In the early pages of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s hefty masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, there is an intriguing scene featuring a “lady of little faith” and the holy elder, Zosima. To the fatherly sage, the lady intimates her fantasies of forfeiting all her worldly possessions–and even forsaking her invalid daughter–to become an angel of compassion to the destitute.
“I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment, I feel full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds,” she rhapsodizes.
But then despair benights her visage, and she laments: “Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?…I shut my eyes and ask myself, ‘Would you persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, began abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superior authorities of you (which often happens when people are in great suffering)–what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?’ And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once–that is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am incapable of loving anyone.’”
This year, I resolved to love and to serve my home church. Now, it is easy to take on the “serving” part. It’s easy to love the idea of loving others. More difficult it is to endure the myriad concomitant abuses. More difficult it is to embrace the thousand thankless sacrifices that love demands.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
It’s an unrelenting, unending struggle: trying to salvage the scraps of your dignity as you cajole and canoodle a crowd who could care less for all your juggling and jollying, your begging and bellowing. Or so it seems, to the injured senses. What vanity.
When I enter the sanctuary of prayer these days, the Lord shows me my prideful insecurity. The people’s rejection wounds me, so I bristle with indignation. Their apathy offends me; I condemn the fatness of their hearts. Slights, real and imagined, stick from me like glittering shards. I seethe as bitterly as a jilted youth.
I have neither the natural compassion nor the willpower to make myself love those who show me so little love in return. Yet, without love, my service is empty–my righteous acts are but filthy rags. My love is stillborn, my labors in vain.
A problem that I have been presenting to the Lord is this: I pour myself out, but I am not being filled. Scripture describes God’s love as a fountain flowing deep and wide. My love is a chipped cup from CVS, and half empty at that.
There are three reasons, I think, why my love runs dry:
1) I love in order to love the lovely and the loveable.
2) I love in order to be loved by others.
3) I love in order to be loved by God.
#1 leads to disappointment, discouragement, self-righteousness. #2 leads to insecurity, loneliness, resentment. #3 leads to anxiety, guilt, fear, despair. #1 and #2 leave me empty because the finite love of others cannot fill me. #3 leaves me empty because when I try to purchase God’s love with mine, the divine love I receive is only proportionate to the finite love I give. The arrangement is such that when my love ceases, then so too will His.
Each of these three approaches begins with the self: I must love first, in order to feel fulfilled, feel accepted, feel loved. But the frail, finite self can only pour out so much love before it is emptied. What begins within the self, ends not far from the self.
Brothers and sisters, instead of looking to ourselves, we must look to God, who is the infinite, eternal, overflowing wellspring of love. If God does not pour out His love into our hearts by His Holy Spirit, then, we will not have love enough to pour out to His people (Romans 3:5).
When Dostoevsky’s “lady of little faith” fantasizes about loving the needy, she closes her eyes to imagine herself forfeiting her riches and forsaking her daughter to enter a convent. She imagines herself binding up sores, washing them with her own hands, nursing the afflicted, and kissing their wounds.
But I know a man of great faith who loves the needy with eyes wide open. He forfeited Paradise to enter our world, and was forsaken by His Father to be with us. He healed us by His own wounds, washed us with His own blood, and traded His blessings for our afflictions. With a kiss, He was betrayed, and they cast lots for His robes–so that we may be greeted by our Father Above with a kiss and a robe when we turn up at His gates. His name is Jesus, and it is impossible to give the kind of selfless love that true service requires if we do not first receive His love.
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” – 1 John 4:7-11
If anyone is running on empty, let him be filled, not with himself or with others, but with the love of God. Let us be as vessels for His love. For the love of God, and by the love of God, let us love as we are loved–not in order to be loved, but because we are loved.
My heart, like any human heart, can turn to ice when exposed to prolonged frigid conditions. However, I fret not, for I know that the love of Jesus Christ retains the power even then to melt the coldest and hardest of hearts, and streams of living water will flow within me yet.
“We love because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19
Tags: Brothers Karamazov, Church, love
May 4, 2008 at 7:06 pm |
finally!
and what a good post, at that! the wait was well worth it.