24 March 2006

Walter Brueggemann writes of two interpretive strategies of obedience to the command of God in "The Covenanted Self."

Believers are those who love God with their whole heart, or more colloquially for Christians, "love the Lord Jesus." Such "love" is to be understood in all its rich implications, both as agape and eros, as true heart's desire. This is imagery not often utilized in....Calvinist inheritance, beset as we are with a heavy sense of duty. But alongside duty, in any serious relationship are desire and delight, the energetic will to be with the one loved, to please the one loved, to find in the joy of the one loved one's own true joy. Thus one in love is constantly asking in the most exaggerated way, "What else can I do in order to delight the beloved." In such a context one does not count the cost, but anticipates that when the beloved is moved in joy, it will be one's own true joy as well.

Quite a beautiful way to look at a covenantal relationship. Such love we would say is visible to us on the cross. There, the intensity of God's love for us - God's loving covenant with us - is seen without concern for the cost. Therefore, we too are invited to come into this way of love and we look at the journey and contemplate the cost of discipleship...and we too can throw ourselves into a loving relationship with our God that will be a delight. This is like the loving relationship we enter in our own lives. Hearing this strong and beautiful language makes me think that it matters not who the people are who enter into such a covenant. The duty, the delight, and the desire creates a relationship that breaks the boundaries of gender. There need not be any anxiety or fear when another relationship does not look like mine. A covenant relationship of any kind needs to find within its life, these powerful aspects of a loving relationship that can only make the couple and the society and the church a better place to raise up new generations of God's people.

Connection: Find the delight in your covenant relationships...honor the desire...fulfill the duty. Then, let us talk about the beauty of a covenant with one another and with our God whose love is beyond all of our anticipations and expectations.

Lord of Love, by your love we begin to see the power of relationships that our self-giving and able to simply delight in the presence of the other. Keep us mindful of the responsibility within our relationships and the joy that grows as we enter more deeply into the love your have shown for us. Amen.