91. Zeal
91. ZEAL
Can a “cool” intellectual like St. Thomas be a zealot?
Dionysius says: God is said to be a zealot, on account of his great love for all things. . . . Zeal . . . arises from the intensity of love. For it is evident that the more intensely a power tends to anything, the more vigorously it withstands oppositions or resistance. Since therefore love is a movement towards the object loved, as Augustine says, an intense love seeks to remove everything that opposes it . . . the very fact that a man hates whatever is opposed to the object of his love, is the effect of love (I-II,28,4).
Zeal is part of love. Zeal includes hate—hate of the enemies of love. Love is intolerant of its enemies. And love has enemies: selfishness, coldness, pride. The Bible is abundantly clear about that.
Love is not soft and squooshy. Love is as hard as a diamond.
But zeal is not violent. It is not a matter of noise or confusion. The quiet light of reason can be zealous: irresistible and intense, like an incoming tide, but not noisy, like a hurricane. Elijah found God in the “still, small voice”, not in the fire, the earthquake, or the storm. God’s love is more zealous and intense in quiet, humble Mary than in busy Martha or big-mouthed Peter.
But zeal, in its quiet way, is fanatical, adamant, uncompromising. Zeal never gives up. Never. It refuses to be satisfied until all obstacles to its love are removed. That is why God demands Everything. T. S. Eliot calls Christianity “a condition of complete simplicity, / costing not less than / Everything”. Jesus says: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). The Bible calls God “Father” but never “Grandfather”, for as George MacDonald says, “God is easy to please but hard to satisfy.” A grandfather is easy to satisfy and a tyrant is hard to please, but a good father is easy to please (because his love is compassionate) and hard to satisfy (because his love is zealous). Ancient man tended to neglect the first of these truths, modern man the second. We hear little today about zeal, or passion (except, of course, sexual passion), only “compassion”. But zeal and compassion are equally necessary. Without zeal there is no sanctity. We cannot comfortably ooze up an eternal growth escalator. We must fight. We have enemies, though they are not of flesh and blood. If this is not true, Jesus and the Bible lie.
Muslims typically have more zeal than Christians. Are we not the Laodicean church that has “lost its first love” and is only “lukewarm”? One of the most shocking verses in the Bible comes next. Read it (Rev 3:16).
Obviously zeal can be badly misplaced into anger, hate, and violence. But remember, “the corruption of the best is the worst.” We remember all too easily one half of this principle: when we see a passionate good, we rightly fear its perversion into a passionate evil. But there is also another half: when we see a passionate evil, we must also remember that it is the perversion of a passionate good. We already know that hate is zealous, but we forget that love is even more zealous. God is both compassionate and zealous. He is a lover, not either a fanatic or a wimp. And His love defines what love is.
How do we know that God is a zealot? Jesus. Jesus shows us exactly and totally Who God is (for He came seeking “not my own will but the will of him who sent me”: Jn 5:30) and who we must become (for “You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect”: Mt 5:48). If our zeal is so tepid that we would never dream of cleansing the temple of our souls by whipping out the money changers by force, then we do not yet understand Jesus, and we do not yet understand what God has in store for us. Just as He will not rest until He finds the cool waters of reason and compassion in fiery Muslims, He will not rest until He finds the hot desert sun of unyielding, adamant will in watery Christians. For He came to kindle a fire upon the earth, and He will not rest until it burns (Lk 12:49). “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). Is that your God? Or do you worship a different one?