Being Social

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” -John 13:34

Today it is so easy to be in contact with people than ever before. We can literally pick up the phone or go to the computer and talk to people who might be halfway across the world.

Being social is one of the greatest blessings, but can also be one of the greatest curses.

Sociality is a gift from God. God expressly saw that all His Creation was good except for one thing, that the human being was alone: “And the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him’” (Genesis 2:18). So God made Eve for Adam, another human being, for him, comparable to him. And Adam responded by saying, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23). This is the holiest relationship; the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is the first human relationship, instituted by God and from it all other relationships come. We wouldn’t have brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, and all other relationships if it wasn’t for the Sacrament of Matrimony; the union of one man and one woman in Christ.

The first blessing of being social is that we grow strong in our faith. God did not give the revelation of Himself to one person at one time, but always to more than one. The Church was not born with only one person in it, but more than 120 believers (without the others who had believed in Jesus through His ministry) were gathered on the Day of Pentecost when the Promise of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled. And through the Church we receive our Lord Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

When Jesus was asked as to what the greatest commandment was in the Old Testament, “Jesus answered him, ‘The first of all the commandments is: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these’” (Mark 12:29-31) and “‘On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets’” (Matthew 22:40). It is interesting that Jesus says that loving one’s neighbor is like loving God. How can this be? God is infinite by nature and humans aren’t. How can they be compared? This is because unless one loves his neighbor (others) he cannot love God, because we can know that we love God only when we keep His commandments. “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments … whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him” (1 John 2:3, 5). God created us, humans, and His plan for how we should deal with each other is in love. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). So unless we love one another as Jesus commanded us, we have no hope of ever being with God. These are some of the blessings of being social.

Now some of the curses of being social are hatred, gossip, malice, arrogance, envy and so on. People who have these problems exist even in the Church itself. And the curses are magnified when we deal with these people. These above characteristics have no part in love, and therefore cut themselves away from God, and those who live in these also cut themselves away from God.

It is easy to see gossip in any church, but where in gossip is it love to make fun of people and talk bad about them behind their backs for that sake only. Why do you talk about them badly? Don’t you also have the same problems? And if not the same, you have other problems that they can talk about and you won’t be happy when you find out that they are?

Malice is also common, which is tightly interconnected with hatred. When people bother you or hurt your feelings because they want to make themselves feel good.

And arrogance when we start to lose sight of our goal which is God Himself and our goal is now to do more than other people and we are puffed up and we think we are better than other people because we read the Bible more often than they do, or fast longer hours, or even fast at all, and do other spiritual activities. These activities then lose all their purpose and meaning because we have separated them from God and have now made them a means for our own gain. St. Augustine said, “Pride extinguishes love; consequently humility strengthens love; love extinguishes offenses.”

These above mentioned qualities are all very interconnected and result either from hatred or selfishness. Either way they are the result of putting aside the love of God from our hearts and putting the love of our self there instead.

Let us pray that God would grant us the greatest gift, love, and that we would live in it. And glory be to God both now and ever. Amen.