Why this homily matters?
If you are a crabby miserable person, you are missing the whole point. Jesus has come to give us joy. During this great sermon, Bishop Barron describes 3 fundamental spiritual truths. The very nature and being of God. God’s love comes first, and we must respond to his love.
And the upshot of all these is that Jesus tells us, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.”
The flag of the Holy Spirit is joy. Let that joy be in you.
Key Points
During these Gospel readings, we discuss 3 fundamental spiritual truths.
Fundamental Truth #1 – The Very Nature and Being of God is Love
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
Scholars will look for canon within the canon. So, an overarching teaching that permeates and helps us to understand all of the teachings. Bishop Barron says this passage is a good candidate.
The scriptures are all about this claim that God is love.
Christianity is Unique in This View of God as Love
All religions or religious philosophies will generally say that God loves or that love is one of God’s attributes. But Christianity is unique in this claim that love is not something that God does from time to time. It’s not one option among many for Him. Love is what is what God is. God is not so much a noun as a verb. St Thomas Aquinas referred to God as not an Ens Summum or Highest Being. Thomas says God is not a being. He refers to God as Ipsum Esse. God is “To Be” itself.
The even deeper name of God is “To Love”. Love is the very “To Be” of God.
The Trinity Follows from Our Understanding of God as Love
From this follows the highest doctrine of the Church, namely the Trinity.
As God is love then there must be in the unity of God – a lover, a beloved and their shared love. We call the lover, the Father. We call the beloved the Son and the shared love is the Holy Spirit.
The highest doctrine follows from this claim. Love is what God is. So whoever does not know love does not know God.
Another point here is that because God is love, He does not fall in and out of love. This is our personal experience with every human being we know. Even the best people will love sometime or most of the time. But then they will fall out of love. They will fall into self-regard and fall into cruelty or hatred …
But if God is love that is all he knows how to do. He doesn’t change his mind. I love this person but not that person. Jesus said that he is the sun that shines on the good and bad alike. He is like a refreshing rain that falls on the just and the unjust alike. Love is all that God is and knows.
Fundamental Truth #2 – Primacy of Grace – God’s Love Comes First
The love of God always comes first. This primacy of grace is formally referred to as the love of predilection. A clear sign of a dysfunctional spiritual life is when we forget this principle. We play the game of if we impress God enough then He will love me. If I perform morally or intellectually enough, then He will love me. But this puts you in the driver’s seat. You are then in charge of the relationship. You are making God do things. It may sound pious, but you are in charge of this relationship. The great biblical truth is that God’s love comes first always. It comes as a grace, a free gift.
John wrote: In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Let that sink into your heart and your life will change. It’s not a game of if we have sufficiently loved God. God loves us so much he sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
The Bible Is the Story of God’s Love for Us
Almost every other religion in the world will intuit that there is something wrong with us. Whether it is sin or injustice or suffering. There is something the matter with us. They will lay out a path that we should follow – ethical or spiritual as a result. Okay as far as it goes. But this is not biblical religion.
The Bible is not the story of our quest for God. It is the story of His relentless quest for us. It’s not the story of how we can sufficiently impress God. But rather God comes after us. He sent his Son for us. He did not wait for us to get our act together. Rather He acted first.
Jesus says – It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.
If it’s the other way around, you are in charge. The spiritual life is allowing Christ to live his life in you. In other words, He chose us and wants to live his life in us. Grace comes first.
Bishop Barron recalls the scene from the Bible where Jesus gets into Peter’s boat. He doesn’t ask permission. He doesn’t say, “do you mind …” He just gets in. So think of that boat as your soul. He gets in. He has chosen you. So now you follow his promptings and this is the spiritual life.
Fundamental Truth #3 – We respond to God with an answering and imitating love.
There is a kind of conditional love.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Because now that he has loved us, he invites us to love him in an answering way. We enter into the dynamics of the divine love. It’s not appropriate to sit back passively. We must participate in that love.
In the Book of Revelation, he says if you are lukewarm, I shall vomit you out of my mouth. Therefore, He wants active engagement with his love. We must respond.
This is the whole moral, spiritual, ethical life. Consequently, we must respond to the commands of the Lord.
Bishop Barron recalls when he was in seminary and Cardinal George invited him to live in his house to do and talk about some evangelization work.
It would have been completely inappropriate for him to just move in. Bishop Barron had to wait for the invitation.
But once he had moved in, he had to adapt to the rules of the house. He had to follow the dress code for dinner time. He could not host a loud party for his friends with music, a keg of beer…
Once we had received the grace, he learned to live in response with that grace. You too must live in response to the grace that God has given all of us.
The flag of the Holy Spirit is Joy
The upshot of all of this is the following point.
Jesus says, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.”
If you are a crabby miserable person, you are missing the whole point. Jesus has come to give us joy. In short, love equals joy.
St Thomas Aquinas – to the question of what does God do all day? He enjoys himself! We will do the same when we respond to his love.
Suggested Homily
Scripture References
1 Jn 4:7-10..
Jn 15:9-17