Greater than our hearts – 7 May 2021

 

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts… (I John 3:19-20)

…from the Epistle for last Sunday.  It always impresses me, when we are reading in John’s First Letter, that we are hearing from the mature experience of second-generation Christian faith.  These people have lived through things we hope we will never see… and what we are reading reflects the way they came eventually to express their discipleship.  This brief passage tells us two things.  The first is that it is by love that we know we are true -- let us love, not in word or speech (only[1]), but in truth and action... and by this we will know that we are from the truth…  Truth and love have a close, mutually dependent relationship.  Truth without love – which we are often deluged with -- is at least incomplete, defective.  And the second thing is about guilt -- whenever our hearts condemn us… God is greater than our hearts.

One of the central contemplative tasks, whoever we are, is steady distancing from what our teachers call negative spirituality… teachers such as Laurence Freeman or Cynthia Bourgeault, Richard Rohr or Sarah Bachelard.  By negative spirituality we mean our fixation, and the church’s, on guilt, on unresolved sin, punishment and the fear of hell.  Many of us were brought up in the understanding that God is normally not very pleased with us, that suffering and adversity are payment for our sins, that we need regular remission of sin.  Well, yes indeed, sin and wilful rebellion against God is alive and well… and we see it rampant in racism, in greed and exploitation of people and resources, in violence and abuse, in the rape of the environment, in the misuse of privilege and power. 

But contemplative life and prayer, the contemplative approach to the scriptures, radically shifts the paradigm (to employ a modern cliché).  Those 1^st and 2^nd century Christians, who had endured all those sins and horrors, had learned that we are judged by love.  Luke tells us[2] how Jesus, in the house of Simon the Pharisee, was approached by a woman who knelt and washed his feet.  What the pharisees saw was a sinner and a defilement.  But Jesus said her sins are forgiven… why? because she loved much.  Peter writes: Keep love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins[3].

And so it is that we have always insisted that the only proper assessment or evaluation of meditation is the question: Are we becoming more loving, more receptive of the love we are offered, more capable of giving and understanding rather than judging or condemning…?  Are we understanding ourselves more compassionately, more understandingly?  God is greater than our hearts, greater than all our negativities. 

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[1] “Only” is my addition – word  and speech too need to spring from love.

[2] Luke 7:47

[3] I Peter 4:7