Return to Love DevotionalSample

“Return to Love”

By Lisa Sharon Harper

Gospel Reading: Luke 15:25-32

25 ‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” 31 Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”’

Scripture: Acts 9:1-19

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ 5 He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ 7 The men who were travelling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

10 Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ 11 The Lord said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.’ 13 But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; 14and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ 15 But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ 17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NRSV)

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Scripture: 1 John 4:16b (NRSV)

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

Exercise: Lectio Divina

Choose one of the passages above and read it out loud three times. Leave two minutes of silence between each reading. In the silence, consider: “How is the scripture reading me?”

Use your journal to make note of words and phrases that stand out to you. Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart (your truest self) through these divine words.

After the third reading, give yourself space to record what you heard from the Holy Spirit, speaking to your heart through the text.

Reflection

The Greek concept of perfection places goodness inside of the object, but the Hebrews understood goodness to be located between things. Goodness exists in the ties that bind us together. “Good” describes the quality and strength of our love.

We often understand the younger brother to be the lost son in Jesus’ Luke 15 parable. He goes off, parties hard, hits rock bottom and wastes his father’s inheritance. He comes home scheming to get back into his father’s good graces and is welcomed with extravagant love. The father cannot wait to reunite with his son. He heaps love on his shoulders and restores his standing before the entire village. But the older son’s exchange with his father reveals an even more profound brokenness in this family.

When the older brother sees his father heap love on the prodigal sibling, he can barely contain his rage. He has done everything perfectly. He has been obedient. He has dedicated his life to his father’s estate. But his rage reveals a profound brokenness between them. He says he “worked like a slave” for his father and never received gifts to enjoy. The picture he paints is of a domineering, selfish father who demands perfection to receive acceptance. The older brother’s relationship with the father is grounded in fear, not love. By the end of the parable, one could argue the older son is the lost one.

Paul was an older brother of sorts. In Philippians 3:5, Paul boasts: “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” But Paul lacked love. His zeal for perfection and thirst for power led him to attempt to control the movement of the Spirit by dominating and even killing the image of God on earth.

But by the time Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, about 21 years after Jesus’ death and 15 years into his ministry, Paul had come to understand the point of it all—Love. To the Corinthian church, which was in the middle of an argument about which were the most important spiritual gifts, Paul wrote: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” He continued: Faith, hope, and love remain. “The greatest of these is love.”

The Apostle John makes it plain: the essence of God is love. (1 John 4:16b)

How, then, can we claim to love God and not actively love our neighbors and our fellow citizens and immigrants and those in other nations and our enemies and every single image of God on earth? How can we limit our love to the realm of direct relationships while neglecting the neighbors we will never know on the other side of the tracks or the other side of the world? How can we limit our love to personal giving and shirk our collective responsibility to each other come tax time?

How might our focus on being perfect like the older son, being powerful and controlling like Saul, or holding the most spectacular spiritual gifts like the Corinthian church be blocking us from what we were created for—deep and abiding love?

Beloved, we were not created to be perfect. We were not created to control. We were not created to dazzle. We were created for deep, profound connection. We were created for love.

Breath Prayer

Breathe In: God loves me.

Breathe Out: I can love everyone.