Macrina Wiederkehr
Most of us have to taste our need in a fierce sort of way before our hungers jar us into turning our lives over to God…. In the Divine Arms we become less demanding and more like the One who holds us. Then we experience new hungers. We hunger and thirst for justice, for goodness and holiness. We hunger for what is right. We hunger to be saints. Most of us are not nearly hungry enough for the things that really matter. That’s why it is so good for us to feel a gnawing in our guts. Macrina Wiederkehr, A Tree Full of Angels
Often I think society teaches us to hunger for the wrong things. Things, looks, conditions of our body are all obsessions we feed on through media, unsaid words, the passing down of familial views on items of non-importance in God’s eyes. We hunger for the perfect body, the right clothes, another pair of shoes. We hunger for retirement and 401Ks. We hunger for security in finances, the right ‘wheels’ and the perfect life of the “Rich and Famous”. When we hunger for these types of things, we are consuming junk food. We cannot fill a God-shaped hunger through filling it other things.
When we fill ourselves with what God desires, we see through God’s eyes, what we should hunger for instead, and in the process, are less tempted by that junk food, understanding what an impoverished diet we are consuming. We understand the need for more substantial, lasting nourishment.
What are your thoughts?
I think you’re right. However, I also think that underneath all of the “stuff” we pursue lies the same hunger in all of us: the hunger for unconditional love and acceptance. This is what drives it. For example, persons who strive for the “perfect” body are really hungering for love and acceptance, but wrongly believe that they will earn it by changing the way they look.
I think we simply forget (or don’t realize) that we already have for the taking what we hunger for from the God who created us. So, I guess I’m saying is that underneath all of these actions are misplaced attempts at satiation (i.e., filling up with what you called “junk food”) of the same underlying hunger in all of us.
As Macrina Wiederkehr notes, “we experience new hungers.” Does that mean we are always trying to win God’s love and acceptance through God’s priorities?
I’ve pondered this some more….
This hunger, at its root, is a hunger for love and acceptance. If that is so, how does that fit into what God wants us to hunger after justice? Is that still the motivation? Or is love and acceptance now received the new motivation? If we have God, why do we hunger and thirst?
I am a witness to the urgency of needing His acceptance when I was separated from Him, separated from community, and separated from fellowship. That urgency is what motivated me to accept Him in my life once again. It’s a two way street, or at least we people must behave as such. Acceptance and love are truly the things that matter. Once we are faithful to Him we can in turn live out the Fruit of the Spirit in the forms of justice, goodness and holiness to His community. And in doing so the two way street becomes a multi-branched vine, a roadmap of loving. The best thing would be to NEVER stop feeling that gnawing need in our guts, that “insatiable hunger and thirst” for God’s love and acceptance. Why do we hunger and thirst? Because that is what God asks of us.
I agree that it’s a two way street, and that it begins with God reaching out to us, drawing us into relationship with him through his love for us.
My understanding of scripture and church teachings/authority is that God wants us to want him, to realize how much he loves us and, in turn, to love him back. Maybe it’s just me, but it has been my experience that accepting God’s unconditional love and grace–truly, deeply accepting it–is what is needed to repeatedly fuel the desire and tenacity to live out one’s discipleship, so that one’s actions are an overflow from a place of gratitude and joy at knowing one is loved and, therefore, loving in return. Justice then becomes something one does with love because of this deep gratitude and desire to do the will of God. The same goes for loving and worshiping God and loving and being compassionate to others and ourselves.
Something may be out of balance in our discipleship if we’re doing the works (including justice) without having what drives and fuels those actions be the faith that we are loved (and that we are loved by God regardless of how many good deeds we do). We may be wrongly believing that a personal relationship with God isn’t as important as making sure we are taking care of God’s kingdom. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind. That comes first. “This is the greatest and first commandment.” In order to fulfill this first and greatest commandment, we need to believe that we are loved by God. We need to believe that Christ sacrificed his life for us out of his radical love for us, even though we did nothing to deserve it, and that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son…” Then we can love our neighbors as ourselves.
Merton explained it well (this is one of my favorite quotes of his, which I happen to have typed in a word doc):
“He who cannot love feels unworthy, and at the same time feels that somehow no one is worthy. Perhaps he cannot feel love because he thinks he is unworthy of love, and because of that he also thinks no one else is worthy. The beginning of the fight against hatred, the basic Christian answer to hatred, is not the commandment to love, but what must necessarily come before in order to make the commandment bearable and comprehensible. It is a prior commandment, to believe. The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved. The faith that one is loved by God. That faith that one is loved by God although unworthy–or, rather, irrespective of one’s worth!”
Yes, faith without works is dead. But so is doing charitable works without faith. Otherwise, we’re doing the works with at least partly questionable motives, in which we may be trying to earn the love and approval of God (and others) through our actions, or trying to feel good about ourselves and make up for what we feel we are lacking (or to assuage our guilt) by doing charitable things for others. Granted, we may truly be helping by doing these works, but the danger in this is that it is a breeding ground for pride and self-righteousness. We may begin to expect something in return for all the works we do, even if it’s just recognition for it or gratitude from who we serve. We may begin looking down on others who don’t give away as much time and/or money as we do, and start arrogantly assuming that we are the better Christians. It’s still quite possible to resemble a Pharisee, even when one is doing “good” deeds for others. I’ll admit that this is a trap I’ve fallen into many times myself, and I still have a tendency to do that, so I have to be very cautious about it and keep my motives in check.
In essence, I need to make it a priority to continue to cultivate my relationship with God in order to be reminded of and have faith that I am accepted and loved unconditionally by him, and that without truly accepting this gift of his love, I am only deceiving myself when I think that my actions are all that really matter.
I agree but think there are other things at work here. Most of my life I’ve been pretty dumb about discipleship and God and love and Jesus.
I have spent most of my life not being too clear about my discipleship path or the best path or how it all fit together. I’ve read James a lot. Many times it just made me feel guilty about not serving enough.
Often in my life, I’ve served without the heart initially, but was transformed by the experience. God worked on me often unawares or enlightened to why.
Therefore, I believe there should be a disicpline to disciplship as well, with the intention that it is our duty to serve for God.
Often I’ve found that love emerges from this practice that would never had the opportunity to flourish otherwise.
I can see how that would happen. good point. I definitely do think that service is a spiritual discipline, so that’s not what I was trying to say, although it may have come across that way. thanks for the discussion–it got me thinking and all that good stuff.