Article July 22, 2013 Issue

The leadings of divine Love

For the Lesson titled "Love" from July 29 - August 4, 2013

Maya Dietz

Most readers probably feel they have an intuitive understanding of what love is—attributes such as affection, compassion, etc. This week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Love”, explores how mortal assumptions about love can lead to inharmony—even death—while divine Love offers and sustains complete and fulfilling life in the very same situations. When we submit to the command in the Golden Text, to love “because God first loved us” (I John 4:19), what we experience humanly is transformed. 

In each of the Bible stories, a commonly accepted form of human love leads the characters astray. In section two (see Genesis 21:9–20, citation 7), Abraham’s wife—protecting her child’s inheritance—asks Abraham to “cast out” the woman with whom Abraham has had a son. Abraham is expressing loyalty to his wife when he banishes Hagar and her son. And Hagar is expressing obedience to the culture’s rules, accepting the banishment. Based on mortal assumptions about love, these might seem like rational responses in difficult situations. But this is not what divine Love knows of the situation. Instead, divine Love provides for Hagar and her son. The angel who “calls out” to Hagar in the wilderness is a manifestation of God’s mothering care, “counteracting all evil” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 581, cit. 8).

In the book of Luke is found the parable of the prodigal son (see 15:1, 11–24, cit. 10). It could be seen that the father is abandoned by both his sons—the younger in pursuit of pleasure and the elder in self-righteous jealousy that prevents him from partaking in the father’s generosity to welcome his brother home. However, divine Love writes a different ending. The younger son learns what life and sonship truly mean. The elder son is offered an opportunity to turn ingratitude into celebration. The father offers unconditional compassion to both.