SoCe: Discernment, Obedience, and Love Part 6 by Matt
We have come to the climactic ending of this series, looking at the underlying work of SoCe. And in the end it really is about love, which binds discernment and obedience and gives it all life! Here’s how...
First, love clarifies discernment, because whatever we suspect the Spirit is leading us to do, we can trust it to be the most loving action--if it is not, we’ve probably misunderstood the message. And that is the great news about the kingdom of God--to enter the kingdom is simply to act in love toward others--whoever they are. That means all of humanity was created to enter into the kingdom of God, because at our core we were created to love. And we are all capable of loving, which means we are all invited!
Naturally we can object and say, “I’m not capable of love because I don’t always feel love.” Here we need to clarify that love is not just an emotion, it is also the desire for what is good. So we must move away from the cultural misunderstanding that love is something we “fall in” and we must instead explore the possibility that love is something we build--like a home. We can make small daily choices that strive for the good of others, our true self, God, and creation. With time these choices start to accumulate and shape our daily life.
Love is also the culmination of obedience because doing the loving thing is usually not worthy of headlines in the media, and yet it is essential to life. Love happens in the mundane. Love is making breakfast for your family--every morning, with a desire for them to know you care about them and are on their side. Love is taking the time to really listen to someone as they process their struggles--even though you can’t fix them. Love is sharing your wounds with others so they know you are a real human being. Love is gazing at the flowers in the backyard while you drink your coffee. Love is taking a moment to breathe deeply and ground yourself in God’s care for you. Love is putting your toddler in time-out when he’s losing his mind.
Yesterday my neighbor came to my door. He wanted to let me know that a woman down the street had been hospitalized with low-blood pressure and dehydration. He only noticed this because he had not seen her taking her daily walk and so asked another neighbor. At the moment, there is nothing we can do but offer prayers, and so that is what he promised we would do--he came immediately to me and asked me to keep this need in my prayers. It seems that Jesus is showing up all the time to teach us something about love!
Therese of Lisieux in her brilliance wrote, “You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”
Therese of Lisieux
And so, I would like to end this series as I began it: As you read about our little SoCe community, if you are tempted to do what we are doing: for the love of God, don’t! You don’t have to move to SoCe, or down-size, or simplify, or serve the homeless. Don’t follow us! Instead, redirect that desire to follow Jesus. To do so, you will need to learn how to discern, be obedient and love. Those three things are not for the elite super-Christians; they can be done by anyone who wants to follow in the way of Jesus. And as we do so, we help reveal and move into God’s kingdom of love!












