Fake and Dangerous Love

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Friday, August 19, 2016

Do you know why the love of neighbor should immediately follow the love of God? Do you know why the injunction, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” must necessarily accompany “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind?” The reason is that any practice of faith, any religion that attempts to separate the love of God and love of neighbor will not only be inauthentic and fake, but will also be dangerous. Any religious person, I don’t care if it is a Christian or Muslim or Buddhist etc that attempts to create a dichotomy between the love of God and that of the neighbor could potentially be dangerous. Human history is littered with ugly stories of people and religious groups that tried, consciously or unconsciously, to make this split. Unfortunately, we still have such people around today. The ignorance or refusal to accept that the love of God is also demonstrated in the love of neighbor, the other, is partly responsible for slave trade. The people who sold their fellow human beings for money were also religious. Those who bought their fellow human beings, engaged them in forced labor, badly maltreated them and used them as objects of making money were religious people. In fact, some of the slave owners used the Bible to justify their ownership of slaves. But if those slave traders had been asked, “Do you believe in God?”, “Do you love God?” I believe they would say, “Yes, we do.” If the slave owners had been asked the same questions, they would have said, “Yes, we do.” But they refused to see that the authentic love for God must be connected with the love of the neighbor. After reading some of the experiences of slaves in the hands of their sellers and buyers, I was convinced that those folks (sellers and buyers) deliberately shut out any idea that tries to link the love of God and that of the neighbor together. No wonder, many of the slave owners, in an attempt to run away from the voice of reason and conscience, decided to deny the humanity of the slaves. 

The attempt to create a dichotomy between the love of God and that of neighbor has also given the world religious extremists, religious fundamentalists, religious bigots, and terrorists as well. Terrorists organizations like ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram etc, are constantly declaring, “God is Great.” They will be the first to tell you that they are the real lovers of God. Unfortunately, their bizarre, twisted and fake notion of love for God prevents them from seeing that authentic love for God is inseparably tied together with the love of neighbor. If not, how is it that after declaring that God is great, they turn around and chop people’s heads off?  

When Jesus was asked by a Pharisee, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:36) Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39) And he concluded, “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (verse 40) The greatest commandment is loving God above all things and then loving our fellow human beings that God created in his image. Any attempt to separate the two is false, fake, and dangerous. But there are, not a few people, who will easily declare that they love God, but their relationship with those around them paints an ugly picture. Do you know how many times I have been told by Catholics who went to church, and as soon they settled down, those who sat on the same pew stood up and went to other pews? Why because the person looks different. Do you know how many times I have been told by Catholics that the person that stood in the front pew turned to shake hands with them during the sign of peace, but on knowing that the person looks different, embarrassingly withdrew their hands? Yet, during communion, the same folks will line up to receive the Body of Christ. 

Sisters and brothers, is that love? Is avoiding the other because of racial difference love? I know that in the past I have talked about tolerance as a good thing. But Jesus did not really call us to be a people of tolerance. We have not been called to be a community of tolerance. The Son of God called us to be a people of love. Tolerance says that I am just going to endure the pain of your existence. It tells me to endure your right to live, to be, and to be different. But if you happen to disappear, I don’t care. I am indifferent to your existence. I am indifferent to your pain. I am indifferent to your joy. I don’t care if you are blessed or cursed. I don’t care if you are joyful or sorrowful. I don’t care if you make it or don’t. I don’t care what happens to you. Your presence does not really affect me in any way. These are the messages that tolerance can convey. But Christlike love says that everyone, regardless of race, background, religion, or status has worth and value. Love recognizes that the good life I seek, the opportunities I want, is equally wanted by others. Love recognizes that we need each other. I need you as much as you need me. Love recognizes your hurt as my hurt, your pain as my pain and your success as my success. Love does not create division or build a wall. It rather builds bridges and tears down barrier for everybody. Love enables us to feel the pain of another and resolve to do something about it. Tolerance encourages individualism but love promotes a sense of community and family. Tolerance says, “Stay over there, and I will stay over here,” “Do not bother me, and I will not bother you,” “Stay in your lane, and I will stay in my lane,” “Do not talk to me, and I will not talk to you.” But love recognizes our need for each other. 

Last night (Thursday, August 18, 2016), I went to bed very sad. I went to bed with tears in my eyes. I had just returned from the house of one of the parishioners who invited me to dine with her family. I turned on the TV to know what’s going on around the country and world. At that time, Lawrence O’Donnell, the host of MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” was just reporting and showing the video clip of a four year old Syrian boy who was rescued from a rubble of a house bombed by Russian war planes in Alepo, Syria. As soon as the boy was rescued and kept on an orange color seat, he sat there quietly, wondering with astonishment at what has happened. I watched as he began to wipe off blood and dirt that covered his left eye. My heart began to bleed. I was deeply distressed. I began to cry with him. I can feel the pain of that little boy who probably has known nothing else but war. Oh! My heart was so heavy. I began to say, “Please God, do something! Stop this war and all wars. Help world leaders find a lasting solution to this carnage. Please change the hearts of the leaders of the nations to stop playing politics with human life. This boy and many others like him are yet to begin to live the life you gave them. Please God, step in and intervene. When you step in, miracles happen.” 

Now, most of those responsible for this war are religious people. They believe in God and would probably tell you, they love him. Please, what kind of love is that? Love knows that authentic love of God must be married with the love for others. Love knows that we need each other to exist, survive, live and be. Love knows that nothing good can thrive in the face of war and division. Love knows that we are weaker when we refuse to love others. Love knows that refusal to love others is an agreement to decline and fail as a people. Love knows that we become truly humans when we care for each other and have each other’s back. Love knows that united we stand, but divided we fall. 

Like many of you, I speak a lot about my mother. I guess each of you can say this about your own mother. I believe my mother is a saint. She was not famous. She did not write a book and no book has been written about her. But she did write a story of love in my life and in that of my brothers and sisters. She is a saint you have never known. One day after the death of my father, my mother addressed her children after our usual night prayer. In my family, we prayed morning and night. But my mother prayed all the time. The topic of the discussion was love and togetherness. To really drive home her message to us, she showed us a bunch of broom tied together by a black rope. She untied the broom, handed a single stick to each of us and asked us to break them. We all did. After that, she used the rope and tied the bunch of broom together again and handed it to each of us to break. One after another, we tried to break the bunch, but couldn’t. Then she said, “You see, if you stay alone, if you stay apart from each other, it will be very easy for someone to break you. But if you stay together as one family, as brothers and sisters, no one would be able to tear or break you apart.” Interestingly, on October 15, 2014, before she passed away, she reminded my elder sister, Julie, of this same act. She encouraged her to always pull her brothers and sisters together as a mother hen gathers her chicks. 

Sister and brothers, love is a powerful emotion that can make us stay together as a people, a community and a family. We can’t stay together unless we love each other. As a people, we need to rise above tolerance and begin to love each other. Tolerance says we can endure each other’s right to live and be, but love says we need each other, not just to exist, but to survive and live.