What Intent Drives Life?
- davidwperk
- Dec 12, 2023
- 7 min read
Devotional Reflection, Tuesday, December 12, 2023
The week of the second Sunday of Advent
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:
36`Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?' 37He said to him, `"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
You will find the full text of today’s Gospel reading at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 937)
AM Psalm 26, 28; PM Psalm 36, 39
Amos 7:10-17; Rev. 1:9-16; Matt. 22:34-46
Today we celebrate the Feast of Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal. (See below.)
David's Reflections
What is our primary obligation to God? Or, are we obligated to God at all? If so, why? And, how do we live toward that obligation? Jesus' response to that question was to quote a passage of Scripture very familiar to his hearers, the Shema from Deuteronomy 6, a passage recited in synagogue each Sabbath and in many Jewish homes each day. That passage called on Israel to love God with their whole being.
Jesus went farther, joining that command with an obscure text in Leviticus 19:18, an obligation to love our neighbor as ourselves. The reason given for that love was that they all had shared slavery in Egypt, they had shared a common experience of bondage in which the Egyptians had not loved them as neighbor but had oppressed them. Therefore, the countermove to oppression and abuse was to love the neighbor as they loved themselves.
Our two primary obligations then are to love God supremely and to love others as we treasure and love ourselves. Those two intentions must lie at the center of a life of faith. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (NRSV). The underlying Hebrew says God is one. I hear that as God is unique, holy, other. Because God’s Being has that incomparable uniqueness, we are called to devote ourselves to God.
But, how does one go about loving a God whom s/he has not seen? One answer the church traditionally has given has been to love God with the intellect—devote oneself to knowing all one can about God.
Another answer focuses on the will, the commitment. As the Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello says:
What does it mean to love God? One does not love him the way one loves people one sees and hears and touches, for God is not a person in our sense of the word. He is the Unknown. He is the wholly Other. He is above terms like he and she, person and thing.
To love God with one's whole heart means to say a wholehearted Yes to life and all that life brings with it. To accept, without reservations, all that God has ordained for one's life. To have the attitude that Jesus had when he said, `Not my will, but yours be done.' To love God with one's whole heart is to make one's own the words made famous by Dag Hammarskjöld:
`For all that has been, Thanks.
To all that shall be, Yes.’ *
Love for God then becomes a commitment, a loyal devotion that accepts God's future for us with a "yes" and reaches forward into that future eagerly.
The mystics have given another answer, and the church normally has been reluctant about this understanding because of a basic mistrust of the emotions, the ecstatic, and subjectivity in general. The mystics speak of yearning for God, being emotionally, affectively drawn toward God, becoming one with God. Meister Eckhart, the 14th. Century Dominican mystic put it this way. "God and I, we are one. Through knowledge I take God into myself. Through love, on the other hand, I enter into God. . . . God and I, in such activity we are one. God (He) acts and I become.” +
There is truth in each of the three understandings, but none is complete by themselves. At this point in my journey, I find myself emphasizing more the mystical understanding without completely abandoning the other two. Of course, the key has to do with understanding that our love for God comes about as response to God’s love for us. As 1 John puts it, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his son a means of forgiveness for our sins.” (1 Jn 4:10, my translation)
How does this relate to our lives? We can devote ourselves to God as God's children because God created us and God in Christ has forgiven us and begun transforming and delivering us into a place of larger freedom and wholeness. Our love then becomes the answer of gratitude and thankfulness, sparked and enabled by God's love flowing into our lives. Our worship and our loyalty answer to God's faithful, saving love and the sacrifices made by God in Christ to effect our wholeness and salvation. We can spend a lifetime living into a larger devotion that encompasses more of ourselves and more of our vocation and more of our energy and abilities, and still will only have begun to answer the love God has for us.
What intent will drive your life today? My life? If I am spiritually focused this day, my intent will be to love God and others and embody that love in my devotion to God and my relating to others. All else flows from that font.
* Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird, (New York: Doubleday, 1982), pp. 166-167
+Meister Eckhart, Sermon 7 on Wis. 5:16 in Duetsche Predigten und Traktate, ed. Josef Quint (Munich: Hauser, 1979), 186-87
Collect of the Day, Second Sunday of Advent
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 211)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Francis de Sales, bishop, (died 28 Dec 1622 CE) and Jane de Chantal, monastic (died 12 Dec 1641 CE).
Collect of the Feast of Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal
Most gracious God, who has bidden us to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before you; Grant that we, like your servants Francis and Jane, may see and serve Christ in all people, and know him as the giver of all good things; through the same Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A Collect for Peace
Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgments, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen. (BCP, 123)
Of the Reign of Christ
Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 254)
A Prayer for Light
O Lord God Almighty, as you have taught us to call the evening, the morning, and the noonday one day; and have made the sun to know its going down: Dispel the darkness of our hearts, that by your brightness we may know you to be the true God and eternal light, living and reigning for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 110)
A Collect for Mission
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP, 100)
Daily Office Gospel, Matthew 22:34-46
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36`Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?' 37He said to him, `"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.'
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42`What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?' They said to him, `The son of David.'Or Christa 43He said to them, `How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,Gk in spirit 44"The Lord said to my Lord, `Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'"? 45If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?' 46No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer
Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer
Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer
Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer
Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer
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