Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Love Is Love?

So the other day reading through Facebook I came across a post by a friend who frequently  criticizes  Christians and mocks, or is expressing frustrated reactions about Christians. 

I find them interesting, and not unique, as even most Christians have criticisms of other Christians. Sometimes I feel like yelling across Facebook so all could hear: "Christians are followers of Christ, not THE Christ himself!!" Alas, it would probably fall upon deaf ears, and maybe that is a good thing. This could be a call to Christians to examine themselves more deeply, more thoroughly. 

Even though some in the world may despise Christians, they still look to and expect them to live up to Christ's teachings, even if they themselves completely reject them. Isn't that interesting? What a fascinating impact Christ has on the world.

This person of whom I speak is a non believer, and any Christian should not be surprised about not only criticism but even hatred or persecution being sent their way for a belief and commitment to Christ's words and teaching. He himself very clearly says this will be the case, and if we believe the other things he says and teaches we are right to believe this also. It was the case in his own time and remains the case today.

Her statement was something to the effect of: "I have a super hard time dealing with Christians that cherry pick the Bible. The Bible teaches you to love thy neighbor and to do unto others as you'd have done unto you. LOVE THY NEIGHBOR. Did Jesus say 'love thy white neighbor'? Nope love thy neighbor, simple right???" Well, maybe that seems simple, and certainly conceptually that is true, but I would argue that in practice, it is quite complex.

Ok, so aside from this very quote being a cherry picking of sorts (Luke 10:27 says: "love thy neighbor as thy self"), to her credit, it is connected with what Jesus says is the first and great commandment —"Love the lord thy God with all your heart, with all your strength and with all thy mind". "On these two commandments hang all the laws and all the prophets" (Matthew 22:40). So if one were to give a hierarchal structure to the Bible, one might rightly place this (the two great commandments) at the pinnacle. 

So it made me curious as to what cherry-picked verse would actually encourage this kind of justification? I may enter into a direct conversation to find out (depending how much time I find in my day), but it occurs to me that most likely the true discussion is not about a verse that would admonish such nonsense (to not love one's black neighbor) but rather, maybe about the question: What is love? The Bible says: "love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13 v1-8). 

This post was written by the same person who said recently "love is love, not a sin" while advocating for an add affirming gay rights. So I think this is actually an interesting discussion and one that is overlooked and over simplified. Love is indeed Love, but is all sex just sex and created equally? Maybe the question is: because one loves someone does that make engaging in sex right and good? Clearly the answer to that is no. Obviously most people today would concede (though at former times societally accepted and encouraged) that pedophilia is unacceptable, and more so, extremely damaging for the victim. The pedophile may "feel" that he or she loves the child, but clearly that feeling is rooted in a self-seeking desire and not true Love as the Bible would define it. There are also people who fall in love with objects and/or are sexually aroused by objects. Some people I learned recently are sexually stimulated by the idea of cutting off of their own limbs. So then the question clearly goes beyond one's feelings, and one might say even what is good for one's own well being. 

Jesus was without sin, so loved perfectly. We, being sinners, cannot necessarily love perfectly at all times, and probably most times. Oftentimes we love but are loathe to remove our own judgements and restrictions, even boundaries on our love. We love our children completely yet are prone to anger and impatience in that love. We have strong feelings and desires about how they should and should not act, and have a very hard time separating out those desires from a perfect love. So they exist simultaneously side by side, interwoven; a perfect love and our sinful natures weaving in and out of our interactions with those we truly do love so deeply.

Christ had the beautifully admirable ability to Love perfectly and with complete mercy and compassion and advise that which is right and good, to give up one's sins. 

It seems to me we are called to love and love fully as he did, and yet we love our own thoughts and judgements many times more. We skew our ability to Love out of a primary allegiance to our ideas, or aversion to someone else's thoughts and ideas.

Perspective, I believe, can be a helpful tool, allowing the other to have their boundaries and limits. Acknowledging that we too have our boundaries, they may be wider or more narrow, but they exist. These ideas and boundaries need not be translated into a character statement or flaw. 

We will never love our neighbors properly if we must love every one of their thoughts and belief systems (and perhaps actions that extend from them). This might also raise some more points about the earlier passage. What exactly does it mean to love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, heart and mind? How many of us are actually successful at that? And if not at that, then the second, how do we love ourselves properly? How many of us do that? It follows the obvious conclusion that if we are having trouble doing the first two properly, then likely we are going to fail at loving our neighbors properly too.

Thankfully Christ never says we have to be a perfect master of every law. He came to fulfill the law for us, but not to abolish it. I think the most powerful lesson is that we can love someone fully, all the while fully disagreeing with any number of behaviors and choices the other makes. Love them as they are, where they are. I think Christ's demonstration of this is so clear. Just because someone may have a gross or what one might call an outwardly obvious sin that they have not conquered (in one's view) does not necessarily mean that it is any worse of a sin than a dark deep secret sin. Sin is sin, and no ones escapes. However, if one truly embraces God's sovereignty then where that person is, is exactly where that person is meant to be, and it is not your personal responsibly to be the judge and redeemer of that. 

On the other hand it can be a slippery slope. When we love someone, we do genuinely desire their good, true and ultimate good, not just a desire to make someone feel good in the moment. How does one balance these "impulses"? If my child wanted to cut his arm off, clearly I would aim to persuade him otherwise for his own good. So how do we love and accept someone fully and all the while encourage their ultimate good as Christ does? I suppose the answer is in the question, take it to Him in prayer and let the answers be given unto you, for he who seeks shall find. Aim to love in a way that fits the beautiful descriptives in the Bible. Is it kind? Allow the other to think and believe what they will and love them anyway no matter what. 


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