Distance Bill is with us. You know the great commandment, you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole mind, and your whole strength. And the second commandment is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And in those two commandments are contained all the law and the prophets, Jesus says. And that's our charter of charity, that's the way we should love our brothers in community. Now it's not that God gives us that command in a deist fashion, you know what I mean by deism, this 17th, 16th, 17th, 18th century conception of God where God sets up the world and all that it contains, makes it like a clockmaker would make a clock, sets it ticking, and then lets it run the way he made it.

[01:07]

We know that God is involved in his creation, his act of creation. He's always creating us. It isn't like he made us as if we were a wind-up toy and set us on the floor and said, now you go do your thing. God's always involved with us. Likewise, God doesn't give a command by setting up some kind of virtuous ideal and then watching us strive helplessly to get up there. I mean, there is that aspect. It's what we call normative ethics. There is that kind of ideal that's just out there that everyone's expected to conform to. You get that a lot of the time in government, you know, and kind of what you might call the virtue that politicians appeal to. That's what we ought to do. That's the ideal. That's how we should behave as Americans.

[02:10]

There's some kind of unspoken perfectionist attitude out there. And it's also, it's there in our political discourse. People appeal to it all the time because it's really part of the natural law debate. There is something innate. There's something that God has put into the very nature of humanity that's right. That's the way things should be. And if you transgress that, there's just no help for you. It's just certain things that are in implicit in our creation and our structure as human persons that just cannot be altered. That's the way it is. And so, you know, like motherhood and all that kind of thing, that's just the way it is. You don't deviate from that. Okay, there is that part to our religion, the divine revelation. It is normative, it seems.

[03:12]

It seems like we can, in ethics, In the last 30, 40 years, and it's coming more and more to the fore, it just seems like we can't do without some kind of normative ethics that God does put this thing out there, that's the way he's made it, and that's the way we are to live. But there's also a much more, shall we say, economic ethics, or what you might call an exhortative ethic, where God gives us a command that doesn't ask us to do anything that he himself would not do. In other words, the superior asks people to wash the dishes because he washes the dishes. He just doesn't say, well, now here, we're going to wash the dishes. Some habits do that, but most of the time, if you want to get cooperation from people, you've got to do it yourself first. You can't ask anyone to do what you yourself would not do. And it seems like that's the way God is. In fact, this quality, this aspect of exhortative ethics, I'll call it, is really all through the divine revelation, much more so than the normative ethic is.

[04:20]

Although righteous people tend to appeal to the norm. This is the way it should be done. There's another kind of appeal to virtue, which is hey guys, let's do it this way, I'm going to do it this way, follow me and we'll do it this way. It's kind of the ideal of discipleship. So I want to look at a passage of scripture and I want to try to tease it out a little bit and show how the lion's share of God's appeal in divine revelation is exhortative rather than normative. I'm not saying we can do without the normative, as the natural law debate would have it, but I'm saying that for purposes of monastic spirituality, it seems like the exhortative is a little bit more attractive. Take Exodus 32-33, that's what I want to talk about a little now. You know the story.

[05:23]

God is speaking to Moses up on Sinai, and he has given Moses the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments. And everything's going along in a swimming fashion. God is speaking about his Sabbaths and how sacred they are after working for six days, and he rests on the seventh day. And so the people should do the same. They should work on six days, but on the seventh day keep it holy because it's God's Sabbath. It's God's rest. And he said that. And then he says to Moses, and so now I will do everything for the Israelites. I will make them into a special people. They shall have everything. They shall have a land blown with milk and honey. Everything shall be glorious. They only have to do these commandments that I give them. And so that's the way the discourse seems to end until God uh, takes time with Moses, and we don't know how long he took, but the people down below, and the scene quickly switches to the scene down below, and the people are tired.

[06:36]

Their faith has worn thin, and there's Moses, he's disappeared, alone up there with God, and so you know the story. They appeal to Aaron to have some fun, or to give them a god that's going to be with them. And so the god that they can see in the form of a molten calf is a lot more attractive. It doesn't make them feel so lonely. They can have gods like other people. They can be like everybody else and feel secure in their fraternity with the other peoples. And so they make this molten calf and worship it and completely degrade themselves. And God sees what's happening, and the scene switches back upstairs, and God says to Moses, go down, see what these people have done. They have made a molten cap. They are worshiping you. They've ruined everything. And I am so mad, and I will destroy these people, and I'll make a great nation out of you. And Moses said, well, wait a minute. You love these people. Think of what you've done for them.

[07:38]

You, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you've done all this, now you're going to throw it all away?" And Moses makes an appeal to God. And God says, okay, I will change my mind, you go down now and punish the people. So Moses goes down, and in Moses, in his turn, gets angry when he sees what's happened. He appealed to God for mercy up on the mountain and tried to assuage God's wrath. But when he himself comes down the mountain, he gets mad. And you know what happens. He breaks the stone tablets and grinds them into dust, throws them in the lake, and makes the people drink the water. Just completely degrades them because they've run wild, as the text says. And then he remonstrates with Aaron. What did these people do to you? that you would lead them into such great sin. So, they go through their exercises.

[08:40]

They're trying to straighten themselves out. And Moses goes back up on the mountain. God calls him back up on the mountain. He says, now, I will remake these tablets, but I will not go with this people. They shall go into a land flowing with milk and honey, but I won't be with them. I'll send my angel. But I will not go." And Moses is now, wait a minute, if you send it this way, then we're going to look like fools in front of all these other nations. They have their gods with them. We want more than your angel or your presence. And the text keeps switching back between the angel, the title of angel, and the title of presence. We want you. And God says, no. No, they're too stiff, they're just too stubborn, I'm not going to have it, I'm not going to put up with it. They can't have me with them. I will be their God, and I will give them what they want, and I will make of them a great nation, such as a nation that has never been seen, but I'm not going with them.

[09:46]

And Moses bargains. And he pleads, and he begs. And finally, God gives in. He says, for your sake, because I love you, because I have a relationship with you, and I know you by name, I will go with them. So now, go back down. Take the two tablets of stone. And Moses presses his advantage, and he says, show me your glory. And there's this wonderful debate that goes on. God's just given in, and God has said, I will now go with you. And Moses, not content with that. Imagine the hubris, or whatever you call that, of Moses. He goes right back in there, and he says, show me your glory. And God says, I will set you in the cleft of the rock, and I will make all my glory pass before you. God's actually complying with Moses' request. and I will have all my glory pass before me, and you will see my glory as it goes by, and you will see my back, but my face you will not see."

[10:51]

And Moses agreed. Who wouldn't? And so God prepares this great theophany, you know, it's like getting set for a great celebration. And then the glory of God takes over the mountain. And God says, make sure that there is nothing that can be seen and that no one can see me when this happens. Understandably, because if they do see it, if even there are beasts grazing on that side of the mountain, they will be destroyed. Because God's glory is going to take over everything. And Moses is going to see it, but not God's face. So, this great theophany happens, and I love the text, God plays his own music. God gives the celebration. The glory begins, and God himself proclaims, the Lord, the Lord, gracious and glorious, to thousands upon thousands, slow to anger, but quick to show mercy unto generation unto generation, but not letting the guilty get by, but visiting their sin upon the father and the son unto the third and fourth generation.

[11:59]

The Lord, the Lord, gracious and glorious. God provides His own celebration. And Moses sees all this. And then Moses goes back down. So it's one of the great theophanies in all of divine revelation. God providing his own glory. Now you say, well, what does that have to do with? Well, there are four things about that scene that we need to analyze. And the first is that God is so powerful, and I don't mean just in the sense of being able to move mountains, not power the way we recognize power, but metaphysical power, real power, actuality, you know, in the Aristotelian sense. Not only potential, but actual power, the ability to do things that no one else can do. because God is all-powerful, can do anything. So God here pulls off one of the greatest things that God could ever do.

[13:02]

That is, God goes out of himself. God becomes more than himself. How? He is one and at the same time gracious, that is, merciful and just at the same time. He redefines what it is to be God. God was either just or merciful. But now, he's going to be both, just, full of justice, visiting iniquity upon those who tread it, but full of mercy at the same time. And only God can do that. It doesn't make sense, philosophically, rationally, how you could be both at the same time, yet God pulls it off. God says, I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy, and I will be just with whom I will be just. And you can't, you can't, that's irrevocable, you can't play with that, we can't figure that out, because God is ultimately free.

[14:04]

So God redefines what He, His relationship with the people here, and of course with us. It's not just for the Israelites, that saying is for us. So he's all-powerful because he can redefine what it is to be God. Okay, that's very important. The second is that his love of Moses is the thing that trips this theophany off. And it's not just the fact that God is called out in a relationship. It's even more human than that, if I can use that word. It means that God's love is episodic. It depends on the circumstance and the situation. Now you say, well, that's not God. That's not the transcendent God. Yeah, I know that. But just look at the text. You see, God changed his mind, and God reacted or responded, if you want to say, if reaction is a pejorative word, God responded to the situation to Moses' plea.

[15:10]

So love, as we get it in divine revelation there, has some kind of quality of the episode, of the moment. Love, and I'd like you to remember that term, love is episodic. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's in episodes. It happens here, and it happens here, and it happens here, in concrete situations. It's just not some kind of candy wrapper love that's always the same, like toilet paper, you just keep rolling it out, and God's always the same. No. Yeah, God is always the same. God is always God. But does that mean that God is always the same? I don't think so. God's love waxes strong. They're like waves of the sea. I'm asking that question. I'm no theologian. I'm just asking that question. Is it that love is episodic? Third, God's love is superabundant. God has always got something of the circus performer about him. And you get this all through scripture. And we're far too Western, far too Northern people to really fully appreciate a party.

[16:16]

We really, you know, we're so darn staid in our liturgy. We're Western, Northern people. We have to be that way, I guess. But I've had a lot of experience the last four or five years with Latin America. And believe you me, they know how to throw a party. And their liturgies are absolutely out of this world. The dancing, the hip dancing, the girls. I mean, this is right practically on the altar. We just had the church dedication for our monastery in Esmeraldas, right outside the city of Esmeraldas in Ecuador. And they're African. They're 70% black there. They were never slaves. They were runaway slaves from a ship, but they were never enslaved, and they've lived there ever since, about half a million of them right there on the Pacific coast of Ecuador. That's where our monastery is. So they dedicated their new monastery and their church. I was down there last October. Oh, I have it on video, and our guys couldn't believe it.

[17:18]

It's just, you call that liturgy? Yes, indeed. I mean, it's just as wild and woolly as it can be. And they're just so uninhibited. And you know, you go to some of our liturgies and Baptist churches down the road from us, and you start to see how the other half live. I mean, it's just another experience. And somehow the Semitic culture that we find in the Hebrew Testament is very much, there's a quality there that's like that. So here we have God just, He may be poor, I mean, He may not have a whole lot. But he's gonna bring out everything he's got in his cupboard, and you'd be surprised how poor people can celebrate. They have absolutely nothing. They have no running water. They have no electricity. They have nothing. Nothing. But when it's time to dance, these costumes come out. I mean, you wonder how they even got them clean. Immaculately white. Frills, and the girls are frills, and the guys in these tight white pants. You just figure, what happened? Where did this come from? There's not a clean car, not a clean piece of furniture in all of Esmeraldas, a city of 250,000.

[18:23]

You've never seen so much junk and dirt in your life. Where does this come from? Well, they can do it. Anyway, this is how God is. There just seems to be this quality. It's a human quality, yeah, but it's also there's something in God like that. So God's going to pull out all his dogs, and he's going to say, now that I've forgiven this people, now that I'm going to be faithful to them, and that I'm even going to go with them, I will make them the greatest nation that has ever been seen. No people ever in the world will ever be like this people. Now God never made a statement like that before. This is the end of chapter 33 of Exodus. It's worth reading. It's absolutely super abundant. But isn't that the way God tends to be? I mean, just look at Divine Revelation all the way through. The Hebrew Testament, the Christian Testament. I mean, it's over and over and over again. It's this superabundance. No holds barred. Just do it completely.

[19:24]

Okay, so there's that quality. And then, finally, there's a quality where God maintains His transcendence. Remember, I will have all my glory pass before you, but my face you shall not see. And if let no one see this theophany, let no one... I mean, this wasn't for the people. This was for Moses and us. If there are even any cattle grazing on that side, they will be consumed. Because God is going to get glory. Okay, so there are four, I will call them theological qualities that I'd ask you to file away and remember. And so here, in this story, we get God doing what God is going to ask us to do. You see? All through Divine Revelation, God is going to be asking us to forgive. How? As God forgives. Because God's already done it.

[20:26]

It's not that God has never forgiven. Or love as God loves. And how does God love? Exodus 32 and 33, that's how God does it. So that's what we're asked to do. Now I'd like to stretch it a little further and say, what can we learn from these four qualities, these four theological qualities, and can that help us see anything about this, dare I use the word, structure of God? I'm not going to say that God, we can't say that God has a personality, but who is this person? Who is this God? I can't even use that word, person. Who is this? He seems to be someone who can be called out of himself in a relationship. In other words, God gets attracted. God responds to someone else's appeal. That's very important. Is it that I'm using anthropomorphic descriptions here to try to describe God?

[21:30]

Or is there another theological method that one can use that would be incorrect just to ascribe to God qualities that we find in ourselves? And we know that according to the via negativa, we really can't do that, theologically speaking. We can also say that since God made us and leaves his stamp on us, that we are created with the divine spark. See, this kind of theology is very dangerous, but it's also necessary, I think. Can't we, therefore, in examining our own human structure, have some kind of inkling of what goes on in God? I think so. I think so. And the reason it becomes more and more cogent is because of this command to love. How do you love? The way God loves. Well, how does God love? Well, God loves like Exodus 32 and 33. Is that all we can say?

[22:32]

Well, we know from Christian tradition that God loves in the Trinity. Aha! How does God love in the Trinity? Well, the time and tried formula, God eternally generates the Son in a relationship. Origen said that. in the year 200 or earlier, God eternally generates the Son. That is, He doesn't, begotten, not made, as the creed says, very important distinction, God doesn't create the Word, doesn't just, doesn't make the Word, but when the Word as God is eternally generated from the Father, what does that mean? It doesn't mean so much that there's subordination, as much as there is a relationship. So you can start to see that this relational thing is extremely important, and there are books being written about it again. This book by Catherine Naury-Lacugna is a very important book.

[23:35]

It's been roasted by the critics, but I mean, they're critics. So I hope you have it, and I would encourage you to read it. She doesn't go as far, she's not going to be as foolish as I'm going to be right now. Okay, so there's this idea of a relationship in God, the father and the son. Can it be said that the father kind of goes out of himself in love to the son, and the son does the same back to the father? And that's pure Augustine. The father eternally generates the son. does not eternally generate the Father, that would be wrong. But I'm not going to thereby introduce a perfect equality in human terms and say that the Son eternally generates the Father, that's not right. Well, what does the Son do? The Son does, if I can grab some other theological concepts in here, the Son does what Jesus says He does in John 5, anything that the Son sees the Father doing, that He also does.

[24:42]

You get that idea of exhortation. I do what I see God doing. So that's what the son does. The son sees what God does and the son does likewise. The son loves, okay, and does the work that he sees the father doing also. And that relationship where one is going outside of himself and the other one is going outside of himself results in, not a generation, but a procession, a procession of the Spirit. Now that's the tradition, that's what we've always been taught about what we call the imminent trinity. But it's a relationship, a trinity of relationships, if you want to use that term. But I'm going to suggest that the structure of that relationship has something to do with going out of, being constantly more than we thought. So God is constantly doing more in a relationship than we ever thought that he could do. Isn't that something like a definition of God?

[25:43]

Totally transcendent, totally other, not in the sense of we not being able to know or having nothing, nothing about us of kapok's day, but that it's always beyond what we are thinking at the moment. I don't know, perhaps. All right, that's what we call the imminent Trinity. What happens when God wants to keep this relationship with Israel going? Let's go back to Exodus 32 and 33. Is all that word about this tremendous thing that God is going to do, does that fail when Moses dies? Well, we know that the Israelites are always going to be stiff-necked people. The history of their relationship with God is one of constant failure. And yet, God preserves a remnant. God is going to get these people, ultimately, to be faithful. And how is He going to do that? By sending His word, by going out of Himself so far that he will send his only begotten son, the son that he eternally generates. And this is the miracle.

[26:44]

God is going to, he's going to get both justice and mercy at the same time in the ultimate way by sending himself, by sending God, by becoming human in this situation and finding there in that humanity somebody who's going to be absolutely faithful in a relationship. And Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew, is the one who's going to be absolutely faithful to the law. Absolutely faithful. So God is finally going to win by doing it himself, so to speak. But there's much more going on than that. God is going to go out of himself into our condition. And when God does that, God is going to fulfill the same four categories that we described in Exodus 32 and 33. God is going to do what is impossible, what the Greeks never thought could be done, what the Jews said was blasphemy. God is going to become both God and human at the same time.

[27:47]

Remember, justice and mercy at the same time. Remember, the Father has always exegeted the Word made flesh as justice and peace have embraced mercy and faithfulness have met. There it is. So God transcends himself, goes out of himself, and I want to keep using that word go out of because it's extremely important. God goes out of himself in Christ to reconcile the world to himself. Okay, that's the first category. Remember the second category? is God's love is episodic. Well, Jesus exhibits this relationship. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, acts in the same way as you get God acting in the Hebrew Testament. And that's what authenticates Jesus more than anything else. If you want some kind of theological authentication of the Word made flesh, how does Jesus act? Just like the Father acts. So when we say that love is episodic in Exodus 13, 2 and 3, we can say the same In Jesus of Nazareth, love is episodic. God puts everything out there, takes a big risk in sending his son to be faithful in a human condition.

[28:56]

Through all the angst and suffering of what it means to be human, is Jesus going to be faithful? So God puts him through every test. He's tempted, and that's the great significance of the temptation in the desert. And those temptations aren't just falderal. They're not just cute, little, innocent, non-effective temptations. They're very real. God stakes everything on this relationship. And is Jesus going to be faithful through it? I don't want to go through this long reads of Jesus, of Matthew 4, but it's worth doing sometime. All I want to say here is that Jesus is faithful, but God took the risk in the relationship. Faith, God trusted. Jesus enough, and Jesus trusted the Father enough that there was faith in that relationship. And where there's faith and trust, there's going to be hope that the fidelity will stay. And only on top of that do you build a new kind of love. So that trinity of virtues, what we call the theological virtues, just isn't grabbed out of the air.

[30:00]

It has deep, deep meaning as we know it in our lives. When we have a relationship with someone, it's faith. hope, and finally, love. And it comes over and over and over again like that. Again, another episode of faith, are you going to be my friend even after this? Faith, hope, and love. Then something else, love. So that trinity of virtues, what we call the theological virtues, just isn't grabbed out of the air. It has deep, deep meaning as we know it in our lives. When we have a relationship with someone, it's faith, hope, and finally, love. And it comes over and over and over again like that. Again, another episode of faith. Are you going to be my friend even after this? Faith, hope, and love. Then something else happens. You know how friendships work. That's how relationships go. They're not just sealed forever. They're dynamic things. They grow and wane and wax according to what happens.

[31:02]

And that's when you know you've really got something. When it's tried and risked again and again and again and again. Take any marriage, I mean, that's the way it works. Take any long-term relationship in a community, that's the way it has to work. I've known brother so-and-so, and we've been through for so many years, but we don't even have to say our fidelity to one another anymore, because we've been through so much together. It's been constant faith, hope, and love, faith, hope, and love. Okay, that's what happens, and I think that's where you really get a good incarnational theology, when you see the risk that God the Father took in sending the word and putting it into this human condition where it could have failed. The expensive alabaster jar of ointment is broken wastefully over the feet of Jesus and Jesus let her alone. This is a sign. The pool you always have with me you do not always have.

[32:06]

See, what further sign could we want of this superabundance than John 12? It's all through even the synoptic tradition. You get glimpses of it. Finally, God's utter transcendence in Christ, with the transfiguration and or the resurrection appearances, especially in John, or even in Luke, but more so in John, where Mary Magdalene goes to the garden and she wants to cling, she wants to touch, and Jesus says, do not cling to me, I have not yet gone to the Father. There's this maintenance of utter transcendence, even in Christ the Lord. who's with us. Okay, so I think those four categories help to explain how the Trinity is the economic Trinity, as the Greek fathers called it, where the Father goes out to us in His Son.

[33:09]

and according to the Greek fathers, and St. Bernard was good on this, that Jesus becomes the great ecstasis of God, the great going out of himself, the great bridge builder between God and ourselves. That is how the Trinity now acts. The Trinity loves so much within itself that it goes out of itself in the sun and now includes the whole world in the relationship of the Trinity. So we become, when we're baptized in Christ Jesus, we become partakers, not in some dry, lifeless glory, but of the very relationship that goes on in the Trinity. We are children through the child. We are sons through the one Son. You know, that theology is extremely important, as if we could have a relationship with the transcendent God on our own. I mean, that's silly.

[34:11]

People talk like that. Oh, I pray directly to God. We always go through Christ, whether you know it or not, because that's the way... I'm sorry, that's the way God set it up. But what we are included in, in a more intimate way than we could ever possibly dream is, as Jesus said in John 16, 28, I've gone forth from the Father and have come into the world, and now I'm leaving the world More correctly, if I can say it this way, I'm taking the whole thing with me. And now that is what loves. That's now included in Trinity. Okay. So we've touched on some very important things here about relationship. And I want to return now a little bit to the idea of exhortative ethics. We are to love God with our whole heart, whole soul, whole mind, whole strength, and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.

[35:12]

Why? Because God has first loved that way. Now, if God has loved in the way that we've just looked at, sending His only begotten Son to include everything, because that's the structure of God in Himself, in the imminent Trinity. Then we're on to something that's vitally important here. This isn't just some kind of lifeless appeal that God makes. This is an offer of utter transcendence, of sharing the Godhead, just like the Greek fathers always said. It makes life in God suddenly become, you know, as attractive as anything that we could ever possibly, even in our humanity, as delightful and as attractive as anything we could possibly imagine, more so than we could imagine. But let's look at the conditions that God sets down. This is no laughing matter. We have in the hour of Father, forgive us our trespasses. as we forgive those who trespass against us.

[36:17]

In other words, it's the same deal, as I have done to you, so you do to one another. And if you don't, there's no forgiveness. It's not that, God, I ask you to forgive me, but then the deal stops there. No. If you're going to play the game, then what I get from God, I then have to give to somebody else. And that's the constant structure in divine revelation. You remember in John 13, 5, Jesus says, I'm supposed to be your master and teacher, yet I have acted as your slave. I have washed your feet. You go and do likewise. That's the great lesson of the Paschal Mystery. We celebrate it almost as a sacrament on Holy Thursday, the Mandatum. And that's why we call it that, because it's God's, Jesus' great command, as I have done to you, so you do to one another.

[37:17]

And the Our Father is based on that. And if that isn't clear enough, take Matthew 18, what is it, 30, it's the end of the 18th chapter, The parable of the unjust steward, the unjust servant, where this, you remember the story, it's brutally clear. This steward is owed money by one of his fellow stewards and he sees him coming in and he throttles him and says, pay what you owe. And the other servants are just, upset and scandalized by this because the master of the household has just forgiven this jerk a much greater debt. But he did not have mercy and wasn't smart enough to do likewise to his fellow servant, but took the fellow servant, had him thrown in jail until he could pay the debt. And what does God say?

[38:20]

God says, you wicked slave, I forgave you the entire debt. And shouldn't you have done likewise? And because you did not, now throw him out to where the darkness is and where the gnashing of teeth. Completely excommunicated. No mercy now. And so Jesus turns to his followers and he says, So my Heavenly Father will do to each one of you, unless you forgive your brethren from the heart. Horrible words. I mean, really horrible. Because, you know, it's not like we come into Christianity into this Christian covenant on our terms. That's why the RCIA program and all that is deadly serious. Because if you accept baptism in Christ Jesus, you accept that parable. If I accept baptism, then I accept that covenant with God that what God has done for me, so I need to do.

[39:24]

to my brother. And if I don't, I'm out of it. God will curse me and put me in the darkness. As angry with me because of my stubbornness, as gracious as he can be. That's the game with God. We're not playing with some manby-pamby person who's always going to be nice and sweet. The stakes are deadly high. And I think that has to be said because, you know, we're all into this comfort spirituality, we want everything, you know, we don't want any guilt trips. And that's true, you know, I'm not knocking any of that. Jesus was certainly that way in the synoptic, but he was also... I mean, can't we afford to look at the other side too? And is it that God is setting up some kind of normative ethic? No. That's the point. My point is, if you're going to play the love game, it's got to be both ways.

[40:25]

If we're going to be loved by God, then we have to love in our turn. That's what the Our Father says. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. So what is offered here is an unbelievably wonderful love, but on one condition. that we, in turn, give it back to the people that we live with. So the Great Commandment becomes not two disparate commandments. You love God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, your whole strength. And the second is like it. You love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah, but they're not separate. If you love God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole mind, and you're engaged You know, it's not that we, it's not we who are loving God, it's God who's loving us and grasping us, upping to himself. Well, then love of neighbor goes hand in hand, you can't separate it. So if our love of God and God's love of us is going to be at all authentic, if we're really going to let it happen, then we in turn have to be as loving and as gracious as God is.

[41:39]

We shouldn't be immediately saying, but that's impossible. Yes, I know. And that's the problem. It is impossible. You say, well, what about God? Well, that's what we're going to examine in the next couple of days. It is impossible. But like Jesus says, with God, all things are possible. And really, what Jesus is saying there is, with God, all things are possible. That is, with Christ and His kingdom, all things are possible. But it's worth remembering that when we get into this game of God's love, and when I use the word game, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but what I'm trying to convey is the idea of when we become engaged, we just don't sit there still. there's some kind of action that has to take place there. Love is episodic, it is fraught with dangers, it is as exciting as a roller coaster, and it is as dependent.

[42:45]

Both what we do back to God and what we do to one another, you just can't, just don't seem to be able to get around that. So that kind of dynamism As God eternally generates the Son, so He also eternally generates His love for us. That somehow has to be eternally given back, somehow. You know, it comes back and forth in this great, great move. It's like a great lung heaving up and down, up and down, in and out, in and out. And we're involved in that. And that's the way our lives have to be. tremendously exciting, tremendously vibrant and dynamic, and not at all staid and passive. So that will be enough for tonight, and we'll look at some of the scripture passages tomorrow that will illuminate this game, this theological game a little further. I hope this has been helpful.

[43:49]

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