Anything for Love, But...--September 28, 2021

Anything for Love, But...--September 28, 2021

"Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of seep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented--of whom the world was not worthy.  They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in cave and holes in the ground." [Hebrews 11:35-38]

In the early 1990s, the rock performer known as Meat Loaf gave the world a dramatic ballad with a curious title: he sang, "I would do anything for love... but I won't do that."

I can remember hearing the song (and watching its rather bizarre music video, which had sort of a Beauty-and-the-Beast motif to it, if memory serves), and thinking to myself, "That can't be real love, if there are exceptions!  If you really love someone, you should say you would do anything for love, period!"  But the more I think about it, the more I think that Meat Loaf was probably more right than he even realized.  It occurs to me that love points in a certain direction--of certain things we will do for the sake of love, and even certain things we will endure for the sake of love.  But there are things that don't fit with the trajectory of love, and that we won't be called to do in the name of love, or of the God who is love. Maybe saying, "I would do anything for love, but not that," isn't weakening the declaration of love, but rather a way of saying that love itself rules out some things that just aren't consistent with the character of love.  And short of that, then love is willing to bear whatever else life throws at it.

I can't help thinking along those lines--and hearing Meat Loaf's voice in the background of my mind--when I read these verses from Hebrews.  There is absolutely a long list of things that God's people have done and endured for the sake of their faith in God and, I would add, their love of God.  They have endured torture and ridicule, been run out of town and made into mockeries, they have been outcast and ostracized, and they have gone to jail for their commitment to the character of God.  One thinks of Daniel in the lion's den, or the three young men in the fiery furnace, or the prophets of Israel's past who always found themselves getting into trouble with the official powerbrokers in the palace or the Respectable Religious Leaders at the Temple.  And for that matter, one thinks of folks like Bayard Rustin, John Lewis, Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, and Corrie ten Boom as others in the last century who were willing to endure suffering and hardship as a part of living out what they were called to do.

But you know what I notice is conspicuously absent from this list of daring deeds and audacious faith?  I notice that the writer of Hebrews seems focused on suffering love, but not campaigns of conquest, or greed for ever-increasing wealth, or attitudes of selfishness.  That's not because the people of God have never done any of those things--but rather that those aren't the shape of love formed by faith in God.  We don't hear the writer of Hebrews praising Solomon for building vast armies and treasuries to enrich his own fortune as an act of faith.  We don't hear him cite the example of Jacob tricking everyone in his family out of their wealth and then moving on to bilk the next relative.  We don't get the example of Eli's corrupt sons using their position as priests to make themselves richer, or the time when Miriam criticized Moses for marrying a darker-skinned African woman (see Numbers 12:1 and following for that lesser-known story).  We don't hear him give praise for Elisha's bold faith that called forth an angry bear to maul some kids who had been making fun of his bald head, or David committing murder and rape (in the scandalous situation with Bathsheba and Uriah) out of some unhinged "faith" that he was God's chosen ruler and could therefore do whatever he liked.  Why is it that none of those episodes--which are all there in the Bible, too--are lifted up in this passage?   Because those are not the shape of love informed by faith.  

Similarly, the writer of Hebrews doesn't give us any examples of some biblical patriarch or matriarch ignoring the needs of a neighbor because they "had faith that someone else would come along to help," nor do we see anyone using their faith as justification for saying, "Don't tell me what I can and cannot do--my freedom is more important than the needs of my neighbor, because I have FAITH!"  Being a jerk and saying it's "faith" is just as empty and hollow as letting someone go hungry or abusing them and saying you "love" them.  And the writer of Hebrews doesn't give us any such examples because that's not what faith-informed love looks like.  We may be called to do a lot of things for love, but we don't get to do any of that... at least not with any integrity.

The people of God, in other words are called to live out our faith and embody love in ways that endure suffering, but do not cause it for others.  We are called to risk being unpopular or even hated, but not to give into hatred ourselves.  We are called to lay down our lives for others, but not to take life from other people.  We may be called to sacrifice our personal freedoms, our resources, or our time for the sake of others, but we are not given permission to refuse to love neighbors in the name of "faith." We may well have to bear a lot of things for love, but we won't do that.

Both love and faith, then, have a certain shape to them--there is a certain trajectory of what love informed by faith looks like, and there are some directions it simply will not go.  Faith doesn't bend inwards only, as if it is just a way of making God give me what I want.  Love doesn't insist on its own way or demand, "Me and My Group First!" because that is contrary to the very nature of love.  We may well be called to give ourselves away or risk bearing hardship for the sake of our love for neighbors and our faith in God--but faith doesn't get to be a weapon to take from others or make them bear hardship for our sake.  That is contrary to the shape of love.

In a time when it is dangerously easy to try and baptize selfishness and meanness as some kind of "faith," it's worth seeing how the Scriptures themselves show us faith and love as it is lived out in real lives--willing to bear hurt for others rather than inflict it, willing to go out of its way to come to the aid of others rather than saying, "Why would I be willing to be inconvenienced?"  There are a lot of things we will do and endure for love, but just won't do that.

What will love lead you to do today?  Where will faith impel you to walk today? And who are the examples from our faith family history whom we can see as companions on the journey?

Lord God, shape our faith in the form of your love.