Living Up To My Sticker--November 3, 2020
"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears always, believes always, hopes always, endures always." [1 Corinthians 13:4-7]
Let me tell you about my sticker.
It lives on the back of my car, above the brake-lights and just over to side of the stick-on Bat-symbol my brother gave me years ago. It looks like this:
It simply reads, "We will love like Jesus." We had them made for the church as a way of raising money for a ministry for homeless families, but to be honest with you, this is one of those things I would put on my car anyway. I don't put a lot of permanent things on my vehicle, because I know that one day they'll have to be scraped off. But this one, I'm willing to leave on forever. Because I think I want--or maybe, I need--to hold myself accountable for working in that direction. I want to be someone who is striving, always, to love more and more fully--like Jesus. So when I see the sticker myself, I have to remember, "Hey, Steve, you are advertising to the world that you are going to love like Jesus--this is not the time to be cutting somebody off in traffic, speeding dangerously, or texting-and-driving."
But also I offer those words to the world as a sort of promise, not just as a rule for my own behavior. I mean them as an invitation--in the end, all of us will love like Jesus. I am convinced that at the last, at the end of the universe's story, this is where God is leading the new creation: to love that looks like Jesus'. We aren't there now for sure. But it's worth knowing where this story is going so that we can bear to keep slogging through the depressing parts now, you know?
And I suppose those last two words are important to me, rather than just having a sticker that says, "Love" in the abstract, because we need to be clear about the shape of the love we are called to. The world around us is terrible with that word--we talk about love in reference to cars, money, houses, your favorite pizza place, and people we like a lot. That's a pretty large range of meaning if we can comfortably use the same term for the people you would donate your heart for and for a twelve-inch circle of bread with cheese on it. And even at that, the way folks usually use the word "love" they usually mean a mere feeling triggered by chemicals in their brains, which will come and go without any staying power. By contrast, what Jesus calls us to has a certain shape to it--and unlike the flightiness of emotions, the kind of love Jesus calls us to can be deepened, practiced, developed, and strengthened to endure, regardless of what the endorphins in our brain are doing.
That's what has turned my attention to these words from First Corinthians on a day like today. I know we are used to hearing these words at weddings (even though the apostle who wrote them did not intend them to be about marriage, and himself was not married), but this is a decent starting point for sketching out what the love that "looks like Jesus" does, regardless of the circumstances outside, the emotional situation inside, or the cast of characters we are called to show it toward. What it looks like to love is, well, to seek the interest of others, to bear with situations that call for patience, to speak truth, to refuse to sink to the level of others' rudeness, meanness, or crookedness, and to endure even when things are difficult. That sounds very much like what it looks like to love like Jesus to me.
You'll notice, too, that in all of this description of love, there's not a mention for who the recipient is. There are no qualifiers here, and no conditions, either. Paul doesn't say, "This is just how we treat other in-group members," and he doesn't say, "This is the standard for people you like, but people whom you don't like or agree with are on their own." This is the way we are called to treat everybody. All the time. You'll also notice that Paul doesn't describe love in terms of how I feel about someone, but what I do and how I interact with others. In other words, I can show love to someone even if they have been mean and nasty, and even if I do not like them back very much. I can show love to folks who have been spending the last six months saying terrible things to me or people I care about on social media, and yet that doesn't mean I agree with what they said or that it was OK that they said it. It simply means the way of love won't sink to the level of rottenness others dwell at. And it means I won't give myself permission to demean others because "they did it first."
After all, while Jesus has no trouble holding his own against the Respectable Religious people in the gospels, he is never cruel. He never punches down. He never picks on someone else to puff himself up, and even when he is telling important but difficult truths, he never does it to score "points" for himself. Jesus never talks himself up, and he never uses his power for his own benefit. He throws weapons down and refuses to use them, while he also throws his lot in with the people who are outcasts and pariahs. Even those who are actively conspiring to kill him are recipients of his love, while he prays for their forgiveness even as they are mocking him. This is what it looks like to love like Jesus.
So here's the challenge to which we are called, not just today (although, yes, especially on a day like today), but every day. We are called to embody the love we have glimpsed in Jesus--the same love which grabbed hold of us. We are called to be the kind of people who can put our names everywhere you see the word "love" in the passage from First Corinthians--at least as fully and authentically as we can.
This is how I am coming to think about it--what would it take for me to be the kind of person about who it could be said, "Steve is patient. Steve is kind. Steve is not arrogant or rude or boastful. Steve does not insist on his own way. Steve does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Steve keeps on believing, bearing, hoping, enduring"? Because that's the kind of person I want to be. That's what we are all dared to be. I wouldn't dare trust my life, or anything or anybody that is important to me, with someone who I couldn't honestly put in those sentences, too. Life is too precious a thing to entrust to anybody who is not patient and kind... anyone who is notoriously boastful, arrogant, and rude... anybody who seeks their own interest rather than the good of others... anybody who rejoices in wrongdoing rather than in the truth.
Now, I am convinced you could put Jesus in any of those sentences already, and they would make perfect sense. Jesus is indeed patient, kind, not arrogant or rude, faithful and enduring. So in a very real sense, it seems to me the goal of life is to become more and more fully like Jesus so that my name could go in those same sentences and for them to be real and true and authentic statements as well. I am seeking to become love, in other words--to become like Jesus--and in so doing, I suspect I will find that I am not less myself after all, but somehow more fully and authentically me than I have ever been before.
If all that sounds rather mystical or philosophical or "out there," then let me bring it back to this essential. I have this sticker on my car, and it says, "We will love like Jesus." I have on there to remind myself that this is my commitment to the watching world... and I believe it is also God's promise over all the universe--that in the new creation, all of us gathered around the throne of God will, perfectly and completely, love like Jesus. And in the mean time, the best way for me to witness to that promised future is to do that now, in my words, my actions, my choices, my use of my voice, my priorities in how I spend my money and how I cast my vote, and the way I spend the minutes of my lifetime. A sticker can't make me love perfectly--but the reminder may just keep me honest.
Maybe the reason we are all here together is to keep each other honest in that calling, too--to remind each other that "loving like Jesus" is a more central purpose in life for us than making money, being a "winner," looking successful, achieving our dream job, or whatever else the world may tell us is important. Together, we will hold each other accountable to live up to the sticker--or at least, to be more fully shaped like the love of Jesus... which makes us to be more fully ourselves and more fully alive than we were before.
That's the job for today. Live in such a way, make your choices in such a way, and act in such a way, that your name fits where love goes in the sentence: "Love is patient... love is kind... love is not arrogant or rude or boastful..." That's a good place to start.
Lord Jesus, make us to love more fully like you. Make us all to love more fully like you.
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