God is love. But is love God?

As I continue to “work out” my salvation (Phil. 2:12), I am constantly pestered with thoughts that plague me until I give them attention.  There’s a question I’ve been chewing on for a couple of years, and various interactions and life circumstances have made it more immediate and relevant for me. I don’t want to throw anyone off course here, but if you are the adventurous sort and want to take a little theological ride with me, then hang on.

A couple of years ago I met an amazing woman who retired in Honduras and is using her resources to minister to “the least of these.” She and her husband are living a life of giving and sacrifice.  I asked if it was her faith that motivated her to live this kind of life, and she replied that she grew up Methodist and believed in God, but it wasn’t necessarily faith that drives her.  She said, “To me, it’s just, you see a need, and you meet it.”  It was that simple for her.  She is not trying to earn God’s favor; she is not motivated by the threat of hell or the promise of heaven.  From an overflow of compassion, she shares her abundance, and she loves the people around her, in word and deed.

When I look at her life, I see God.  We serve a God who is a lover and a giver, and her life reflects this.  She might not attribute her actions to God, but does that bring less honor to God? Is He really so insecure that He will not honor someone’s love in the world, if they don’t identify its origin?

A sunrise is awe-inspiring and shouts praises to the creator, even though it doesn’t speak.  I think a person’s life can do this as well – a life can speak of God’s love without ever saying His name.

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely believe in the power of testimony and telling our stories and giving praise to God!  However, if our words are not accompanied by transformation and action, then Henry Nouwen says it best: “Sometimes words are a verbal mask for a spiritual void.”

But many Christians would discount her work, saying that it is “salvation by works” or that if she is not doing these things in God’s name, then she gets the glory instead of God.

Generally, Christians do not have positive reactions to agnostics or atheists or people of other faith traditions who live a more Christ-like existence than professing Christians.

I used to react the same way, before I was forced to examine my assumptions.  One “advantage” of living in Massachusetts is that it is not a very religious place (I’ve always appreciated the authenticity of Christians here because there’s no societal pressure to attend church).  In fact, it’s the “least religious” state,  (well, it shares the title with New Hampshire in a tie), according to a 2016 report by Pew Research.  And in a more recent, 2019 report by Barna research group, Massachusetts had two of the top three “Most Post Christian” cities in America.

You get the picture.  It’s not the Bible Belt.  Yet I am surrounded by good people, doing good things, but not necessarily because they are trying to please God.

I doubt I would have tackled this question, if I still lived in a church-saturated part of the country.  But when you are not surrounded by professing Christians, but still see God’s work, still see His love and grace, and find Him in places beyond the church walls, it makes you look at things with a fresh perspective.  This reality forced me to ask the question:

“Is ALL love from God, even if that love comes from someone who doesn’t “know” God?” 

Theologically, there are a few red flags for Christians that come up immediately:

• If living a life of love is the true test of knowing God, this is “salvation by works” and negates Jesus’ grace, mercy and ultimate sacrifice. (Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:8-9, Acts 4:12) A Christian who believes this would say that if they don’t know Jesus, they don’t know God, and if they don’t know God, they can’t live a life of “real” love.
• If God can work through a person who does not recognize His love, doesn’t that contradict free will?

Believing that God is accessible (somehow, someway) to agnostics, atheists and heathens of all sorts (including myself), takes away all the pat answers and control that Christians like to feel.  We prefer to assume we have the answers and our way is THE way.

Letting God out of the box is too wild and scary, so we dismiss (and miss) His work in the world that happens outside of church walls and doctrine. 

But what if?

What if God can do whatever He wants?  He’s God, after all.

What if His presence is experienced in the magnificence and mystery of nature?

What if His presence is experienced in the love and care of another human being?

What if His presence is experienced in the miracle of new life, or the grief of death?

What if His presence is experienced in music and art?

What if His presence can be experienced in a yoga studio, a temple, a mosque, on a hike, at a comedy show, around a good meal with friends, and every place in between?

What if He can “break through” and reveal Himself in ways that might astound us?

What if God is bigger than we know?

What if our only job is this . . .? (What Mary Oliver so succinctly and poignantly penned in her poem “How to Life a Life.”)

“Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.”

The evangelism of my youth, when I thought that I had some solution or answer that someone else needed, has changed into the words of the poem above.  Evangelism (spreading the good news/gospel) is now, for me, about being open to seeing God everywhere and in anyone, acknowledging those moments, and hopefully, in the process, helping people connect the dots of their own experience of God.

I like to think, when I talk about God, I’m just providing language (although lacking and inadequate) for something that someone has probably already “sensed.”  Much like what Helen Keller said about Jesus, when introduced to the Gospel by Phillips Brooks, “I always knew he was there, but I didn’t know his name!”

“Evangelism becomes about cultivating spiritual awareness and about discerning the subtle movements of the Holy Spirit in people we encounter.  I see my function less as walking people through a formula of faith and more as dropping spiritual hints. “ (my favorite definition of evangelism from Introverts In the Church, by Adam S. McHugh)

This question, whether all love is God’s love, began to pester me after that fleeting but impactful interaction in Honduras. Shortly after, I had the privilege of serving on the board of a new ministry called “Uncommon Ground,” where we were trying to create safe spaces for seekers outside of traditional church. Through this ministry (and also through online communities who would sometimes connect, like The Liturgists Gathering), I had the opportunity to have spiritual conversations with people who fell into all sorts of categories:  atheists, agnostics, humanists, “nones” (those who do not identify with any religion), post-evangelicals and post-Christians, people of other faiths (Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims), and I often found that people are “drawn” to something greater than themselves, but they don’t always have words for it (or have rejected the spiritual language of their youth because it was used in a toxic way).

If we don’t have the “right” words for the “indescribable gift,” (2 Corin. 9:15) does that mean it is not real? 

This girl, who LOVES words, started to feel like words are sometimes cheap, when it comes to the things of God.

What I discovered is that people who are not traditional Christians are out there loving people, doing great things in the world, making sacrifices and often living a more Christ-like existence than some devoted Christians.  Could the good that they are doing in the world really “not count” just because they are not doing these things in God’s name?

I can’t help but think of verses like 1 John 4:7-8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

The Bible is clear – God is love.  If God is love and the Creator of all things, how can the love being lived out in the world be anything but from God?

I also think about the parable of the sheep and goats (Matt. 25:31-46), when the King (aka, God) honors and welcomes those who served others because, “whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.”  (paraphrased) And the people were like, “Um, when did we do this?” They didn’t appear to know that they were serving God.  (Maybe, much like my friend in Honduras, they simply saw a need and they met it.) Conversely, in the parable, God rejected those who ignored the needs of those around them.

Looking back, I believe the reason it was hard for me to process God’s work, His moving and drawing people outside of church culture was because I was essentially taught that God is “out there” and we have to invite Him in before His Spirit dwells in us.  When I believed that, it was easy to divide people into categories and dismiss the work of God outside of my defined walls.

But when I became Episcopalian, I was introduced to a small theological shift that became a big revelation (although, not all Episcopalians would agree with the assumptions in this writing).  In the mainline church, they baptize infants because they want to acknowledge that God’s grace and His spirit is already there.  As children grow, they can accept or reject God’s spirit, choose to cultivate God’s love or neglect it, but either way, God’s grace and mercy and sacrifice has already been extended to them.  God’s love is available to them and dwelling inside them, if they allow it to transform them.

When you stop seeing God as “out there” and start seeing God as “within,” that’s a momentous change and it has been freeing for me.  I am now free to see God in everyone (even those who do not yet see Him in themselves).  This gives me a new respect for all people, it broadens my view of how God works, it gives validity and value to all love being made manifest in the world (instead of a narrow, exclusive group), and it means that I have something to learn from them too.

I guess my point is that I believe God is at work in people and circumstances that we might not expect or even acknowledge, but that doesn’t make it less true or less impactful. 

“God is not a noun to be defined.  God is a verb that needs to be lived. . . . What actions expand life?  What actions increase love?  What actions enhance being?  That is the arena in which good must ultimately be separated from evil.” (Shelby Spong, Unbelievable – and let me just make a side note here that I wouldn’t recommend this author to just anyone.  I love his thought-provoking, often grenade-tossing, style of writing, but every time I read one of his books, it takes me months to recover!).

If someone is living a life that expands, enhances and increases love, then who am I to deny that this is of God?  Why would I reject something beautiful just because a person does not identify as Christian? (And some would discount it, if they weren’t the “right” kind of Christian.)

Here’s the thing . . . I have no idea if I’m right! I’ve come to accept that this theology stuff will remain largely a mystery, even as I continue to wrestle with it.

But I’ve also come to question anything that tends to shrink or contain or limit God’s wild, uncontrollable, uncontainable love for the world.

Addressing the Red Flags

(Note:  If there are no red flags for you, just skim the rest of this writing for summaries in bold.  I appreciate that you journeyed with me down this rabbit hole.  But if this topic makes you uncomfortable, I would suggest finishing the blog before you start praying for my salvation.)

Salvation by works?:

I don’t think this view of God’s love takes Jesus (His ultimate sacrifice on the cross) or the church out of the picture, at all. I still believe in the revelation of Jesus Christ with all my heart, and I still believe He is the way!

HOW He is the way has just expanded for me.

Every denomination has some ritual (the sinner’s prayer, baptism, confirmation, etc.) by which they “gauge” and document if a person is a Christ follower – there’s nothing wrong with these things and I think they’re absolutely beautiful.  In fact, that experience of surrendering to God’s love and saying, “YES!” (what is called being “saved” in conservative circles), is visceral and overwhelming – I’ve had the privilege of praying with people as they make this decision and it never gets old – it’s a thrill every time.

But can a heart be attuned to God without those particular markers?  Richard Rohr says that Jesus is God’s big mystery revealed on the small stage.  We need something specific to point us to something much broader.  The way the Holy Spirit works and how He works through the whole of creation is a huge mystery.  Even Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58).  If Jesus is really part of the Trinity, then this narrow sliver of God’s incarnation that we see in the Gospels is only a glimpse of who He is and how He works.  He is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the way, the truth and the life, the beginning and end —  to me, that means the creative ways God’s love can break through to people is unlimited.

Creating some room for doubt by opening up the door to this mystery, has been a gift.

I know it seems a little crazy, but if we can’t contain or capture or formulate God’s love or the way He works, isn’t that a good thing?  Shouldn’t we be excited to know that heaven might be full of surprises?  Why can’t we celebrate the idea that God is far greater than anything we will ever comprehend, instead of being in angst because we lack certainty and control?

Now, when I read scripture, I see it all over the place, in verses like this, when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about being born again (John 3:8), “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Or this weird little verse that escaped my attention for so long, when Jesus said, “ I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (John 10:16)

Yes, I know for every verse I cherry pick here, my conservative friends will have varying interpretations and lots of verses they can use to counter. And that’s okay.

I’m just saying that leaving a little room for doubt (or maybe just relaxing the grip of certainty) could be a good thing here.

You can be certain that Jesus is the way, while also leaving room for God’s spirit to work in ways that you might not see or understand. 

Some might see this as dangerous theology, but I don’t see anything dangerous about embracing the mystery that we don’t know it all and God might meet people in ways that don’t fit into our tidy Christian explanations. 

It all comes down to the condition of the heart. 

That’s why “A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to Hell than a prostitute.”  (C.S. Lewis)  It’s why in story after story in the Bible, God surprises religious people by honoring the actions and attitudes of those they overlooked (the widow, the sick, the prostitute, etc.)

None of us can know a person’s heart or their motivations, but we can see the “fruit of the spirit” in their lives:  “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” (Galatian 5:22-23)

So, I look at an agnostic friend who is living a life of love, and then I look at a devout Christian friend who loudly gives God credit for everything, particularly the way she “loves” people by pointing out their sin and creating barriers for fellowship (“for their own good,” of course – always with good intentions.  I’m sorry, but sometimes I bet God wishes Christians wouldn’t use His name so much!).  Which one more closely resembles the love that Jesus exemplified?  Which one exhibits fruit of the spirit, the evidence of a life transformed?

Free will?:

As for the other red flag, I believe free will is the one self-imposed limitation of God’s love.  I don’t believe “all roads lead to heaven” because I still believe in free will.  We can accept or reject this amazing gift of God’s love and presence.

I believe we invite heaven or hell into our lives and into the world around us with every action and attitude.

And when we invite heaven, when we recognize that we are made for goodness, however that comes to us, however that love is received, however that love transforms us for the better, I believe it is of God. I believe He is there, even if we can’t always give the mystery a name or adequate expression.

Thankfully, I don’t have to sort all this out.  I don’t have to know the motivations of the heart or what capacity people have to fully love.   I just have to love as I have been loved, forgive as I have been forgiven, offer grace and mercy that has been offered to me.

And this “perfect love that drives out fear” (1 John 4:18) also creates freedom for, what I call, “good doubt.”  Requiring certainty around a God that is far beyond my understanding creates a lot of angst and closes me off to transformation that only happens over time, as I am open to new things, and willing to evolve.

 

I’m learning (gradually, and often reluctantly) to relax into Love . . .

who is both in and around me,

who is gentle yet powerful,

who is mysterious yet tangible,

who is faithful yet unpredictable,

who both saves me and wrecks me!

“God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not waste too much time protecting the boxes.” (Richard Rohr, “Everything Belongs”)

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” 2 Corinthians 9:15