Follow the way of love, the example of Christ who loves you

Some parts of the bible seem to speak to me because of their brevity and truth. It seems God's first messengers discovered a penchant for text message length 'sayings' long before we did. I think some of this is due to God's clarity in communication. He doesn't like to beat around the bush. But quite often these short sayings are really a summary of a longer teaching and meditation on them opens the mind to a whole profound and rich area of thinking.

At an evening meeting this week we used a reading  from Ephesians 5, out of it I plucked the sentence   ^"Follow the way of love, the example of Christ who loved you" - and have been thinking about it since.

It is a phrase that needs unpacking. What for example is the "Way of Love" that is referred to? Love after all is a many faceted thing.  But  Gods way of loving is to show his abundant love to all of humankind, and even creation. This love manifests itself as a sort of unfathomable good will shown to all without exception. This is because God wants the whole of creation to succeed and flourish, including you and me, and also the extreme poor as well as the rich. This demonstrates that the economy of God's world operates differently to the economy of the commercial world.  Life in all it's entirety is given without charge and the conditions to sustain it come readily from the world's resources. And what God requires of us in recompense for all this is that we too should be just as loving in our turn. A radical thought. That we should love in the same unconditional way that God has already loved us.

"Follow the way of love" -then can mean then that we should live our lives with the same kind of radical good will that God manifests. To have an automatic care and concern for other people that is contrary to the way that the world looks at things.  This is the sort of love that Jesus showed after all.  How challenging that is!

The world says charge for everything! Sell your labour and your produce for a good price. Sell your second hand goods. But what God wants for us is subsistence in material terms and super abundance in mercy, love and kindness.

We love a God who challenges us not only to love the loveable but also to turn our efforts to love even our enemies! The way of love challenges us to have a complete heart conversion. “If you happen to see your enemy's cow or donkey running loose, take it back to him. If his donkey has fallen under its load, help him get the donkey to its feet again; don't just walk off. Exodus 23:4-5 GNB

Whereas the prophets challenge those who are rich even further, telling us to not be stingy. Amos particularly warns against over harvesting the world's resources if that means leaving nothing for the poor to pick up. In God's law the gleanings were to be left for the poor.

The way of love requires us to hear the cry of the poor. To no longer live in the hardness of heart that makes us deaf to their appeals.

Dear Jesus, you called me out my darkness. I have been tempted to continue walking in the dark. I have fooled myself into thinking it was easy for you because you are the Son of God. But now I see how completely you surrendered to the will of the father. Call me out of the darkness of my selfishness into your wonderful light. Give me an experience of your love so that I may share it to the ends of the earth. My brother, my saviour Amen 

"Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD." Isaiah 50:10-11