At-one-ment

Christmastide after Epiphany (Tuesday, 8 January 2019)

1 John 4:7-10. Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8. Mark 6:34-44. (Please click the following link for the above readings http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010819.cfm.)

“Love consists in this—not limiting God by our human equations of love, but allowing God's infinite love to utterly re-define our own.”

God's salvation or inclusion of humans into the God-head was not an afterthought from God's side. It was Plan A and not Plan B. Therefore we need to talk of At-One-Ment (“oneing”) not atonement or expiation. God loves us always and everywhere; He saves us always and everywhere. That's why we are “one” in Him always and everywhere, even if we are not aware of it. He didn't need a transaction at Calvary.

The common reading of the Bible is that Jesus “died for our sins”—either to pay a debt to the devil (common in the first millennium) or to pay a debt to God (proposed by St Anselm of Canterbury). If we understand God as love then such a transaction is baseless.

In the last 800 years of Christianity, there have been many “substitutionary atonement theories” that basically suggest that God demanded Jesus to be a blood sacrifice to “atone” for our sin-drenched humanity. The terrible and uncritiqued premise is that God could need payment, and even a very violent transaction, to be able to love and accept God’s own children! These theories are based on retributive justice rather than the restorative justice that the prophets and Jesus taught. These theories seem to suggest that God's love is only conditional! (Totally unacceptable to us.)

If we even glance through the cosmic hymns in the first chapters of Colossians and Ephesians and the Prologue to John’s Gospel (1:1-18) it might help us to understand that God intended salvation for all, and from all eternity. God's love is eternal.

The incarnation of God and the redemption of the world is not a mere mop-up exercise in response to human sinfulness, but had to be the proactive work of God from the very beginning. We were “chosen in Christ before the world was made” (Ephesians 1:4). Our sin could not possibly be the motive for the incarnation. Only perfect love and divine self-revelation could inspire God to come in human form. God never merely reacts, but supremely and freely acts—out of love.

Salvation is much more about at-one-ment from God’s side than any needed atonement from our side. Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God!

Nothing "changed" on Calvary, but everything was revealed in Calvary so we could change! God has always loved us from the beginning, and God has always saved us from the beginning.

God in Jesus moved people beyond the counting, weighing, and punishing model—which the ego prefers—to a world in which God’s mercy makes any economy of merit, sacrifice, reparation, or atonement both unhelpful and unnecessary. Jesus undid “once and for all” (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12; 10:10) notions of human and animal sacrifice (common in most ancient religions) and replaced them with an economy of grace and love.

Jesus was meant to be a game-changer for the human psyche and for religion itself. Our religion is not about sin or problem-solving: that is only a tiny part of our religion. If God is about love, Christianity is all about love and that too unconditional love. Rather than focusing on sin, Jesus—”the crucified One”—points us towards a loving God who suffers with us. Let us change the starting point. That starting point is love, and it defines the entire way itself. Love is the beginning, the way itself, and the final goal.

Therefore, the last verse in today's first reading should not be understood as expiation or atonement in the transactional sense, but as one-ing, unifying, and at-one-ment. Love unites everything and everyone. It defines God, and re-defines everything else. Including our loves. “Love consists in this—not limiting God by our human equations of love, but allowing God's infinite love to utterly re-define our own.” (Thanks to Fr Richard Rohr OFM.)

God does not love us because we are good; God loves us because God is good. Nothing we can do will either decrease or increase God’s eternal and infinite eagerness to love! His love is always 100%.