There has been much talk of late in these parts about affiliation.
The dominant conversation here on my radio and newspaper is about colleges and conference affiliations and the relative values of several different affiliation. There is much gnashing of teeth over the loss of tradition and anticipation of possible futures. It is a reminder of the importance of affiliation, of belonging, of the value of connecting and the importance of seeking out such connections as are most valuable in so many ways.
Which is the problem with affiliations.
They are value-based. Well, what isn’t in this world? It is our essential motivation, our greatest purpose. To value. To find and receive value. To share value, particularly where it returns more value to us. It is the lens, the dogma, the doorway through which we come to affiliate.
What’s in this for me?
Every affiliation, every relationship, every purchase and gift subsists in this narrow category. Every act, every choice, every moment of every day is measured by its value. What did I gain? What did I add?
And this is the source of our every failure. We hope for value that we cannot obtain in this world, we ask for value from those around us that they cannot give, we pretend to add value to the world that we do not have. We have raised this world and each other and our lives to a bar that they cannot pass. We have laid down a standard that cannot be met.
Because we are prisoners of affiliations who do not understand what value is.
The word affiliation does not appear in the Bible. Ever. Anywhere. God is not interested in our affiliations, knowing that we assign them value that does not exist. What matters is not affiliation, not the simple, pragmatic, contractual, careful, casually made and easily broken relationships that we pretend matter.
What matters is love.
Compassion, as Luther translated it, is not an affiliation of value. It is, rather, a gut-wrenching, full body and soul leaping, go all in approach to life and the world around us. It is not a “what could I choose to do?” but a “how could I not?” altitude of existence. It is the fullness of grace, the wholeness of abundant life, the challenge and dare of discipleship.
It is the difference between listening to news about poverty and putting a check in the offering. It is the difference between worrying about pollution and changing the way we use energy. It is the difference between caring about homelessness and picking up a hammer at a Habitat build. It is the difference between a sympathy card and a hug.
And it is what really adds value.
No one has ever been truly changed by an affiliation. Oh, certainly, we’ve shared by, delighted in, been proud of our affiliations, but not changed. It is only profound and intimate places of compassion that have the power to form and move. It is only grace. It is only love.
For what else except grace has the power to move a God of wrath and righteousness to give his own Son to redeem a broken and lost creation? No affiliation of this world or the next can produce such a day.
For we are daily blessed to know a God who does not affiliate with us but loves us, graces us, embraces and sacrifices for us. And perhaps we might, in the midst of our search for affiliation, pause to love as well.
If it might not make much news, it would surely change the world.
The dominant conversation here on my radio and newspaper is about colleges and conference affiliations and the relative values of several different affiliation. There is much gnashing of teeth over the loss of tradition and anticipation of possible futures. It is a reminder of the importance of affiliation, of belonging, of the value of connecting and the importance of seeking out such connections as are most valuable in so many ways.
Which is the problem with affiliations.
They are value-based. Well, what isn’t in this world? It is our essential motivation, our greatest purpose. To value. To find and receive value. To share value, particularly where it returns more value to us. It is the lens, the dogma, the doorway through which we come to affiliate.
What’s in this for me?
Every affiliation, every relationship, every purchase and gift subsists in this narrow category. Every act, every choice, every moment of every day is measured by its value. What did I gain? What did I add?
And this is the source of our every failure. We hope for value that we cannot obtain in this world, we ask for value from those around us that they cannot give, we pretend to add value to the world that we do not have. We have raised this world and each other and our lives to a bar that they cannot pass. We have laid down a standard that cannot be met.
Because we are prisoners of affiliations who do not understand what value is.
The word affiliation does not appear in the Bible. Ever. Anywhere. God is not interested in our affiliations, knowing that we assign them value that does not exist. What matters is not affiliation, not the simple, pragmatic, contractual, careful, casually made and easily broken relationships that we pretend matter.
What matters is love.
Compassion, as Luther translated it, is not an affiliation of value. It is, rather, a gut-wrenching, full body and soul leaping, go all in approach to life and the world around us. It is not a “what could I choose to do?” but a “how could I not?” altitude of existence. It is the fullness of grace, the wholeness of abundant life, the challenge and dare of discipleship.
It is the difference between listening to news about poverty and putting a check in the offering. It is the difference between worrying about pollution and changing the way we use energy. It is the difference between caring about homelessness and picking up a hammer at a Habitat build. It is the difference between a sympathy card and a hug.
And it is what really adds value.
No one has ever been truly changed by an affiliation. Oh, certainly, we’ve shared by, delighted in, been proud of our affiliations, but not changed. It is only profound and intimate places of compassion that have the power to form and move. It is only grace. It is only love.
For what else except grace has the power to move a God of wrath and righteousness to give his own Son to redeem a broken and lost creation? No affiliation of this world or the next can produce such a day.
For we are daily blessed to know a God who does not affiliate with us but loves us, graces us, embraces and sacrifices for us. And perhaps we might, in the midst of our search for affiliation, pause to love as well.
If it might not make much news, it would surely change the world.
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