Love is the most precious gift we give each other. Often in our human history,
though, that reality was disastrously
lost, most tragically by religious people . You can trace almost unbelievable love in our history but
often have to lament the irrational loss of it as well.
There were times when we would not consider for
elections people who were not rich, not
white, not owner of enough property, not male, not this , that or the other,
the number of ways we prevented people having
a say in running a country, corporation or sports club was impressive. Eventually,
when good sense was tending to overcome silliness we
seemed to be running out of reasons for
excluding fellow citizens from the right
to share our decision-making. Politics, social status, religion, the law,
business, money, with all their power and influence could not limit forever
such decision-making to elites. In the Borough of Antrim and Newtownabbey the recent surprise was that being
"gay" did not prevent Alison Bennington from being selected and
elected. Another fence down.
In the Bible , the books of the Jewish religious
tradition in which Jesus of Nazareth was brought up, there is a fascinating
story of two men, two close friends, David and Jonathan.
Jonathan is killed in war. David mourns him and says:
How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the battle!
Jonathan lies slain upon your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
greatly beloved were you to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
greater than the love of woman.
What a statement that was of the love this man had for another. Whether we take them as historically accurate or not the words reveal
two lives mysteriously entwined. Could their
love for each other have been expressed more strongly? For centuries Christians
have kept this outburst worthy of inclusion in their sacred books.
Another story millions of Christians have accepted
into their Bibles is that of Naomi and
Ruth . After suffering many hardships together their time of parting seemed to
have come. Socially and financially it seemed best for them to separate. Ruth said
No. They had suffered and endured together and now there was something between them to which nationality, prosperity, even religion had to
give way. She said to Naomi:
"Do not plead with me to abandon you, to turn back from
accompanying you; for where you go I shall go, and where you spend the night I
shall spend the night. Your people will be my people, and your God my God.
Where you die I shall die, and there is where I shall be buried. May Jehovah do
so to me and add to it if anything but death should make a separation between
me and you".
Staying together "until death do us part" was
not just a matter of status or finance for the women choosing a shared
life as strongly as Ruth and Naomi did.
That story - it may have been historical, or one of
the tales of a storyteller rather than
history, but in any case it was an early
cultural and religious lesson in " who is my neighbour " whom I love, a question still disputed in Jesus' time, hundreds of years after the story was being told
round ancient firesides of the Middle
East. That question, answered by Jesus in
His day, is being asked still - whatever finance may say, or religious severity, or
politics the love of woman for woman and man for man often and quietly
confronts us too. And wins.
So where did Christians get the idea that man should
love woman but woman must not love woman
or man love man ? From the Genesis command, " human beings should multiply and fill
the earth "perhaps, as if it meant that
any loving that did not bring children was not required or welcomed? From emperors who demanded more than
the Creator did , namely that everybody should generate as many soldiers for their
armies as their greed required? Some
emperors admitted as much.
When Jesus asked for
a refreshment and renewal of people's ideas of how we should live He had
no hesitation in saying things many public
speakers in Christian history did not dare to say. He confronted a follower,
Peter, with the question , "Peter, do you love me more than you love these others ?" And a gospel biographer did not hesitate to
write about "the disciple whom Jesus
loved". He loved them all and the non-disciples
as well but with John there was a special bond. At supper the night before
Jesus was executed John had a very
special place at the table, not only beside Jesus but at one stage
"leaning on His breast...." Love was for everyone but could have a special depth for one particular person as well,
man or woman.
Yet religious history struggled for centuries for or
against the idea that a
man could honourably love a man, a woman honourably love a woman with dignity, without hurt to
either of them or to the community in which they lived.
Christians have been
confronted with this reality from
their beginning. The County Borough
election in Antrim and Newtownabbey 2019
should not have surprised them. Neither
should a letter of the year 340 a.d.
sent from a saint, Jerome, to a
hermit, Rufinus.
St Jerome was an
irritable Christian, inclined to
fall out with people, friend or foe. Somewhere around the year 340 a.d. he wrote
this letter that at first reading seems - let's use the word again - surprising.
Jerome was in Antioch, Rufinus, his friend from student days, was in North
Africa, near Alexandria. Jerome wrote to him and the beginning of the letter
reads:
Dear Rufinus
"
I knew from our Scriptures that God gives us
more than we ask Him for and often grants us things which eye has not
seen nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of man, but now,
dearest Rufinus, I have had proof of it in my own case.
I
could not believe that just by exchanging letters I would be allowed to pretend to myself you were with me in the flesh when I
hear you are penetrating the remotest parts of Egypt, visiting the monks and
going round God's family on earth. Oh, but if only the Lord Jesus Christ would
suddenly transport me to you as Philip was transported to the (Queen of
Ethiopia's) courtier and Habakkuk to Daniel, with what a close embrace would I
clasp your neck, how fondly would I press kisses upon that mouth which has so
often joined with me of old in error or in wisdom. But because I am unworthy
that I should so come to you, and because my poor body, weak even when well,
has been shattered by frequent illnesses, I am sending
this letter to meet you instead of coming myself, in the hope that it
may bring you hither to me caught in the meshes of love's net ".
This interesting communication from one young man to
another is included in "The Letters of St Jerome", published in 1942 by Fr. James Duff , Professor
of Ancient Languages in Maynooth College. Fr. James (Jimmy to us) later became
Parish Priest of Castlewellan, Co Down. He was known as an ascetic, strict in
his way of life and in what he hoped for in others. The book was used by his
students of Latin and in his Introduction to it Fr. Jimmy wrote that St Jerome at times wrote "in a style that is highly
rhetorical".
Yes, indeed he might well say that. But maybe his writing is
more reflective of some Christian ideas in Jerome's time than we
think. If a student wrote a letter like this in 1942 he would probably have been asked to leave. the
College. By Jimmy.
We have an idea of churches and other religious
groups never changing or adjusting their
beliefs or their attitudes. But how true is this? They have changed a lot as time has gone on and the more change there is the quicker the speed
of it may change too. After change there comes reaction - what we used to refer to as prudish Victorian
ideas gave way to ideas that almost
anything goes. Ideas among religious
groups as well as others may go in cycles.
The few examples quoted here from Judeo-Christian
history may suggest to us some historical ebb and flow of ideas, even of strict
moral ones.
Which suggests that we all - religious groups, political
parties, journalists, historians and all - have a lot of homework to do before
we put pen to paper to put our fellow
citizens in pain about anything as important as loving each other.
