Yesterday we celebrated the third Sunday of Advent in our church by lighting the candle for love. Some churches were lighting the candle for joy but we will do joy on the 4th Sunday. There is much that can be said about love as Jesus made it very clear the importance of love in God’s Kingdom, “You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. If that was not enough he commanded that we must love our neighbours as ourselves.
This priority of the place of love
was not original with Jesus. Some six hundred years previously Ezekiel
declared that hearts of stone will be converted into hearts of flesh, “I
will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from
you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) That passage resonated with me when I
listened to a webinar by Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Banks of
Canada and England and now the UN Special Envoy on Climate and Action and
Finance. This was a presentation by St. Basil's Church in Ottawa.
It was a very thoughtful and inspiring talk which addressed the issues of the
economy and climate change today and shared his vision of building a better
world for all.
Mr. Carney covered a great deal of
territory in a relatively short time but what particularly resonated with me
can be summed up with his quote of Oscar Wilde, “The cynic knows the price of
everything and the value of nothing.” To my mind this is what the market
driven economy is based on. It is very good at putting a price on things
but very poor at knowing the true value of things. I believe this
started, or at least, came to preeminence with the Enlightenment which led to
everything having to be measured, weighed and put under the microscope to be
considered valuable. The Enlightenment brought much to be thankful for
but this is what might be considered its dark side.
So, you might ask, what has this to
do with love? Well, the problem is that love cannot be measured and
weighed or seen under a microscope. Therefore, the value of love, despite
all the songs and poems to the contrary, does not have a place of prominence in
our market driven economy. As was noted in the Webinar, Amazon the
company has a valuation of worth billions of dollars on the stock market, but
The Amazon is only given a value when it is deforested and used for farm
land.
The result of this is the ecological
crisis that the world is facing today. What the world needs now, as Burt
Bacharach wrote, “is love sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s
just too little of.” If we love something we put a value on that person
or thing which cannot be measured or weighted or put under the
microscope. We need to love God, love ourselves and love our neighbours –
love the world that God created. I do believe that love is what binds the universe
together and will not be defeated by those forces that threaten to pull us and
the world apart.
Blessings, and let the light of the love of Christ shine through you on
your journey.
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