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The
Law of Love
Delivered by
Bruce Arnold, July 15, 2007
At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, New Bern, NC
Scripture: Mark 12: 28-34
The passage which I just read is from an episode, which took place in the life of Jesus during the week after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem—Palm Sunday—and his arrest, trial, and crucifixion. The scribe and chief priests, as Mark informs us, were seeking to destroy him, because they feared him. They feared him, because his message was a threat to their power. They could not imagine that he did not desire to have that power.
And Jesus knew that. Before they even entered Jerusalem, he told his disciples that he would be taken, mocked, scourged, and killed. If there was any doubt, it would have been removed when the priests and elders sent certain of the Pharisees to trap him into subversive words.
But Jesus’ message was more truly subversive than they even imagined. He had not come to assume the rule of law. He came to declare the law of love.
I doubt that there is a person her today who has not been touched in some way by alcohol or drug abuse. Whether it was a friend, a co-worker, a family member, or perhaps you, yourself, all of us have been affected in some way by this terrible problem. And I am certain that every one of us is familiar with that wonderful prayer, so beloved in Alcoholics Anonymous, that is called the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and wisdom, to know the difference.” You may not know that this prayer was written by the great 20th century theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr.
Reinhold Niebuhr was born in Missouri in 1892. Coincidentally, so was my grandfather.) He was the son of a minister who emigrated from Germany. He trained for the ministry at Yale Divinity School. After graduation, in the early 1920’s, he took a parish in an industrial part of Detroit. He was moved by the conditions there: the poverty, the illness, the tenements, and the exploitation. He became an active member of the Socialist Party, moved by the same compassion as its legendary, prophetic presidential candidate, Eugene V.
Debs. Impressed by his conviction and the quality of his writing, he was called to teach at Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1928, where he remained until his death in 1971.
Niebuhr’s great loving spirit never flagged. Yet, as the 1930’s unfolded, he was confronted with the twin realities of Hitler’s Nazism and Stalin’s Communism. He left the Socialist Party and rejected pacifism. He said, “There are historic situations in, which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and oppression may result in circumstances even worse than war.”
Niebuhr’s awakening led him to look objectively at human nature as it is displayed. He never ceased to promote the importance of love and compassion. He noted that, “family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of injustice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love, which goes beyond justice.” Yet he saw that belief in human perfectibility was a grave error, saying “Original sin is that thing about man, which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection, and incapable of achieving it.”
Niebuhr was particularly aware of the danger of injecting compulsory godliness into political life. Accurately assessing both Nazism and Marxism as fundamentally religious movements. And noting also the danger of outspokenly religious movements, he said that, “religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.” He warned that religion could be a source of error as well as wisdom and light. Its role should be to inculcate, not a sense of infallibility, but a sense of humility.
He did not say “conservative religion” or “fundamentalist religion.” His rejection of pacifism indicates that he felt that liberal religion is equally out of place in political discourse.
It is so tempting to be certain of our own righteousness. All over the world, people get together with those of similar faith. Whether Christian or Jew, Muslim, or Hindu, Buddhist or Taoist, atheist or agnostic, we tend to circulate among those who believe as we do, who see as we see. It makes us myopic, like
the Chicago socialite who declared, “I don’t know how Truman won. I don’t know anyone who didn’t vote for Adlai Stevenson.”
While practicing the courage of our convictions, let us also practice the humility of our limitations. Integrity—true self honesty—demands no less. And while we are at it, let us love one another more and condemn each other less. As
Nieburh said, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime, therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.”
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