Love at the Center

a reflection on Luke 7-8

by Meridith Mitchellweiler

Within this week’s readings, Jesus twice mentions the importance of hearing God’s word. First in 8:15, he explains the meaning of a parable: “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” He mentions it again in 8:21 in response to a reference of his mother and brother: “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”  

After spending time reading the passages last week, a question kept coming to mind, especially in light of what we have been leaning into Sunday mornings. What does Jesus mean when he says “hear God’s word and put it into practice,” and “hear the word, retain it and by persevering produce good”? 

I believe the only way we can begin to answer this question is to look to Jesus. After all, who could be a better example of what it means to hear God’s word and put it into practice, than God Incarnate? As I was reflecting on the Jesus we have gotten to know through Luke, I was reminded of a quote from a devotional I read earlier in the month. Brian McLaren writes, “Of the many radical things said and done by Jesus, his unflinching emphasis on love was the most radical of all … Love decenteredeverything else; love relativized everything else; love took priority over everything else—everything.”

As we have seen in the past few weeks, Luke shows us a Jesus who is far more concerned with the weak than the powerful, whose every act embodies a love incomprehensible to the people of this earth. Love was at the core of everything Jesus did and as such his love “decentered” all worldly concerns and aspirations.

In this week’s readings, we again see that Jesus’ love and focus on the vulnerable was confusing to the Pharisees and many others. In a class I took in college, the professor presented the thought that perhaps the disciples were disappointed by Jesus at first. Perhaps they expected a new king to take power over the system in play to fix their broken and oppressive society. But they were instead met with Jesus the healer. How was loving the poor, sick, and sinful going to fix the major societal issues? 

I’m coming to discover that Jesus did not come to fix the problems of the world from the outside, as was expected by many. He seemed more focused on the inside, the hearts of the people. Just in this last week’s readings we saw the story of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. From the outside, she was marked as sinful, but Jesus focused on her heart instead. What mattered to Jesus was her reaction to his love for her. She expressed that love in the most vulnerable of ways. She came to him in a wealthy and powerful man’s home, used her own tears and hair to clean his dirty feet, and anointed him with an expensive perfume. She didn’t appear to care how it looked. All she cared about was expressing her “great love.” Love was at the center of her actions. Everything else was then decentered. 

I look at the times when I have felt God’s love the strongest and it has been when I am at my most vulnerable. When I have messed up horribly, like the sinful woman, or when something awful and out of my control has happened to me, like the widowed mother. I think I turn to God in those moments so easily because it’s clear I can’t do it on my own any longer. I need Him. I need His love. In that place, I’ve found I feel strangely at peace. His love takes its place at the center and I merely act in response to that. Everything else goes quiet.

I think placing love at the center, whether in accepting God’s love for us or showing His love to others, is what it means to put God’s word into practice. At least it seems that’s how Jesus did it. As Paul says in Galatians 5:6: “What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.” 

artwork: Mary’s Sacrifice, Wayne Forte (2008)