Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 1 John 4:20
“This present study in no way denigrates or undercuts an ancient accent on spirituality. I have no doubt, moreover, that from an honest gospel-focused attentiveness to mature materiality, a fresh and vibrant spirituality will emerge. We are led to see that a mature, obedient materiality is indeed a glad response to the creator God who has come bodied in Jesus of Nazareth. Thus we may address the dualism that has for much too long vexed the modern church.
We know of the affirmation of 1 John 4:20: “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” We are commended to love both God and neighbor. We dare to judge that these two loves are in truth one love. The way we love God is to love neighbors in their full materiality.
In commenting on the good king Josiah, Jeremiah can aver: Did not your father [King Josiah] eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? says the LORD. Jeremiah 22:15–16
The prophet does not say that if we know God, then we will do justice for the needy. Nor does the prophet say that if we do justice for the needy, then we will know God. Rather than either of these, he asserts that love of neighbor (brother, sister) is itself the way we know God.”
Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 78-79.
In the conclusion to this book (I am sad it is drawing to a close), Brueggemann keenly teaches us by echoing Jeremiah that “love of neighbor is itself the way we know God.” Soak in that truth.
To ignore matters of materiality is to abandon the path of desiring to know God. If we follow the ways of the world and the patterns of our culture, they do not lead us to righteousness and justice, but wickedness and oppression.
I am taking today off to be with my father and mother in Florida today. Thanks for your prayers for a special time with my parents and with my father as he embarks on a journey to treat prostate cancer.