Found By Love

This is a big Sunday. Passion Sunday, which leads into the last two weeks of Lent. It is also St. Patricks Day, where we celebrate one of the great Celtic (maybe) saints (did you all have green breakfast?) It is also the 153rd anniversary of the beginning of the New Zealand Land Wars, with fighting breaking out in Waitara on this day in 1860.
Last week we listened as Jesus told the story about two lost sons. The younger one was found by his father’s love and in response repented of all that had separated him from his family and had led him to forget who he was, a beloved son. The story finished with the older son still locked into a world of duty and obedience, resisting his father’s love for all he was worth. He too had forgotten who he was and was unable to see or hear his father. Until he was found by love there would be no change.
Today we hear from Paul, a man found by love. His response was to let go, throw away even his understanding of whose he was, who he was, and what was his to do. “Without throwing away his own religion Paul, nevertheless, throws away a theology which had made him important and given him great status. In its place he embraces Christ and Christ's way. But this is more than just a change of values. It is also a deeply spiritual and personal change which affects Paul at the heart of his being and changes his future forever.[1] Love found him in his encounter with the risen Christ. Paul is seen by many today as a legalistic hardliner. In his day that was the last thing anyone accused him of. Christian Jews in particular disputed Paul's legitimacy and objected to his attitude to scripture. We might see these as the older son, still trying to earn God’s love, still struggling to know who they truly were through obedience.They demanded that scripture and its commands be seen as infallible and saw Paul as watering down God's word in the interests of winning people to his way. It was cheap evangelism, selling the gospel short. Paul, for his part, saw such fundamentalism as one of the very things which stood in the way of true faith and from which people needed to be liberated.”[2]
In the gospel we meet Mary, also found by love. She knew who she was, God’s beloved. In that love she broke every rule about how men and women interact, and how guests are treated. Her response to Jesus is one of sheer love.
As we approach Holy Week and Easter, this is a time to ask whose are we, who are we, and what is ours to do? May we make space to be found by Love, to be reminded that we are beloved, to ask do I live in response to being found by love, or struggle to earn that love? May we embrace a new way of living, as Paul and Mary did, that lets that love live through us.
As we celebrate the election of Pope Francis 1 with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, let us remember the words of Saint Francis, another found by love, who lived love with every breath, “Preach the Gospel at all times, use words when necessary.”


[1] William Loader, First Thoughts on Year B Epistle Passages from the Lectionary, http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/CEpLent5.htm. (viewed 13th March 2013)
[2] Ibid.

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