Next weekend is my daughter's prom. It the first time she spent a chunk of her own change on the dress and drove 20 miles to a good seamstress to have the hem taken up. She's going with her best girlfriend. I, of course, had a few male candidates to suggest. But what does a mother know? I should know better. I remember with such clarity my senior prom. The boy I went with was totally mother-approved. I still have the photo around somewhere: The memory of the velvet dark green dress she made and his totally 70's gray tux is securely etched in my mental time-line. That was the last time he and I spoke, I'm pretty sure. Mom was disappointed, naturally. The lead up mantra to the event went something like this: "But he likes you so much... and he's so nice looking.... just try to get to know him... etc., etc. etc. I know it well, because to my horror, quite recently, I have used these very words myself. My bad.
The same kind of thing tends to happen when well-meaning Christians try to convince non-believers or "the lapsed," that they should try to find a way back to Jesus, who is waiting for them with open arms. There is mother, truly out of a place of love and wanting the best for their beloved child, working every angle to leverage some change of heart. "But he loves you... he died on the cross for you... why can't you see that if you opened your heart to him you'd be so much happier?" etc., etc., etc.
When will we finally understand that we cannot talk people into love - not with their prom dates and certainly not with God?
Aside from the obvious, the prom date approach is ill-fated from the start because it misses the point, completely. Love is not logical. It cannot be planned or reasoned out or scheduled. Love is not within the control of human constructs, nor can it be constrained. With the first spark, the flame of love licks out large and bright before settling down into what is steady and predictable; no longer threatening or alarming to those who are readily prepared to dispense judgment on such things. Sometimes it diminishes for no apparent reason; the charred and fragile remains are humble evidence that something that was once alive is no longer. Sometimes love outlives even itself; its passion for being a part of life's design enables it to smolder for a very long time hidden under thick ash cover, guarded and preserved. These are human experiences of love: whether love for another or love for God. God does not love as we do. Rather God is the full expression of both the love we possess and claim as our own and all that we cannot. By simply being God, love is made known and accessible. When we find that we are bound to Jesus/God in love, we are embracing love itself. It is one thing to know that we are loved by God and to have the knowledge that our return affection is requested. It is quite another to give oneself over to that love, however imperfectly offered. Human love is always constrained by guarded reservations. A mere tear in the fabric of our stalwart defense again the persistent assault of God's love can mean the end for whatever self we had hoped to preserve. To walk this earth with the love of God in one's heart is a powerful elixir for healing the deep wounds this life so randomly inflicts on the body and soul. To know that we can love at all because we were loved first provokes the most divine speculation about what else may be revealed in the course of time and place. Yes, we have been loved from the beginning: our beginning, the world's beginning, even still, at the beginning of this day. And before we awake tomorrow, love will have already arrived.
During the season of Easter, many churches conclude their worship with a formal dismissal couched in Alleluias, which means: "Give praise to God." For the forty days of Lent, observed during the coldest, darkest part of the Pennsylvania winter, this word of acknowledged love was hidden from plain sight; smoldering under the thick ash of what we perceived as ruined. In these great 50 days of Easter, with targeted intention, we fan the embers, throwing off the dead ash and coaxing up the young flames until on Pentecost they boast the height of heaven. The Sunday readings seek to teach us about this love. The pastors expound upon it. And both the earnest and the blind respond: Alleluia! Alleluia! Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Alleluia!
