Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments, or better yet, your own article. Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor
Outward worship is described as corresponding to inward when it contains the essential ingredient, which is heartfelt reverence for the Lord. Such reverence is not possible in the least except where charity, or love for one’s neighbor, exists. Charity, or love for our neighbor, contains the Lord’s presence. With it, we can adore the Lord from the heart. When we have charity, our reverence comes from the Lord, since the Lord gives us all the ability to revere him and all the vital essence of our veneration. It follows, then, that the kind of charity we have determines the quality of our adoration, that is, the quality of our worship. (Secrets of Heaven 1150)
How do I live worshipfully? This passage seems like the most basic teaching, pointing to the essentialness of love for our neighbor to life, for opening ourselves to the Lord’s presence. It is very useful for me to get reminded, to revisit the idea again and again. It is so simple and yet so easily navigated away from.
It brings up a struggle for me, a conflict of interests. When I sit with it and breathe, I have the familiar thought, “How will anything get done if I really put love for my neighbor at the top of my priorities?!” Oh, I have to laugh. The question makes me chuckle. For me currently, my neighbors are my children and my husband. It’s a familiar sentiment that carries the grasping, controlling feeling of self-effort I know all too intimately. On the other hand, do any of my accomplishments mean anything if I haven’t loved? The truth is clear in the juxtaposition. I can gently approach my TO DO list with these thoughts still rippling in my mind.
I am reminded of the passage:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And thought I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And thought I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing…Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away…And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, 8, 13)
Chelsea appreciates the time for reflection writing this column makes her carve out. In addition to mothering her three young children, she is an assistant editor for New Church Connection and an editor and writer for New Church Perspective.