“Only love that continues to flow in the face of anger,
blame, and indifference can be called love. All else is simply a transaction.”
Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset
[Faith] should never be merely transactional -it should
be transformational
Rasheed Ogunlaru, Soul
Trader
_________________________________________________
We do not have a quid pro quo
Transactional
God
That is just not the way the Sacred works
Oh, I know
There is all that covenant stuff
“I will be your God, you shall be my people”
“Thou shalt have no other God!”
“If you obey the Lord, you will be Blessed” (all that
stuff in Leviticus and Deuteronomy)
But still
I think that is on us
That is where we go
It has to be a transaction
In order for God to love me, I have to earn it
In order for God to give to me, I have to earn it
That is how our human brains work
We think God thinks the way we think
We think God behaves the way we behave
And so we create (as Anne Lamott said) God in our own
image
And we are profoundly and terrible transactional
Yep
There it is
Quid pro quo
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours
You worship me, I’ll give you what you want
If God is transactional
Then God is really poor at math
Because if you look at how Sacred works?
It is not transactional
It is transformational
God creating the world we live in
(An act of
amazing generosity)
God sustaining
(while we
systematically destroy)
God emptying
(while we
are grabbing and grasping)
God coming down to the lowest level to serve
(while we
climb up, on other people’s backs)
God forgiving
(while we
wallow in resentment and retribution)
God reconciling
(while we
are soaked in enmity)
This is not a transactional story
This is not, primarily, quid pro quo
This is a love story
This is a grace story
This is Sacred
Working through creation
Working through Jesus
Working through the Spirit
To transform us
To make us compassionate
And generous
Yes
When we respond to love
We love God
And Love others
And even love ourselves
That is what transformation does!
It makes us new
It makes us people who don’t have to be transactional
In the way we are with God
We don’t have to be fearful
Worried that if we don’t “do it right”
Or have the right”theology”
Or mutter and utter the right “formula”
God will hate us, reject us
And torment us for all eternity
We don’t have to be transactional
In the way we are with others
We don’t have to demand that people become like us
Before we accept them
We don’t have to demand they look and think like us
Before we welcome them
We don’t’ have to demand they somehow meet a definition
of “deserving”
Before we feed them
Clothe them
House them
Even as I walk down this path
I can hear the clamoring in my own head and heart
“Yes, but….”
I can feel my soul clawing its way back toward merit
theology
Because that is how I have been programmed
By the world
By the church
And yet
The manger
And yet
The cross
And yet
Grace
And that chance
To begin again
And experience God’s new thing
That comes
Not just at the beginning of every New Year
But at the beginning of every new day
That comes
Every moment
I breathe in
Breathe out
In the end there is only God
There is only Love
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