How can love be legitimated? Is there a law for love? In the Christian tradition, there seem to be laws of love that go deep and involve transformation. The beatitudes could be seen as these laws of love, but I wonder if the use of the term law itself is appropriate when speaking about love. I am no legal expert, but it occurs to me that laws function to serve society in such a way as to maintain some type of order. I think it is telling that we use the word “follow” in relation to laws. Laws demand that we follow them, so that they can quickly become something that we see apart from ourselves, but which have an impact on us, in an imposing manner. Legal or legitimate behavior is determined to be such, strictly in terms of how behavior/actions correspond to that which is legal or illegal, legitimate or illegitimate.
Inasmuch as we need laws to function in society, legitimacy has a peculiar form when we start looking at God and love, as described in today’s scriptures. Paul is clearly stating that when we speak about the promise that God made to Abraham and his descendants, we are not within the realm of ‘law.’ How could a law truly dictate Love? Love comes through the promise of relationship, and it seems that this is just what Paul is telling the Romans (ROM 4: 13, 16-18, 22):
“Brothers and sisters: It was not through the law that the promise was made to Abraham and his descendants that he would inherit the world, but through the righteousness that comes from faith. For this reason, it depends on faith, so that it may be a gift, and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not to those who only adhere to the law but to those who follow the faith of Abraham”
The promise of God to Abraham and to David, as we hear in the scriptures, involves the promise of the GIFT of relationship with God. The requirement for us seems to be that we accept this gift in Faith. This is not lessening the power of the promise and what it entails, but by removing it from the realm of law it opens up the boundlessness of the Gift itself. As Paul tells us, the Gift is not exclusive but “guaranteed to all…descendants.” Authentic relationship can only truly be maintained by a promise of faithfulness and an acceptance of the relationship on our part. It is no wonder that the relationship is described as a paternal one, as we hear Nathan telling David in our reading from Samuel today (2 SM 7: 4-5A, 12-14A, 16):
“I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. It is he who shall build a house for my name. And I will make his royal throne firm forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me”
Only the faithfulness of a parent can somehow convey that type of Loving relationship that God is promising to all of us. The force of this great love cannot be bounded’ by any law, but in fact transcends the law in a way that transforms it. In a way we could say that God’s love is quite illegitimate. There is nothing that we can do or say to legitimate God’s unconditional and mysterious love for us. We cannot earn it, and it comes to us in ways that we least expect it.
Today’s Gospel honoring Joseph on his feast day speaks about this illegitimacy (MT 1: 16, 18-21, 24A):
“Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly…when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus…”
God’s incarnation into the world came in such a way that confounded what we would consider as legitimate. Joseph could not comprehend the radical nature of God’s love coming into the world in such an illegitimate manner. It made no sense. Only the Holy Spirit of God could ‘conceive’ of such a thing. As the fulfillment or continuance even of God’s promise to Abraham and David that we would all become heirs, should it surprise us that it would come through of all things the illegitimacy of the God Child conceived outside of the law?
The preciousness of God’s love comes to us in the unexpected incarnations that surprise continuously, if we pay attention. God’s promise to love us in relationship is the gift that cannot stop giving. Our responsibility becomes the ability to see it and allow it transform perhaps tired mindsets that confine us to laws and legalism that shackle our hearts. The shared inheritance of God’s love for all of us makes us quite unwittingly brothers and sisters to each other. The divine illegitimacy confounds our often confused ways of trying to legitimize attitudes and actions that exclude and destroy rather than love and embrace.
I wonder if we can risk, like Joseph, the possibility that our expectations may not be complete, that they may need some tweaking. Can we take the chance to see that what may appear as illegitimate to us has indeed the power to transform our hearts to embrace Christ in every person and situation we encounter? This goes beyond any law, but as the scripture says, does not do away with the law, but instead gives it the context of love and relationship, the Gift of Faith that will constantly surprise us, if we attend to it and intend it.
(originally published March 20, 2017)
Peace
Thomas
The soul is the delicate yet durable cloth woven and laced together in loving pattern by the merciful strokes of God’s Passings…
And the sheen of our soul is the ever-glowing awareness we have of this sacred-stitched fabric.