Unity Church of Castro Valley
Sunday Message for February 21, 2010
FROM LOVE TO LOVING
So, this month we are exploring our Power of Love. But let's make it an action item; let's take it from "love" to "loving."
LOVE IS A SPIRITUAL POWER THAT WE ALL HAVE & WE EXPERIENCE BY LOVING
What the world needs now is not "love sweet love" but more "loving sweet loving." We already have love - we just need to use it.
When we get past our hang-ups and fears - loving is what we do naturally. Ours is a loving God and we were created in Its image and likeness. We are naturally loving beings.
When a teacher asked her class to make a list of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, one little girl turned in this list:
- Seeing
- Hearing
- Tasting
- Touching
- Running
- Laughing and
- Loving
So Loving is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World - if you let it be.
CHARLES FILLMORE'S IDEAS
Charles Fillmore states, "In Scripture the primal ideas in the Mind of Being are called the 'sons of God.'" But don't take the word 'son' in the literal sense - it means both masculine and feminine. In Genesis it says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." So God is male/female as are the references to 'man' or mankind.
So if we look at these divine ideas (sons of God) we see that they also are male and female. For example, life is masculine, while love is feminine. Intelligence is masculine and imagination is feminine. But this doesn't separate the ideas, it joins them.
In the book of Mark Jesus says, "But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
Spiritual man is the sum total of the attributes or perfect ideas of Being, identified and individualized. But of all the 'daughters of God,' love is undoubtedly the most beautiful, enticing, and fascinating. She can be timid and modest; and she can be bold and fearless in the extreme. A mother, through love, will make every sacrifice to protect her offspring.
SHIFTING FROM LOVE TO LOVING
Jesus recognized the importance of love and loving. The scribe that had asked Jesus, "Which commandment is the first of all" was asking a question that was often debated in rabbinic schools. In the schools there was a double tendency. They either wanted to expand the law into hundreds and thousands of rules - or they would try to gather up the law into one sentence.
Hillel was once asked by a new convert to instruct him in the whole law while he stood on one leg. Hillel's answer was, "What thou hatest for thyself, do not to thy neighbour. This is the whole law, the rest is commentary. Go and learn."
Akiba had already said, "`Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself'--this is the greatest, general principle in the law."
And Simon the Righteous had said, "On three things stands the world--on the law, on the worship, and on works of love."
It was said that Moses received some 613 precepts on Mount Sinai. David reduced the 613 to 11 in Psalms 15, where it says:
"O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?
1. He who walks blamelessly.
2. And does what is right.
3. And speaks truth from his heart.
4. Who does not slander with his tongue.
5. And does no evil to his friend.
6. Nor takes up a reproach against his neighbour.
7. In whose eyes the wicked are despised.
8. But who honours those who fear the Lord.
9. Who stands by their oath and does not change.
10. Who does not put out his money at interest.
11. And does not take a bribe against the innocent.
Isaiah reduced them to 6:
"1. He who walks righteously.
2. And speaks uprightly.
3. Who despises the gain of oppressions.
4. Who waves away a bribe instead of accepting it
5. Who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed.
6. And shuts his eyes from looking upon evil.
He shall dwell on high."
Micah reduced the 6 to 3 in Mic. 6:8 where it says:
"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee?
1. To do justice.
2. To love kindness.
3. To walk humbly with your God."
Once again Isaiah brought the 3 down to 2:
"1. Maintain justice.
2. Do what is right."
And finally Habakkuk reduced them all to one:
"The righteous shall live by his faith."
There were really two schools of thought. There were those who believed that there were lighter and weightier matters of the law, that there were great principles which were all-important to grasp. As Augustine later said, "Love God--and do what you like."
But there were others who were against this, who held that every smallest principle was equally binding and that to try to distinguish between their relative importances was highly dangerous. The expert who asked Jesus this question was asking about something which was a living issue in Jewish thought and discussion.
For the answer Jesus took two great commandments and put them together.
(1) "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." That single sentence is the real creed of Judaism. It is called the Shema. It was the sentence with which the service of the synagogue always began and still begins. The full Shema is Deut.6:4-9, Deut.11:13-21, Num.15:37-41. It is the declaration that God is the only God, the foundation of Jewish monotheism.
When Jesus quoted this sentence as the first commandment, every devout Jew would agree with him.
And then the second one... "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." That is a quotation from Leviticus. Jesus did one thing with it. In its original context it has to do with a man's fellow Jew. It would not have included the Gentile, whom it was quite permissible to hate. But Jesus quoted it without qualification and without limiting boundaries. He took an old law and refined it with a new meaning.
The new thing that Jesus did was to put these two commandments together. No rabbi had ever done that before. There is only one suggestion of connection previously. Round about 100 B.C. there was composed a series of tractates called The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in which an unknown writer put into the mouths of the patriarchs some very fine teaching. In The Testament of Issachar we read:
"Love the Lord and love your neighbour,
Have compassion on the poor and weak."
In the same testament it says:
"I loved the Lord,
Likewise also every man with my whole heart."
In The Testament of Dan:
"Love the Lord through all your life,
and one another with a true heart"
But no one, until Jesus, put the two commandments together and made them one. Loving God and loving men was Jesus' religion. He would have said that the only way in which a man can prove that he loves God is by showing that he loves men - and this includes loving yourself.
The scribe willingly accepted this, and went on to say that such a love was better than all sacrifices. In that he was in line with the highest thought of his people.
Long, long ago Samuel had said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Hosea had heard God say, "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice."
But it is always easy to let ritual take the place of love. It is always easy to let worship become a matter of the Church building instead of a matter of the whole life.
In the story of the Good Samaritan last week; the priest and the Levite could pass by the wounded traveler because they were eager to get on with the ritual of the temple.
This scribe had risen beyond his contemporaries and that is why he found himself in sympathy with Jesus.
There must have been a look of love in Jesus' eyes, and a look of appeal as he said to him, "You have gone so far. Will you not come further and accept my way of things? Then you will be a true citizen of the Kingdom."
A LOVING HEART
Jim Rosemergy wrote a piece called "If Love Led the Way" - "Imagine the world if love led the way - a world without war... swords pounded into plowshares ... families knowing nothing of famine. Life has been simplified; so family members can spend time together. The circle that is the family is joined, because the parents are no longer driven by "making ends meet." Prejudice is a past memory kept alive only so that it will not come again. The many races and cultures are blended together like wildflowers on a hill. Religions, if there are many, pray and worship with one another. Humankind has experienced a spiritual awakening that began when we opened our hearts to one another."
This is where we could be if we followed our spiritual tendencies instead of our human tendencies.
TAKING YOUR SPIRITUAL PULSE
Jesus said, "Love one another."
The Jewish law says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."
Hindus likewise give allegiance to love: "Show love to all creatures and thou wilt be happy, for when thou lovest all things, thou lovest the Lord, for he is all in all."
And the Buddhists: "As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let him cultivate love without measure toward all beings."
LOVE & SURVIVAL
There is a very interesting story that I want to tell you. A young boy's older brother was ill and needed a blood transfusion. Tests showed that the boys had the same blood type, so the doctor explained the transfusion procedure to the younger boy and, with the parents' help, asked if he would give his blood for the transfusion. The boy seemed startled, but he agreed.
On the day of the transfusion, both boys lay on adjacent tables, and the transfusion began. After a short time, the young lad said to the physician, "When am I going to die?" The doctor explained that he was not going to die and that he would be fine, but then the physician realized the implication of the question. The boy thought that by giving his blood for the transfusion, he was giving his life for his brother. This is love's greatest expression. Of this Jesus said, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."
Love is willing to do extraordinary things. It forgets itself and the soul's anguish and affirms the value of other people and their pain. Most of us will never have the opportunity to give our lives for others, but all of us have the opportunity to give up our anger and resentment. Loving with abandon is our spiritual tendency.
Opportunities to learn love's way are everywhere, but nowhere more frequently than in the family. I suspect that many of the world's problems continue because we have not accepted the opportunity to learn the mysteries of love in the family setting. In fact, the limitations and false premises we hold about love are often passed from one generation to the next.
CLOSING
I would like to share with you Robert Browning, who refers to love as the "imprisoned splendor."
Paracelsus
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception - which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error; and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.
Then there are two philosophers worth quoting on the subject of loving:
Goethe said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love."
and
Mark Twain said, "Always do right - this will gratify some and astonish the rest."
Charles Fillmore The Twelve Powers of Man
Genesis 1:27
Mark 10:6-9
Mark 12:28
Psalms 15
Isaiah 33:15
Micah 6:8
Isaiah 56:1
Habakkuk 2:4
Deuteronomy 6:4
Leviticus 19:18
Issachar 5:2
Issachar 7:6
Dan 5:3
1 Samuel 15:22
Hosea 6:6
Mark 12:34
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