“God is love,” the Apostle John wrote in his small epistle. With these three words, the Apostle speaks one of the most profound truths of our own lives. What this phrase tells us is much more than the already mind-blowing concepts that God is a loving God, or that all love is rooted in God’s love. Love requires an other; it requires two or more entities in order for it to exist. Self-love only makes sense if the self can be located, distinguished, pointed out, and defined. Therefore, to say God is love only makes sense if there are two or more persons who can share in the love – for love is reciprocity, a confrontation of another countenance with whom I not only give but also demands a responsibility from me. It is only in the nature of God, namely the Trinitarian personhood of the Godhead, that we can make sense of such a statement concerning a monotheistic God.
To be clear, love requires actual persons. God could not love an idea, at least not in the relational sense given by the Greek word agape. Therefore, to make an inference to this statement that God could love outside of the Trinity by loving the idea of Creation is tantamount to arguing that you can love the idea of your future lover without ever meeting them – you do not love your actual lover, you merely admire the idea. An idea is not in the realm of relation just as much as relation is not in the realm of cognition. To love, as God loves, it requires a relation with an actual person.
This is precisely why John chose logos to describe the relation of the Christ and the Father: “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Must we not forget that words are the components of dialogue? John is not offering merely a new name for the Christ, he is asserting that the Godhead is made up of dialogical relation. While John used a Greek word, he definitely was not operating from a Greek perspective – logos is not the stagnant “logic” of the Greeks, it is the relational, dialogical aspect of the Godhead.
These simple words, “God is love,” offers us a deep look into our own nature. If man is made in God’s image, then man also has this relational, loving, and dialogical nature. In fact, Genesis 2:7, in the Babylonian Targum, says that when God breathed life into man, it is described as the “spirit uttering speech.” The Hebrew term for this living being, chayah, is the liturgical dimension of the soul – the dialectical dimension of the soul. The very words used to proclaim the human beings nature are dialectical, relational terms. Man is relational.
My wife, Savannah, and I recently watched one of our favorite movies, Cast Away. Two characters unfold the story: Chuck Noland, played by Tom Hanks, and Wilson, played by a volleyball who becomes the only friend of Noland on the deserted island. As an inanimate object, Wilson pushes us to see our deep human need - relationships. When the ball floats away during their escape at sea, I feel sad - not for Wilson, but for Noland. Wilson was the only humanity he had left.
This relational innateness of us is rooted in who we are. This is exactly why Jesus said the two greatest commandments were to love God and love your neighbor as yourself: these are the two commandments that are rooted in our very nature. Moreover, Jesus said that these two commandments are the hooks of which the entire law hangs. The law was given to God's people to display to humanity worldwide what it looks like to be appropriately human. The canvas for this picture is love.
So what does it mean to love my neighbor as myself? I had a conversation with a man who had a problem with "loving your neighbor as yourself." To love others, he thought, you must be able to love yourself. His problem was that even the seemingly most selfless part of Christianity is egocentric - "What a gross commandment!" he said. I shared that he had a valid point if that was the meaning of the verse. But it is quite possible the commandment speaks much more about who we are than how we should balance out the scales in our love for ourselves and others.
Let us look closer at what Jesus is really saying here. The Hebrew word for "as yourself" - kamokha - is better translated as "who you are" This is the same word we find when the Prophets shout out in praise, "Who is like you God?" The word focuses on your nature and not your ego - not what we talk about when we say "I", but the very stuff that make's up that I.
With this in mind, the commandment is better understood to say, "Love your neighbor for that is who you are." The commandment is not threatening you by saying, "I know how much you love yourself and you better love others the same amount." In contrast, God is commanding us to live up to our humanness. He is not asking us to add on to our humanity a love for others, but to acknowledge our shared humanity by loving others. This is Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan. God is calling us to be human because to be human is to be relational and loving. Most profoundly, this proclaims that in our very nature is a responsibility to our neighbor. Is this not why God saw that it was not good for Adam (who’s name means human being) to be alone?
If to be a human being is to have a responsibility, it is the responsibility towards my neighbor before my Father. The sanctified life can be summed up in this responsibility that pervades into our very nature. I challenge you, my reader, to not separate the two great commandments, but remember that Jesus was only asked to give one but He answered with two. The reason is not to add to the answer, but to complete the answer. There is no instance that my love for God does not immediately call me accountable to my neighbor just as my love for my neighbor immediately calls me to accountability before my God. There is no hierarchy; this Triangle of Relation is dialectical and inclusive. The first and greatest commandment is to love God because this relation is primal, the source of all other relation. I argue, however, that Jesus does not offer to love God first in priority, but first because of God is the foundation of the very relational nature we have. To speak of the love of the neighbor first is not heresy because it is trumping God; it is heresy because it cannot be established without the primal relation of God. In reality, love (not the will or authority, but love) for God and neighbor are in equal priority because they are always connected. To separate them, as we will see, is to completely unbalance the order God Himself established.
Went to test some new lighting techniques with Savannah. Here are the results:
Here is a quick sneak peek from Tati and Tezar's wedding. I am really loving the images from this wedding and I can't wait to show everyone the full post.
Their wedding was last weekend and if you live in Memphis you know that it was ridiculously cold and rainy. We shot about 99% of this wedding indoors and I loved what we were able to do with this awesome couple. We got to try a couple of things that I have wanted to do now for a while but have had such nice days that we have shot most everything outside.
Enjoy the peek at their images and keep checking back for their full post. Their full post should be the first one on our brand new blog! Philip is working really hard to get all the coding perfect for all the different web browsers out there.
Tati and Tezar were complete jewels to work with and were more in love then I could ever imagine. Having know Tati for almost 9 years now it was a very special day for me to be a part of. A trickle of tears ran down my cheek as I saw Tati see her future groom during their first look. Tezar swelled with pride as he saw his bride for the first time. Moments like this make are why I love my job so much!!
Huge thanks to Annabella Brandon of Asian Bees Photography for coming and second shooting with me on this wedding. I could not have done it without her! Also my younger bother Evan came out helped with lights and carrying all my heavy equipment. I didn't realize how much stuff that I use when I shoot, especially when it is all inside. I am really spoiled with my team of Philip and Ben and both had Singing Christmas Tree on the schedule for this day. Annabella and Evan helped make the day possible! Thanks guys!
Cheers,
Ava
Their wedding was last weekend and if you live in Memphis you know that it was ridiculously cold and rainy. We shot about 99% of this wedding indoors and I loved what we were able to do with this awesome couple. We got to try a couple of things that I have wanted to do now for a while but have had such nice days that we have shot most everything outside.
Enjoy the peek at their images and keep checking back for their full post. Their full post should be the first one on our brand new blog! Philip is working really hard to get all the coding perfect for all the different web browsers out there.
Tati and Tezar were complete jewels to work with and were more in love then I could ever imagine. Having know Tati for almost 9 years now it was a very special day for me to be a part of. A trickle of tears ran down my cheek as I saw Tati see her future groom during their first look. Tezar swelled with pride as he saw his bride for the first time. Moments like this make are why I love my job so much!!
Huge thanks to Annabella Brandon of Asian Bees Photography for coming and second shooting with me on this wedding. I could not have done it without her! Also my younger bother Evan came out helped with lights and carrying all my heavy equipment. I didn't realize how much stuff that I use when I shoot, especially when it is all inside. I am really spoiled with my team of Philip and Ben and both had Singing Christmas Tree on the schedule for this day. Annabella and Evan helped make the day possible! Thanks guys!
Cheers,
Ava
Awesome, Awesome, etc. etc. pictures...blah, blah....
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