Caritate Dei

My friend and colleague the Rev. Tom Macaulay preached a wonderful sermon today in which he told a story about a man who had fallen on hard times. Desperate for food, the man took refuge in the soup line of a local church. After he'd been fed, he asked what would be expected in return. Would he have to scrub the floor? Do the dishes? Listen to a sermon about being grateful?

No, none of that, the woman he asked replied. When he looked puzzled she pointed to a sign over the door, which read "Caritate Dei." He asked what it meant. The woman responded that it meant that the church had fed him out of "love for God."

It is a great story, and my dim memory of Latin--largely unused for the past thirty years--suggests that this is an apt translation of the phrase. But, unless I'm wrong, there is another as well: the "love of God," or, if you will, "God's love."

If this is correct, then Caritate Dei is a delightful latinate pun. It means both that God shows love for us and that we show love for God. The symmetry is perfect linguistically; we should aspire to make it perfect behaviorally.

I am not confident that this is good Latin. But I am completely confident that this is good theology.

Quarreling With God

When he was on his deathbed, Henry David Thoreau was supposedly asked by his aunt whether he had made peace with God. Thoreau responded "I did not know we had ever quarreled." Like many stories about Thoreau this one has great curmudgeonly charm. But it isn't great theology.

In fact, people of faith often find themselves quarreling with God. Abraham, Moses, Jacob -- all quarreled with God. Jesus's disciples left everything behind to follow Him; but they remembered to bring along their skepticism, challenges, and questions. Indeed, we even hear something of this in Jesus's own words in the Garden of Gesthemane: "My Father, if it is possible , let this cup pass from me." Of course, Jesus hastens to add: "Yet not what I want but what you want." (Matthew 26:39)

Sometimes we quarrel with God because we don't understand why certain things happen. We don't understand why good people suffer or why bad people succeed. We don't understand starvation or war or poverty or disease. We don't understand natural disasters. We don't understand why life and death are so often so hard. These quarrels, though, tend to die out under the weight of their own pointlessness. After all,we do not and cannot have any final comprehension of why such things happen in a world under the control of a loving God. And so we pray for faith and we work to make things better.

And that brings us to the other reason we sometimes quarrel with God. Sometimes we quarrel with God because of what God calls us to do. Sometimes we quarrel with God because following leads us into some difficult and inhospitable places. Sometimes we quarrel with God because loving and forgiving and reconciling and embracing pose serious challenges.

Maybe, like Thoreau, you have never quarreled with God. Maybe that's just fine. Or maybe you haven't quarreled because you're not listening to what God is asking of you.