The Gift of God's Love

         My computer died this week.  This isn’t a plea for sympathy, although it is certainly traumatic in this age of technology to lose the connection that I have to everyone.  In all honesty, it isn’t a really big deal.  I was able to get another computer and can continue to do what I want to do on line and through e-mail and Facebook and all of those things that seem to be so darned important anymore, but it made me think about how we live our lives these days.  How we need to be connected to each other, even when we are driving.

          There is a part of me that loves this.  The more that we are in contact with each other it would seem that the better our understanding ought to be, but it doesn’t seem to work like that.  This society is more divided than ever.  We can’t decide in congress about much of anything.  We spend our time watching elected representatives bicker constantly until the atmosphere becomes so polluted with vitriol that we can hardly stand it.  Fox news and MSNBC face off against each other just about every day.  How can we provide for our society the things that we desperately need when we can’t agree on simple things.  I get tired of the name calling and the refusal to accept each other on human terms.  Since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, the racist comments, mostly implied, haven’t stopped.  The “birthers” insist that he was born in Kenya and is not eligible to hold his office, but he has been elected twice to that office, but they still don’t shut up.  I am certain that if his race had been different, a lot of the racist clatter would never have happened.  But that is only my opinion.  Watching all of this has not been easy.  I think we are a better people than this.

            This is the season of Epiphany.  In the biblical tradition, this is the time when the sages from the East came to worship the newly born child in the manger born to Mary and Joseph and hailed as the Savior of the World.  Including these easterners among those included in the company of salvation is a significant event.  It tells us of God’s intent to include all of humankind in his love;  to open the Kingdom of Heaven to everyone on earth.  This was by no means the common understanding in Bethlehem, or for that matter anywhere.  It was, and still is an “us and them” world.  “We” are in, and “them” are out.  God loves us and doesn’t love you.  That justified a lot of the fighting and the turmoil in those days.  It still justifies it in our time. 

            What we need to see is that God’s love is infinite.  In includes everyone, even those whom we would classify as enemies.  This cuts through our finite judgment and allows us to see those around us as God sees them.  When we do that, inclusion becomes automatic and our belligerence lessens and we can get on with our lives without so much turmoil. 

            I spent twenty-two years as a part-time chaplain in a penitentiary.  I heard many stories about how hatred and self-centeredness resulted in horrible crimes.  My job was to make God’s love apparent even to these men who had committed these crimes.  Is forgiveness possible for them?  If it isn’t, it isn’t possible for any of us.  The reality is that God’s love penetrates even our most arrogant egos.  None of us are perfect and our sins add up.  Whether or not we are willing to forgive the sins around us, God is perfectly willing.  That is why he sent the sages with the gifts to the Christ Child.  Not only are those sages included in God’s Kingdom, but also Herod and his soldiers and all of those who through the ages have denied God’s presence in this world.  I know that God’s love reached into the depths of human life.  I have seen it over and over again in the lives of the men in my group in the prison, and in the lives of the people in my parishes.  We need not worry about that Love.  It is absolutely secure.