God is Love Afterall

Today’s reading: Matthew 5:17-20

I have a friend who avoids the word “God.” He says “Love” instead.

And he objects when I insist that God is Love.

“No, ‘God’ is mean,” he says. “”God’ causes people to abuse and even kill each other. That is the opposite of Love. I can say that Love is God, but it doesn’t work the other way around. ‘God’ is definitely not Love. “

Some people may accuse my friend of blasphemy, but I think he may be on to something. His point in separating “God” and Love is that God (without the quotation marks) is too often misunderstood in our modern world. And, that’s why wars break out in “God’s” name, politics turn nasty over “God,” and “God” becomes a source of corrupt income.

I am certain  my friend would agree that, without the quotation marks,  God is indeed Love.

No, I will not call my friend a heretic. I see his point is the same as the one for which Jesus died.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Verse 17)

It’s true that the word love does not appear in the Commandments God gave to Moses. But, as I look closely at each of the Commandments, I see Love, indeed, is at the root of them all.

And as I think of the all the horrors in the Old Testament (rape, murder, betrayal, infanticide, and worse) I realize that they (like our mordern horrors) have a lack of love at their root.

So Jesus just simplified God’s Commandments for us with his teaching. It is now up to us to fulfill God’s glory for The World, and that’s easier than we may think. All we have to do is remember Love. And forget the “God” of quotation marks.

Thanks be to God for Love!