense. They chose love. They chose life and they chose truth. We too get to choose each day. Do we choose lies or truth, death or life, hatred and fear or love?

 

Jesus taught with great love and many then and today do choose love and long for great love. But great love requires commitment and discipline.

And it’s a constant that even the pagans know, that anything great requires great commitment and great discipline. If we want to be a great violinist or race car driver or speaker. If we want to be a great doctor. …it requires discipline and commitment. Years and hundreds and thousands of hours of committing to an idea and a discipline to say yes each day to the end goal. The musician might have started off with skill and talent but with commitment and discipline, the music is sweeter and truer. The doctor might have had great caring and understanding of anatomy but with the commitment became a great healer.

It is the same with great love. Whether it is for God or our spouse or even fellow human beings.

Young couples preparing for marriage without exception are filled with wonderful and exciting love for each other. They cannot imagine it being better. But it is only a fraction of the love a couple married for decades knows and the love they have for each other. Commitment to love, focusing on truth, and discipline to choose life.

Great love requires great commitment and great discipline and making the choice each day.

 

And if we are followers of Christ then we must seek to love greatly like he did. To some, it will be absurd to commit our lives to the goal of love, true love, great love for God and others.

But that is what following Christ means.

Like Adam and Eve, we will all end up naked before God one day.

If we have given into sin, blamed others for our choices and refused to follow the will of God, we will not only be naked, we will be exposed for our sin and be ashamed. If we are full of love, we will not be ashamed and will stand there knowing we stand in front of a God who is love. For we did indeed choose love, truth and life…we chose to do the will of God.

Where are we today? How much are we prepared to love?

Or to paraphrase the BeeGees, how great is your love?