Land or Love?

Monday, January 5, 2008 -- Year One
Eve of Epiphany

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 940)
Morning Prayer
Psalms 2, 110:1-5(6-7)
Joshua 1:1-9
Hebrews 11:32 - 12:2
John 15:1-16

Evening Prayer - Eve of Epiphany
Psalms 29, 98
Isaiah 66:18-23
Romans 15:7-13


We open today's morning readings with Psalms 2 and 110 and with the beginning of the book of Joshua. God tells Joshua to cross the river into the Promised Land and God describes its boundaries across a wide expanse from the Great Sea (Mediterranean) to the River Euphrates (Iraq). The psalms rejoice over God's anointed who will be given "the nations for your inheritance... You shall crush them with an iron rod and shatter them like a piece of pottery." (Ps. 2) "The Ruler who is at your right hand will smite monarchs in the day of wrath and will rule over the nations; Will heap high the corpses and will smash heads over the wide earth." (Ps. 110)

Thousands of years later we are living with daily reports of violence, corpses and war in these named lands, shattering people, sometimes innocent civilians, like a piece of pottery. It is hard to read today the various passages describing Israel's idealized boundaries without feeling anguish for the suffering that centuries of Israelis and non-Israelis alike have endured. For the promise of land to come true another people must become landless.

In Hebrews we read a litany of those "who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight." It goes on to speak of torture, mocking and flogging, imprisonment, stoning, persecution, refugees wandering "in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground," and the women who "received their dead by resurrection." It is a sobering litany of violence, struggle and suffering.

The writer continues to say that these who struggled, though commended for their faith, "did not received what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect." He then points to Jesus as "the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God."

Jesus did not restore the land to Israel. That was an expectation of the Messiah. He did not embrace that mission. He did not lead a mighty army and expel the foreign occupiers. Instead he absorbed the violence returning only love and forgiveness. From the perspective of Jesus, God's great gift is not a particular piece of land. It is, instead, a transforming relationship with God that opens the way to a deeper form of freedom and peace.

How nice it is that John picks up a metaphor from the land to describe the new relationship we are given. Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower... Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches."

Oh, there is some pruning that must be done. But Jesus gives a new context for the act of pruning and gathering and even fire. The new context, the new commandment, is love. The deeper promise is love, not land. We are invited to abide in love rather than to abide on a particular land. "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete."

This is the new commandment, that we love one another as Jesus has loved us. And the greatest love is to lay down one's life for one's friends. This is a new land and a new harvest. We are to bear fruit, not just the grapes of a particular geography that we must destroy others to obtain and protect. The fruit we are called to produce is the fruit of living by the commandment to love, and to follow his example which is the ultimate challenge to love even if it costs us our lives.

How might the command to love transform the bloody landscape of the love for land?

Lowell

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About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas