God is love: Homily for Sunday, May 26, 2024

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Saint John the Evangelist tells us that God is love. We are called to bask in that love and to share that love with others.

God is love

It has been said that any attempt to preach about the Trinity almost always leads to some type of heresy. So I stand on a bit of dangerous ground today trying to say things about our God without straying into heresy. There are a couple of examples that I would like to raise, probably three, well no, maybe two, anyway, about errors we can make when we describe God.

Firstly, sometimes the analogy is used about H2O, that God is like H2O. H2O can be steam, it can be liquid, it can be ice. That’s modalism, actually, and that was a heresy condemned by the church. That God, in fact, takes on different modes, but that means that God is not of one substance, which is a philosophical category that’s quite important. It’s why we say in the Creed, for example, consubstantial, that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of one substance, even though they are three persons.

The second example I would give is something that became popular a while ago in describing God as creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. That’s problematic for two reasons. One, those are functions, not persons. That’s the first problem. The second problem is that it is not only God the Father who creates. The Spirit creates, the Son creates. The Father redeems, the Son redeems, the Holy Spirit redeems, and the Father sanctifies, the Son sanctifies, the Holy Spirit sanctifies.

How can we then describe God? Well, generally speaking, one is on safe ground with the Holy Scriptures. And how does St. John describe God for us? It’s a three-word sentence. God is love. That at the heart of everything we do, it’s the action of love that makes a difference, that describes God.

In fact, it is really something that God does in a powerful and tremendous way. Notice, by the way, I said action of love and not feeling of love. The feeling of love is affection. But we can still love those about whom we don’t feel affection.

I suspect those of you who are parents know that there are moments where you’re not feeling a great deal of affection for your children, but you love them, oftentimes setting limits and boundaries which is essential for thriving.

The readings today underscore this notion of God as love. Moses describes the powerful love of God which led the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. And he reminds the people of all of the magnificent and great things that God has done for them, that they have had tremendous experiences of God, and it has changed their lives.

In the second reading, we understand that what we are called to is quite high and tremendous indeed. That if we are people of faith, we are the heirs of God. We are the ones who receive the divine love of God.

And in the Gospel, because this God is so powerful and so loving, we are called to tell, to teach, to go forth. This is the great commission that we hear today, and it is at the core of what it means to be a believer. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

And therein is the second important thing about saying that God is love. An analogy I’d like to use for what I’m about to say is also, again, parenthood. To love does not mean to let people, to let children do anything they want. In fact, that would be neglectful. I would even argue in some way it’s abusive.

Children do not function best when they are able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. And that’s the second part of each of the readings today. We are not talking about God as just slightly better than human beings. God is infinitely better. God has no limits. His love has no bounds. God is infinite, beyond all imagining.

And so what does each reading remind us to do, to be? People who follow God’s commandments. People who worship. God is beyond us, and so we’re called to worship. And it’s critically important if we’re called to worship God, to figure out what type of worship God wants from us. We believe that the worship that we engage in is the ultimate fulfillment of the sacrifices of the Old Testament, because Jesus is one we celebrate, the one who gave his life, the one sacrifice for all, so that we could be born again, so that we could be resurrected.

We are called then to take seriously this great commission, to go forth and share our faith. And why wouldn’t we? Why wouldn’t we share our faith? If we believe that we have found something that is ultimately fulfilling, if we have found a relationship that loves us even when we sin, we have found a God who cares for us more than any human being can care for another, then why wouldn’t we want to share this with someone else? Why would we keep this to ourselves?

Trinity Sunday is about the love of God. Let us ask the Lord today to come into our hearts, to help us to know, to believe, and to share just how much it is that God loves us.

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