Question of the Day:
How do you understand Jesus’ message of love?
When we read anything, we read it at our own level of consciousness. God understands that, but also tries to nudge us higher so we can hear more. At the lower levels, we see everything as my tribe versus your tribe. There, if we find a person attractive and non-threatening, then we might say we love them. But Jesus says if you just love those who love you, what is so great about that? Even the pagans do that (Matt. 5:46). Human love tends to be determined by the presumed worthiness of the object of love. Divine love is not determined by the object, but by the subject doing the loving. God is love and can only love. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies—outside our group or tribe—he is presuming we are drawing upon divine love.
It is rather clear in our Christian history that we largely heard Jesus from our tribal level of consciousness. We have not been known for being un-warlike, for welcoming the outsider, or the foreigner. Our history has been almost completely tribal up to now. It is not that we are bad people; it is just that we remain at the lower levels of consciousness, which are dualistic and tribal. The best thing we can do for the Gospel is to keep growing up!
Adapted from Experiencing the Naked Now (webcast) by Richard Rohr
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