How can we know
that God loves everyone?

Speaking of Religion
The Rev. Dr. Tim Griffin

You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

This past week, the training program for spiritual directors in which I am enrolled conducted a class on the topic of shame. Shame is a difficult and intractable state with which most of us struggle.
I suspect that it is a condition encouraged by the enemy of our nature who manipulates us into feeling that because we are sinful, we are inherently worthless and unlovable. In response to this feeling, we attempt to hide our self from others and even from God. We retreat within, preferring to project a false image of "perfection" out to the world.
In this process of denying oneself, we end up exchanging the image of God who we are created to be for the image we create in order to please God and others. Sadly, the effort is doomed to failure. We simply compound our sense of inadequacy by adding to it awareness that we are being inauthentic, which is, in turn, another aspect of ourselves that we must hide.
The passage from Matthew’s gospel cited above is instructive in this connection, both for the misunderstanding it has inspired and for what Jesus actually intends.
First, the misunderstanding: Many have interpreted Jesus’ words "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" to mean that we are to be without fault or limitation — that we are never to make a mistake. When understood in this way, Jesus’ words foster an attitude of perfectionism, and shame results.
However, a careful reading of the entire passage indicates that Jesus is making no such demand on us. Rather Jesus is instructing us to love our enemies as well as our friends and neighbors. Why? Because we are to be children of God, and as God’s children we must respond to all of God’s children as our siblings — even our enemies.
And how do we know that our enemies are also God’s children? Because God’s sun rises on them and God’s rain falls on them, just as God’s sun rises on us and God’s rain falls on us. God does not withhold God’s blessings even from those who are evil and unrighteous. Rather God continues to regard them and treat them as his children. And we are called to do the same — to treat them with the respect and dignity due to God’s children.
Now there is a certain irony in all of this that is relevant to the subject of shame. I often fall short of the ideal. I often fail to love others, and I especially fail to love those who I may happen to regard as my enemies. I often fail to treat them, or even my neighbors, with the dignity and respect that they deserve as children of God.
And yet, I have noticed that in spite of these failings, the sun still shines on me, and the rain still falls on me. Even when I make mistakes, I continue to experience the blessings that allow me to know that God loves me, that I am God’s child.
And if God continues to love me in spite of these failings of mine, why should I ever need to hide myself away in shame? Why do I persist in projecting out this false image of myself rather than allowing my true self — the self that God created and loves — to shine forth?
I don’t know the answer to these questions. Perhaps, for now, it is enough to know that even when I mistreat this true self that God has created and of which I am ashamed — that even when I fail to treat myself with the respect and dignity I deserve as a child of God — God will continue to love me and bless me.
How do I know?
I only have to look out the window. ••
Father Tim Griffin is priest-in-charge at the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, at 1946 Welsh Road in Bustleton.