Sharing with Fred

Sharing with Fred--March 19, 2018

"We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?" [1 John 3:16-17]

There's this great line of Eugene Peterson's that says, "Jesus is the dictionary in which we look up the meanings of words."  His point is that for the followers of Jesus, even old words and concepts have to be seen again through the lens of Christ.  Things we thought we understood sometimes have to be seen with new eyes, and we discover that, like Vizzini in The Princess Bride with the word "Inconceivable!", there are some concepts we keep using but which don't really mean what we think they mean--or at least not for us who follow after Christ.

So, for example... how about love.

Love is an especially notorious example, because it's one of those words everyone uses with embarrassing recklessness, but because we all use it, we all think we know exactly what we are talking about.  I am reminded of that great, quirky joke of Jack Handey from Saturday Night Live, whose one particular "Deep Thought" on love goes like this: 

"Love can sweep you off your feet and carry you along in a way you’ve never known before. But the ride always ends, and you end up feeling lonely and bitter. Wait.  It’s not love I’m describing. I’m thinking of a monorail.”

His joke is absurd, but the truth underneath it is that "love" is so ambiguous a term in our culture that we can get confused whether we are talking vehicles or virtues.

Trouble is, we have let romantic comedies and advertising executives co-opt the notion of "love" so that we tend to assume that love is "a feeling of strong liking that leads you to do nice things for the people you feel it toward."  By that definition, we can love our cars (which we will then take care of dutifully because we love them so much), love people, love a sports team, love our houses, and all sorts of other things that we feel a certain way toward.  And, also by that definition, I am free not to have to love my enemies, because I certainly don't feel any strong liking toward them.  For that matter, I don't have to do anything nice to anybody--even if I have said I love them--if I don't feel like it anymore, because, by conventional wisdom, love is first and foremost a feeling, an emotion, and then only secondarily gives rise to certain actions... but only insofar as we feel like doing them.  If that isn't the unspoken default definition of "love" in our culture, I'll eat my hat.

The only problem with that definition is... everything.

Through the lens of the cross, love is infinitely more than "a feeling of strong liking that leads you to do nice things for the people you feel it toward."  Or, as Luke Skywalker says in The Last Jedi, "Amazing.  Every word of what you just said was wrong."

And as the New Testament letter we call First John puts it, "We know love by this--that he laid down his life for us."  The cross shows us what love looks like in real flesh and blood, not because of Jesus' emotional state on Good Friday, or whether he particularly "felt" like dying, but because, beyond what he felt like doing, he gave himself away for a world full of stinkers who are often dead-set against him.  The cross of Jesus shows us that love isn't first a feeling you have toward people you like, but a choice to do good even to people you don't particularly like at the moment.  The commitment to give oneself away, to do good without expectation of a return favor, that comes first, and is expressed in action.  It's not a feeling first.

That's why the writer of these verses, "John," doesn't think it is optional for us to then also "lay down our lives for one another."  John doesn't say, "If you feel like it, you could do the same for each other."  That's because this isn't really about what we feel like first--love never was.  The conclusion, in John's eyes, follows inescapably because of what Jesus did for us first, not how we feel about the idea of being nice or kind to someone else.  That's why in the next verse, John can ask, "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?"  The implied answer is, "God's love, if it's really there in us, will lead us to help others and to share what we have."  It doesn't depend on whether I feel like helping at the moment, or even whether the other person "deserves" it.  It is simply the way God's love operates, whether it is God's love poured out at the cross for me, or God's love poured out in me for someone else.  Like a compass needle will always point north, whether you are in Canada, Cancun, or Kenya, God's love always has a certain orientation--outward, toward the other--and it is God's love that animates both Jesus' self-giving at the cross and our calling to give ourselves away for others.

This vital connection between the cross of Jesus and the self-giving of Jesus' followers is crucial (no pun intended--well, maybe a little) for us to see, because we have a way of wanting to hamstring it.  We have a way of wanting to say, "Jesus gave himself away for me at the cross--that's a lovely spiritual truth.  But nobody can tell me I have to share with Fred over there--he's a real jerk!"  Well, here's the thing--yes, Jesus can tell us that we have to share with Fred.   And guess what? It doesn't depend on whether Fred is a jerk.  It doesn't depend on whether Fred is your best friend, your estranged long-lost uncle, or your worst enemy.  It doesn't even matter whether you or I like Fred at the moment--God's love does not depend on the worthiness or likability of its object. That's how you know it's God's love and not a monorail.

And because love isn't first and foremost about feelings, Jesus can tell us to give Fred (or Susan or Farouk or Soledad) our material possessions... or our time (we may find that more precious)... or our "rights" (we can get very fussy and protective when we use the R word, can't we?)... or our energy, to someone else.  And he doesn't have to wait for us to feel like being generous first--Jesus reserves the right to tell us, "You are to give yourself away, because I have first given myself away for you."

The cross of Jesus, then, sets into motion a sort of chain reaction.  Jesus' willingness to give himself away creates in us a new kind orientation in us as well.  And we express that love in our actions and choices because the same power that is unleashed at the cross is at work in us, too.  It is real.  It is tangible.  It is self-giving.  It is, in a word, love--but love as Jesus has shown it to us by laying down his life.

Lord Jesus, let your way of self-giving become our way, too, so that each moment of our lives may be a reflection of your love at the cross.