Love should be the interpreting principle in every situation and to every person. Love for God is not expressed by hatred towards a neighbour based on any text.
We look for revelations on the mountain tops—among the most powerful and famous. God’s politics of reversal, on display throughout Luke, call us to re-center this search in the valleys and level places, in the face of the child and the plea of a father.
When Love is the first motion in our lives, we are defined by how we respond, not only in the grand gestures, but also in the unremarkable expressions of everyday life.
Song of Solomon 2:8-13 invites us to listen to the voices that are subjugated by systems of sexism, racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and the like. When love is forbidden, streets will be crowded, when love is forbidden, widows will be broken, when love is forbidden, resilience is inevitable.
If we are to attend to, much less celebrate, the difference between the who and the what – as we hope to do in our work – then love may be more trouble than its worth.
In a world where the market is the foundation, can there be love in politics?
While often read merely as an account of judgment, heaven, and hell, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats reveals a love that overcomes dualism.
Christians are called not to ignore despair, but to help sow joy in its wake; not to condone hate, but to be all the more zealous in their own loving in its face. The politics of overcoming evil are about neither ignoring nor condoning evil, but rather, fighting it with the strongest power possible—love.
Had God merely sent his Son, that would have been enough, and more than enough. However, God’s love is a love that goes over and above what could be expected, and which calls us to do likewise.
In Romans, Paul speaks of a God of reconciliation, who makes friends of enemies. Principles of reconciliation and of the love of enemies have often been quarantined from the political realm in systems of political thought that prioritize the enemy-friend polarity. However, a politics of love for enemies and of reconciliation with a creation from which we have become alienated may never have been more urgent.
