the Word

by Samuel Wells

humble potter or the resourceful midwife. Yet there is also the temptation to steal, because we fear that there will not be "enough." We are generous when we trust that we'll have enough; we are covetous and anxious because we have lost this trust. One of the church's great proclamations of abundance is marriage. All is focused on a single otherbut the truth is that, far from being not enough, that one person is more than enough. Just pause and wonder for a moment at the mystery of another personanother mind, another imagination, another myriad of experiences, energies, enthusiasms and enjoyments. Could one ever exHE VOCATION OF the church is to celebrate the haust that person? And to embody the truth that the politics of love. That may sound curious. What good of one partner in the marriage can never be in condoes the gentle, touching gift of love have to do flict with the good of the other, we call them one flesh. with the ugly, underhand machinations of poliThe two persons become one body. What is good for the tics? hand is good for the foot. What hurts the knee can never Most people think of politics as a regrettable but necesbe good for the ear. They are one flesh, and the things sary business. Necessary, because we live in a world of that are good for them are things they each can have. scarce resources, there are many of us, and our needs, interests and desires conflict. We need This is the politics of love: not the calculaagreements as to the fair distribution of tion of how each partner can get a fair Sunday, June 27 these limited goods, and an established share out of life together in this world of Galatians 5:1,13-25 authority to ensure the policing of scarcity, but the discernment of how those agreements. It is regrettable, the gifts they have been blessed because in the fight over these with may be enjoyed for their muscarce resources, each of us fears tual flourishing and the service of being revealed as greedy, insecure, others. envious and deceitful. This is what marriage gets down to. Not a zero-sum game, in which one person Now imagine a different kind of politics. The key First, consider the things that really matter in sacrifices his or her career, friends, creativity to the this world. St. Paul lists them: love, joy, peace, or deepest needs so that the other can be the patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, hero, or the star, or never lose the argument. polities of gentleness and self-control. There is no need Instead, marriage is an adventure in which a love is for an unseemly scrap over the distribution of new body can bring together what neither of desiring these things, because they are not in short suptwo persons could have been apart. The only the things ply. Yet I can have enormous sums of money, thing that might stop them would be the idea as many clothes, houses, cars and university that they could somehow get there on their that are degrees as I like, but if I don't have the things own. One other person is always more than not in St. Paul is talking about, the other things are enough, when you believe that that person short supply. no good to me. And if I have love, joy, peace will listen to you until you run out of things to and the like, it doesn't matter how much I have say, when you trust that that person will wait of the other things. St. Paul's world still involves polifor as long as it takes for you to understand why you are ticsbut politics of a different kind. Instead of carving the way you are, when you realize that that person will up a limited cake, politics becomes the shared discernalways impute the best of motives to your actions, howment of the best use of God's gifts. It is no longer a zeroever clumsy you feel inside. You don't need to grab the sum game. My good no longer requires your loss, bebiggest piece of cake any more, because you are one cause the things we want are things that everyone can body, and her eating it is as good as your eating it. You have. don't have to have all the witty punch lines yourself any Although we live in the richest society in the history of more, because it's not a competition for attention that the world, we still assume that there is not enough. Not only one of you can win. enough life, not enough food, not enough entertainment, Marriages are as strong as our combined imaginations not enough happiness. This keeps our economy going. allow them to be. The key to the politics of love, the key to The truth is the opposite. There is too much. We are overthat limitless imagination that sees only abundance, that whelmed, and our imaginations can't take it all in. There is desires only the things that are not in short supplythat limitless beauty for us to wonder at. There is truth to exkey lies in worship. For it is God that stretches and trains plorenot just the dimensions of science or the ponderour imaginations, God's creation that trains us to look on ings of philosophy but the depths of poetry and the testithe world with astonishment and wonder, and God's limitmony of history. There is goodness in the human spirit to less love for us that inspires us to imagine that we and othadmirein great explorers and mighty warriors, in the ers could begin to love like that.

More than enough

19

C H R I S T I A N CENTURY June 15,2004

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