Exodus 34:10-14 Matthew 5:43-48
It is a strange thing for Love
Dare© #8 to maintain that "love is not jealous" when the perfection
of Love - YHWH - proclaimed to Moses the Holy Name to be "Jealous"
(Ex 34:14)! It is hard (in fact, ill-advised) for us to ignore James' warning of what comes as a result of
envy and then try to find a positive attribute of "jealously"
connected to our Lord. James writes, "Where there is envy and
selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every
kind" (3:16 NRSV) - and - "Those conflicts and
disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your
[personal] cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do
not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot
obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts" (4:1-2a NRSV).
The word "jealously"
comes from the root word for "zeal" and means "to burn with an
intense fire". This is as close to what the Exodus passage conveys as any can come, so we
understand "jealously" in this context as "righteous"
jealousy just as we can often understand the Lord's provoked anger as
"righteous" anger. The Lord is never angry without good and
justifiable reasons, so it is reasonable to believe the Lord is not jealous
without reason. This is not typically a problem for believers because in
very simple terms, the Lord is Holy and thus "perfect"; incapable of
being irrational. When it comes to human emotions and envy, however, the
best that can be said about us is that we are perfectly imperfect!
A fair comparison, then, can
hardly be made between the biblical context of the "jealous" Lord and
the often irrational human element of "envy" because the Divine
element of jealousy wants what is best for creation for the sake of the
Covenant - while the human element of envy only wants the best for
oneself. So human envy is destructive in its nature rather than
constructive - and it is irrational rather than rational because we only
consider what is at stake for ourselves with no regard for how others are affected. Human
envy bears very little resemblance to divine jealousy.
We must consider that element of
human envy that is closely - and dangerously - related to
"covetousness"; that is, virtually demanding something that is not
ours to have, something for which we have no rightful claim, something that
cannot be reasonably attained, or something we simply do not need in spite of
the intensity of our personal desires. In our irrational minds and
unreasonable demands, we become "victims" with a false sense of entitlement searching for someone to blame for
our irrational and unreasonable demands and deficiencies. In this we defy
Jesus' teaching not only in refusing to pray for or bless our enemies - BUT -
we create for ourselves a whole new class of
enemy defined only as "those who have what we want"! And more
often than not, all this "new enemy" ever did was to simply live
their own lives.
Now there are some favorable
comparisons with the nature of our Lord's jealousy and our own jealousy toward
our spouses, but the comparison can only be justified if we have
earnestly given to our spouses the very best of ourselves. It is not a
matter of what we think we are entitled to - OR - how we think our spouses
should just act "because the Bible says so". When we give
earnestly of ourselves (as the Lord has done) and are still shunned or
disrespected (as the Lord was and still is), then we have a legitimate gripe
(as the Lord does). These are legitimate feelings of betrayal that,
unfortunately, often give rise to illegitimate claims and sometimes criminal
actions which is where we depart from any favorable comparison to the Lord and
the Lord's jealousy.
Israel betrayed the Lord by
defying the terms of the Covenant which was established after the Exodus from
Egypt; as a result of this betrayal, the people of Israel were driven from
their new land to a foreign land. They lost their homes, their friends,
their families, and their national identity all of which was intimately
connected to YHWH. They lost everything
because they had convinced themselves they can go it alone - without the
Lord. So the Lord left them to their own
devices; He loved them that much. It is
as the saying goes, "If you love something, set it free. If it does not return, it was never
yours." But Israel, through
repentance, chose to return.
What survived the Exile, then,
was not necessarily a favored and faithful few - but rather a remnant of the
Eternal Covenant itself; the desire of the Holy God to give His people His very
best: "I will make a
new covenant with ... Israel ... not according to the covenant that I made with
their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of
Egypt, My covenant which they broke, even though I was a husband to them ... I
will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts; I will be their
God, and they will be My people ... I will forgive their iniquity, and their
sins I will remember no more" (Jeremiah
31:31-34).
The Lord had given Israel the
very best of what they needed: freedom and life. Therefore the Lord had a
legitimate claim to the people of Israel within a covenant they had agreed to
(the same legitimate claim He has today on those who freely enter into the
covenant by baptism AND on
those who are brought into the covenant by their parents or guardians), a
covenant that involved terms and conditions that must be upheld (now as
then!).
The sacred nature of this
covenant is the same sacred nature of the covenant we enter into when we become
members of the Holy Church AND when we enter into the covenant of
marriage. So while we have a legitimate claim to a wayward spouse who may
choose to seek happiness elsewhere in spite of our best efforts, this claim is
not of the same nature as that of a tractor or a pig. The nature of the
covenant is not one of "ownership" but, rather, "partnership".
It has been suggested by some
that envy is wanting what rightfully belongs to another, but we can only be
jealous of what rightfully belongs to us. It seems a fine line AND
somewhat risky especially as it pertains to human relationships because our spouses,
within the covenant of marriage, are NOT rightfully "ours" but are
actually "us". Within the covenant of marriage when a man and
woman are joined together, the "two become one
flesh"; a holy bond that cannot be torn asunder by human acts. Our
"rightful" claim cannot be about possessiveness, not legitimately,
because we can never legitimately "possess" another human being.
The only way jealousy can be
considered a positive and divine attribute of our human relationships is if we have given our very best for the well-being
of our beloved and intend to continue giving our best even if they choose to
walk away. It is always within the context of divine love that continued
to reach out to Israel for Israel’s well-being AND for the sake of the
Covenant, warning them that their "envy" of the other nations was
only covetous and gluttonous desire, self-serving and ultimately
destructive. The Lord's "jealousy" was "burning with
intense fire" to save them and protect them from such destruction!
It is important for us to
remember that the fundamental, underlying theme of the entire Love Dare© is NOT
to try and control those we love or try to change them into something we
prefer; rather the Love Dare© challenges us to control ourselves and always –
ALWAYS – seek the best for our beloved. This is important for the sake of
our marriages, for the sake of the well-being of the Church, and most
especially for the sake of giving our Redeemer the very best of what He has
redeemed; our very souls!
If we are jealous, it must be
within the Divine context of jealousy: “burning with intensity” to protect and
to give our very best. This is love, agape love, at its finest. It
is Life. It is our Lord.
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