Excerpt from sermon on 10/12/14:
The problem is not that we love things; the problem is the manner in which we love things and the expectations we have of those things. I can love my car, but if I love my car more than I love my husband, and if I expect my car to have the type of relationship with me that my husband has, then I will be disappointed. My car is not human and so cannot have a relationship with me as a human being would. We have to love things appropriately and have the appropriate expectations of them. Love your car as a car, but don’t love it as a human being or expect it to love you as a human being. If you do, you have what Augustine would call “disordered love.” “Disordered love produces all sorts of pathologies in human behavior. Normal self-love becomes pride.”[1] Normal love of another person becomes jealous and possessive love. Normal love of money becomes greed and miserliness.
[1] Stumpf, 146.
READ FULL SERMON HERE
The problem is not that we love things; the problem is the manner in which we love things and the expectations we have of those things. I can love my car, but if I love my car more than I love my husband, and if I expect my car to have the type of relationship with me that my husband has, then I will be disappointed. My car is not human and so cannot have a relationship with me as a human being would. We have to love things appropriately and have the appropriate expectations of them. Love your car as a car, but don’t love it as a human being or expect it to love you as a human being. If you do, you have what Augustine would call “disordered love.” “Disordered love produces all sorts of pathologies in human behavior. Normal self-love becomes pride.”[1] Normal love of another person becomes jealous and possessive love. Normal love of money becomes greed and miserliness.
[1] Stumpf, 146.
READ FULL SERMON HERE
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