Valentine mailbag
The sentiments here are a mess; can you help sort them out?
Gentle reader,
N.B., this is a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, but there are hints here of stunning ways the Christian tradition subverts cultural models of love.
Christian love is not sentimental, easily swayed when it fails to provide warm fuzzies. (This doesn’t require it to be unfeeling or to reject emotion).
And Christian love is not a market good, buttressed by capitalism and purchases of chocolate and flowers. (This doesn’t require an otherworldly rejection of chocolate and flowers).
Christian love is strange. Given that God is three-in-one Love, how could it be otherwise?
I hope you enjoy your Valentines.
Help! The names of the senders were somehow detached from the Valentines. Match each message of love to the correct theologian.
Round 1:
Jonathan Edwards
Augustine of Hippo
That guy from Song of Songs
Origen of Alexandria
Julian of Norwich
Round 2:
Margery Kempe
Thomas Aquinas
John Wesley
Gregory Nazianzen
Martin Luther
Round 3:
John Calvin
Catherine of Siena
Karl Barth
Saint Paul
Saint Valentine
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13 NIV).
Bonus Valentine, from Saint Valentine:
Answer key:
Round 1: A. Augustine, B. Julian, C. guy from Song of Songs, D. Edwards, E. Origen
Origen suggested the resurrected body would take the form of a sphere, as the shape is perfection.
Round 2: A. Luther, B. Nazianzen, C. Wesley, D. Aquinas, E. Margery
The Luthers’s marriage was a piece of scandalous performance art, the monk marrying the nun as an embodied witness to the Protestant claim that ordinary married people could live the Christian life just as truly as priests, monks, or nuns. As the story goes, Martin’s wife, Katharina von Bora, was smuggled out of her convent in an empty herring barrel. When Martin traveled, he’d write home, describing the local beer and noting that Katie’s beer was better. The Luthers seem to have enjoyed a warm marriage and had 6 children.
…natural reason looks at married life, turns up her nose, and says: Why, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, change its bed, smell its odor, heal its rash, take care of this and take care of that
…But what does the Christian faith say? The father opens his eyes, looks at these lowly, distasteful, and despised things and knows that they are adorned with divine approval as with the most precious gold and silver. God, with his angels and creatures, will smile—not because diapers are washed, but because it is done in faith (Luther, from Concerning Married Life, 1522).
Round 3: A. Paul, B., Catherine, C. Valentine, D. Calvin, E. Barth
Catherine experienced a “spiritual marriage” to Christ; she had a vision in which he placed a wedding ring, made from his own flesh, on her finger.
Grace and Peace (and Love!),
BFJ
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On Thursday, look for a post on preparing for Lent, with book recommendations.
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Beth, this was so fun. My husband and I were laughing out loud and we guessed the not-so-obvious ones. Thanks and Happy Valentines Day to you!