Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Convert to Love!

Very Reverend Ihor Kutash kutash@unicorne.org

(Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

"What is the greatest commandment in the law?" Such was the question Jesus was asked in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 22:35-46). Jesus answered immediately that it was to love - to love God and to love one’s neighbour. This included loving one’s most immediate or closest neighbour. Who would that be? Of course! It is YOURSELF! For if one can not love oneself then one can not love ANYONE ELSE.

But what does it mean to love? It is an easy thing to say that we love. People do it all the time. They say they love God. They say they love their wives or husbands, their children or their parents or their friends. But what do their actions say? It is true that all good actions start in the thoughts which are then usually expressed in words. But actions speak much louder than words.

What do our actions say? Do they show caring - or do they more often show indifference? The opposite of love is not really hate. When we are so angry at someone that we feel we hate them we are at least showing that they matter in our lives. They mean something. They make us angry. Anger is a useful emotion - although it can be very destructive if we act it out. But when we are angry at someone or something this is gives us a message that something is wrong between us. We can then try to correct it. We can pray, we can try to change our attitude, we can try to communicate better - we can try to be more sensitive to our needs and the needs of others. Thus we can improve our relationships. Anger can lead to hate or it can lead to a better, stronger love. Even hate can bring us back to love if we examine it and work on it.

But when we have decided that someone does not matter to us at all - when we have decided to be indifferent, then we have decided on death. Oh, we don’t literally kill the person - we just kill him or her in our lives. We say that they don’t matter any more. What can you do with that!? Imagine saying that about someone you were supposed to care about? Imagine saying that about God. Imagine saying that about yourself. Actually people do say these things - not always in so many words but by the way they think and act. Without love working in our hearts and in our minds we become dead, just as God told and Adam and Eve. He said that when they sinned it would bring them death. That is what happens when people stop loving. They become the walking dead.

Jesus came to earth to show us that God has never stopped loving us. He came here to show by His words and His actions that human beings are infinitely precious to God. He did not hurt anyone - except with the healing pain of making them aware of how lost they were without love in their hearts. He let people hurt Him so that they could see what the lack of love could make them do. And He rose from the dead to show that love is always victorious.

Brothers and sisters, it is not too late to begin again to learn how to love. Let us start by opening our hearts to God. Let us tell Him that we have not been loving Him and that we have not been letting Him love us. Let us tell ourselves that we have not been loving to ourselves or to others. Let us tell others that they matter. Let us do it not only by words. Let us do things for each other. Let us from this day forward make love our aim and love our guide. God will help us.

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