THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
If your church is following the Revised Common Lectionary, you will probably hear the story of Jesus changing water to wine from John’s Gospel today. You may also hear Paul’s teaching about the gifts that God gives to God’s people through God’s Spirit. This passage about spiritual gifts comes just before the famous teaching about love in 1 Corinthians 13. The message that comes through these readings is clear: we are called to be people of love, and true lovers are always givers. Even the gifts God gives to each person are not for individual benefit, but for the good of the whole community.
There is an inseparable link between loving and giving. As Victor Hugo once said, “You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving”. When we truly love another person, we cannot help but share our time, our resources, and, most importantly, ourselves with our beloved. God is the primary example of such extravagant self-giving, and it is significant that, in John’s Gospel, Jesus chose a wedding to be the scene of his first miraculous sign. Our Divine Lover seeks to give us life in abundance. But, as we journey deeper into the love of God, we soon discover that we are called to be extravagant givers just as Jesus was. This week we will be exploring some of the ways that God has given God’s Self to us in love, and how we can respond by learning to love in the same way.
To download this week’s reflections in PDF format, click here.
