Life ticks away; Practice love always

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/060418.cfm
2 Peter 1:2-7
Mark 12:11-12

When the Holy Spirit gathers believers together it is not long before an awful reality presents itself. Even as we happily enjoy our company of faithful friends, we know a gnawing worry begins to build. Both kin and friend know that life ticks away. Whether abruptly or in slow motion, believers know this inevitability, too.

Our friendship and intimacy in this world has an expiration date. It is not time that sours our life, though we blame its passing, but the repugnant stench of death itself. Peter reveals how we walk with each other even as we step over our fallen friends and are flooded with sadness from the memories of them.

Though distasteful to discuss, and dreadful to ponder, Christians more than any other must place ourselves in the embrace of brother and sisters in faith. We must hold on to each other even as we disappear from this life. For, if we cannot understand the temporary nature of this life, then any joy, especially the ultimate joy of eternal life, eludes us. 

The bible tells us so. The Church reminds us. The sacraments anoint us. And God beckons us in both directions. Grasp on to each other, he tells us; then let each other go back to him.

A keen detail to today’s reading from Peter, and most appropriate to our Christian call, is that Peter writes verses about love’s practice with a foreknowledge and readiness of his own death. He will be crucified. He positions the urgency to love each other readily and constantly in the context of our eventual, though not ultimate, separation from each other.

Peter stands among his friends, apostles and disciples of Jesus, the “Saints” as Paul often referred to them, as he writes to all of us. His readers are largely Jewish, but the tone and teaching is for the gentiles of all time. He tells them, and us, his brothers and sisters in love, of the Christian’s responsibility once the power of God has given us the knowledge of “him,” of Jesus the Christ. 

Christianity is not a cult. It lives within the world, willingly, even as the world stands apposed to it. More than “even as,” but “because” the world ridicules the God who becomes man and the followers who believe him.

The faith is not a secret to be grasped and hidden. Peter speaks intimately with an audience of fellowship, purposely leaking openly all of the fine details of Christian affection. In this public setting of written scripture, Peter reveals that everyone who knows God has access to each and every affect that describes the love of God — virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, devotion, and mutual affection. These affects result from, and reverberate love.

Beginning in verse eight, which is not included in today’s section of 2 Peter, Peter lays out two very important things for us to hear. This lovely litany of blessings from God builds upon each one. They “abound,” meaning, once they belong to us they increase in abundance. I should repeat them since they carry such vital significance. Virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, devotion, and mutual affection list the essence and fragrance of love. 

Hear what Peter says about that. “If these are yours and increase in abundance, they will keep you from being idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why is idleness and unfruitfulness something to avoid? Because, Peter then explains, “Anyone who lacks them (again, I insert “them” - virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, devotion, mutual affection, love itself) is blind and shortsighted, forgetful of the cleansing of his past sins.

We, Christians gathered and willingly joined together, are able to receive these affects of love today because of that cleansing.The sins of our lives before we knew Jesus, are no more. In truth, the cleansing allows us to know each other. The removal of sin opens our eyes and our hearts. We see the loveliness of God’s awakened creation. 

Peter calls us to supplement our faith constantly with these affectations because they will keep us from being blind and short-sighted. Awakening fades as we tire, I believe he is saying. We need love to strengthen our resolve and not fall back into death’s lie that we only live for so long.

And, he tells us these affectations of virtue into love are worth reminding “even though you already know them and are established in the truth you have.” Once we know that our sins are forgiven and gone, thus forgotten, the truth fills us up. Because, dear friends and family, we still live here. We still see death around us. The world reminds us about our failures, exaggerates our importance, and masks our awakening with doubts. 

The faith, Peter said, is not a set of “cleverly devised myths.” We know everything that makes for life and devotion simply through our knowledge of Jesus Christ. Faith does not wear out like old clothes. It’s beauty is merely covered with dust. We shake it off with the affectations of love.

Before our death we share in all that love offers. After our death, we then share fully in the divine nature — the completeness of love. These things come to those who are faithful, who have chosen to be free from their opposites, given over to God. We will inevitably escape the corruption that is in this world, because our “day dawns,” as Peter says so well. 

We are with God is love fully, as Peter says, because the morning star rises in our hearts.

* For the erudite and more gifted among us, a footnote. We can’t be sure this second letter was written as is by Peter, meaning authored by the same scribe as his first letter. Scholars waffle, though most are convinced it is not fully Peter’s words. Tradition tells us, though, it is most certainly representative of Peter’s authoritative teaching. As sound scripture, and as assigned to Peter, its merit carries anointed support by being in the New Testament canon. Since this second letter of Peter is officially recognized as divinely inspired scripture, I don’t feel I misrepresent this reflection by positioning Peter as the speaker. Especially the verses we read today where Peter references his impending death by execution and urges his fellow disciples and apostles to love.