Sunlight, Moonlight--November 1, 2024

Sunlight, Moonlight--November 1, 2024

"We love because he first loved us." [1 John 4:19]

On a recent evening when I was walking my dog through the neighborhood after dark by the light of a full moon, I had a realization.  I was actually walking by the light of the sun. I had just forgotten.

And in an instant, I was transported back to some elementary school classroom where we first learned about the sun and the moon and the planets, and how the sun gives off its own light by constantly fusing hydrogen into oxygen (okay, we didn't learn those details until junior high, maybe). Meanwhile, the moon only reflects the light it gets from the sun.  The moon, the Apollo astronauts had confirmed for us, was just a pile of dull rocks.  It doesn't generate its own light, and it isn't even terribly shiny on its own.  But the light from the sun is so bright, so powerful, and so strong, that even when it falls on the dusty gray rock of the lunar surface, it illuminates the moon enough to reflect light onto the dark side of the earth.  It is a wonder of creation unfolding before our eyes, just outside our doors in the night sky.

So I have found myself thinking, since noticing the additional darkness from the new moon these last few nights and darkened mornings, about what an amazing thing it really is that the sun's light hurtles through space and hits a dull rock, bounces off, and hits my eyes.  And I cannot help but think that something like that is going on at every moment of our lives in Christ.  The love that radiates from God--the love that "is" God, as First John reminded us in yesterday's verses--meets us where we are, even though we, like living moon rocks, are not terribly shiny or reflective beings.  And yet that love, as powerful as it is, reflects off of us and into the world around us--so in a true sense it is ours and God's at the same time, just like we talk about the lovely hue of "moonlight" when it is, properly speaking, actually sunlight that has bounced off the moon's surface.  (And when you are in your bathroom brushing your teeth in the morning, you know that the light from your reflection isn't "mirror light," but comes from the light bulbs above your vanity that are giving off light that bounces around the bathroom, off the glass, and into your eyes.)  In other words, as First John puts it so simply, "We love, because God first loved us." God's love shines onto us, and from us, that love radiates into the whole world, in all its dark places, like the sun's brightness hitting the moon and illuminating my nighttime walk with the dog.

If you really want to get scientific, in a sense, the sun's light isn't merely a product the sun makes, but it actually and literally is the sun, since the fusion reaction that makes the sun's light actually transforms some of its mass into energy (it's literally Einstein's E=mc² in action).  In other words, the sunlight isn't merely something that the sun "makes," but it is the sun's own self-giving, converted from matter to energy, and hurtling out into space at the speed of light.  To be hit by the sun's light is, in a sense, to be hit with the sun itself.  And in theological parallel, to be touched by the love of God is to be touched by God's own being, since God IS love.  That love creates our capacity to love, and to give ourselves away to others like a light in a dark place.  In a sense, then, we are like the moon--receiving a light that is not our own, but as it touches us we then offer it out into the world in our own coloring, like the slightly cooler bluish tinge of moonlight compared to the warmer yellow of the daytime sun.

All this month we've been talking about "the love of Jesus" as our focus for these devotions, and you might have noticed that sometimes we've zeroed in on God's love for us, while at other times we've centered on our love for others following Jesus' example.  And that wasn't a matter of being sloppy or disorganized--it's because there is an organic connection between God's love for us and our love for others.  God's love is the SOURCE of our love, like the moon's light really comes from the sun in the first place. And that means that the character of God's love becomes the character of our love for others--as we have seen over the course of this month's focus, because God's love includes enemies, strangers, foreigners, and outsiders, we are called to love enemies, strangers, foreigners, and outsiders.  Because God's love is given without condition and without earning, our love for others is meant to be unconditional and without earning.  And because God's love is not a transactional "deal" meant for God to get something in return, we are freed from that kind of petty transactional thinking, too.  We love--and we love the way that God loves--because God's love has first come to us.

The one other thing I want us to note here, both from our verse in First John and from the analogy of the sun and the moon, is that because the sun is the source of the light, it doesn't wait for the moon to do its part first.  The moon cannot reflect light until the sun has shone first--in fact, because the moon is 90-odd million miles away from the sun, it takes about eight minutes for the sun's light to get to the moon in the first place.  But the sun doesn't make its light conditional or contingent on the moon doing its part first.  And similarly, as I hope it's been clear so far in our devotions this month, God's love isn't dependent on delayed based on our loving God first.  God's love comes first.  God doesn't calculate and guess, sitting up in heaven, whether we'll reciprocate enough love back to God to make it worth the investment on God's part, but rather God loves first, before we've done a thing, and in a sense running the risk that we will not reflect it back.  God's love initiates relationship with us--God is not, in other words, waiting around twiddling divine thumbs on a cloud, to see if we'll take the first step, make the first move, or pray the right prayer to invite Jesus into our hearts.  

That is critical for us to be clear about in a time when so much of pop religion boils down to saying, "You have to take the first step and ask God, invite God, profess your faith, or whatever, in order for God to then love and claim you." But that's as backwards as saying that the sun is waiting for the moon to shine first--it isn't, because the moon's light only comes from the sun's light shining on it first.

And at the very same time, the moon almost cannot help but reflect the light it receives because the sun's light is just that compelling.  For us as the people of God, there is no option in which we merely absorb God's love self-centeredly without giving it back in all directions to the rest of creation.  There is no version of Christianity in which we are permitted to claim God's love as our personal and private possession, and then hold it back from other people.  There is no way to arrange our relationship with God such that we only ever have to think about "Me and My Group First" without in the very same breath reflecting God's powerful love back out at everyone around.  You can't keep God's love limited to "Me and My Group First!" any more than the moon can hold onto the sun's light without radiating it outward in all directions to all places, including the people walking their dogs in darkness on the night-time side of the earth.  God's love cannot help but go beyond us to others.  It is never our possession to clutch; it is only and always a gift to be received and then shared.

That truth guides every decision we make, ever choice we encounter, and every opportunity in front of us, every day.  When I consider what I do with my day, how to spend my energy, who I take into consideration when I act, and even how I make choices when I step into the voting booth, the question I cannot shake--precisely because I know I am loved by God already--is, "How could God's love move through me to reach ALL people in this situation?"  It's not about behaving well enough or acting holy enough to earn God's love as a prize. It's about letting God's love flow through me because I know it isn't ONLY for me.

So... how could God's love reflect off of you and me today, and into the lives of all people with the day that is unfolding before us?

Lord Jesus, let your love shine on us, and let your love reflect from us into every corner of the universe.

Another Day, Another Exorcism--October 31, 2024

Another Day, Another Exorcism--October 31, 2024

"God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love." [1 John 4:16b-18]

To live by the love of Jesus is to make the conscious choice to let Jesus kick fear out of the driver's seat of our lives. If Jesus, who embodies the love of God, is going to "take the wheel," as the old line goes, then fear cannot be the one calling the shots any longer in our lives.  As First John tells us, the followers of Jesus do not live our lives driven and dominated by fear--not fear of "those people" out there deemed threats, not fear of some ominous "THEM" that might get labeled "enemies" or "invaders," not fear of not measuring up to someone else's expectations, and not even fear that God might zap us for not being "good enough."  Love kicks fear out of the front seat and throws it out of the car altogether.

Or, to use the imagery of First John, love "casts out fear."  That's not just the language of being in the driver's seat--it's the language of exorcism.  Literally.  The same way the New Testament talks about Jesus "casting out demons" and exorcising unclean spirits from people who are plagued by the legion of diabolical powers out there in the world is the very same language that this passage from First John talks about fear being "cast out" by love.  And, of course, First John has also reminded us at the start of this passage that none other than "God" is love. The same divine power that expelled demons from the sick and troubled people who encountered Jesus is the same power that casts fear out from us--not just telling it to pipe down, but kicking it out altogether.  First John is clear: the people of God are not to be people who see the world primarily through the lens of fear, precisely because we are meant to see the world through the light of love.

And yet... here we are, living in a culture that is steeped in fear and which only seems interested in amping up its volume until it drowns out every other sound.  The messages in countless ads on countless screens all prime us to be afraid of whomever they have decided to target as "the opposition."  We are ingrained with messages that train us to see other people, particularly the ones we see as different or "other," as threats.  The voice over narration reminds us to be afraid of what will happen if "those people" get their way, and that we need to be willing to resort to increasingly extreme measures to stop them.  It's easy to believe that we're under constant threat of invasion, occupation, and domination from some ominous "them" out there.  And it's easy to believe that "those people" will take away our livelihoods, our comfort, our way of life, or our happiness."  Once we give fear an inch, it grows by leaps and bounds.  It swells like a rolling snowball. It metastasizes like a cancer.  

And by contrast, First John says, "But for who us who are claimed by the God who is love, fear does not get to direct us or control us.  God's love exorcises that fear like the diabolical spirit it is.  It does not have power over us any more."  The trouble is that we have a way of letting fear back in the door the moment God's love has banished it.  We keep inviting fear to take the wheel and color our vision, and we keep needing God's love to cast it out all over again.  Every time we sell ourselves out back into the grip of fear, the presence of Jesus in our lives puts up a protest and calls us to say "No" to fear's power.  Every time we slide back into letting fear make us hate a neighbor... every time we are lulled back into the familiar well-worn ruts of our "what-ifs" that keep us up at night... every time we choose to see other people around us as threats to be fought off rather than siblings made in the image of God... we need Jesus to show up and cast out the demonic presence of fear again.  It can feel like we keep taking a step back for every step forward, like every morning we wake up to meet another day and another exorcism, because we keep giving control of our hearts and minds to the grip of fear.

The good news, of course, that in every story of a contest of wills between Jesus and those demonic spirits, Jesus outlasts and outperforms the unclean spirits.  There's never a time when they can hold on with greater strength than the power of his own authoritative word that casts them out.  Even when we keep giving control back over to fear again and again, Jesus proves stronger and more persistent.  Even if it means every day begins (and ends!) with the prayer that Jesus come and pry the grip of fear from the steering wheel of our lives once again, he does it. And in its place, he directs us himself in the way of his kind of love.

Today, when you hear those voices peddling fear out there--coming from tv screens, tablets, smart phones, and big fancy podiums--the Scriptures remind us that we do not have to invite them in, and we do not have to give them control.  The people of God will keep relying on Jesus to cast out fear like the diabolical thing it is and instead to be indwelt by the One who is love.  It is not a choice we make just once, but a daily decision not to be driven by fear, but to be animated by Love himself.

In this day, let that be the voice that guides you, even over all the fearful noise around.

Lord Jesus, come to us again and cast out the power of fear from its perch trying to dominate us, and fill us with your kind of love, now and always.

Outside the Chinese Buffet--October 30, 2024

Outside the Chinese Buffet--October 30, 2024

"For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another." [Galatians 5:13-15]

You know what the beauty of the Chinese buffet is?  You can try something new, serve up a helping of your favorite entree, and go back up for seconds if you are still hungry, all with a side of dumplings or egg rolls.  In other words, you are free to choose what you eat there, knowing that they will put out plenty for everyone and that you can have a little of many kinds of entrees rather than being stuck with just one.  That's lovely.

On the other hand, we all know what you are not supposed to do at the Chinese buffet.  You are not supposed to smear the sweet and sour sauce all over the wall (that's a waste!), and you are not supposed to take ALL the Szechuan Chicken to your table but then only eat a bite of it and then dump the rest on the floor.  You are not supposed to take food off of the plate of someone sitting at the next table over, and you are not supposed to fling lo mein noodles at the cashier.  In other words, there is a certain freedom to eating at the Chinese buffet, but that freedom is never separable from a certain basic decency toward the other customers at the restaurant and the serving staff.  You are free to choose which appetizers and entrees you want to eat, but you are misusing that freedom if you hoard, throw, smear, or steal the food.  

All of this restaurant protocol seems so obvious that it shouldn't need to be said, right?  And yet, we often have a problem understanding the same when it comes to conversations about "freedom" in the rest of our lives outside the Chinese buffet.  Inside the restaurant, we all know that being "free" to scoop your own servings of cashew chicken and egg drop soup does not mean that you are entitled to abuse the abundance, waste the food, or take from someone else.  If your understanding of "freedom" is expressed in the angry insistence that "You can't tell me what to do or not to do because I'm free!" you are missing something.  If your definition of "freedom" leads you to cover your ears when the server reminds you not to steal wontons from the strangers at another table, you have fundamentally misunderstood how "freedom" works.  And if you think that "freedom" allows you to weaponize the chopsticks and throw them like darts at other customers while you protest, "But they can't limit what I do--I have a right to do whatever I want with these!" well, then, you are likely to get yourself banned from the place before you can say, "Mu shu pork."

We know all this at the restaurant, and yet, so often we settle for a distorted and shriveled understanding of "freedom" that is emptied of concern for "love." And when the apostle Paul addresses a situation like that, he responds by saying, "Real freedom always leads us to love for others, not selfishness."  He says that from a Christian perspective, we are abusing the notion of freedom if we end up using it to justify self-indulgence.  And I suspect he would also say that we don't really understand freedom if we let it lead us to indifference or apathy toward others.  For Paul, true freedom is inseparable from loving neighbors and seeking the well-being of the people around us--anything else is a counterfeit attempt to baptize self-centeredness.

It's worth keeping that in mind, not only as we come into the homestretch of an election season, but for the way we face every day of our lives, year-round.  We live in a country that prides itself on its freedom, and yet all too often, we can only see that freedom in negative terms--in the language of "You can't tell me not to!" and "Nobody can stop me from doing what I want to do!"  What we are less used to is the kind of discourse that moves us beyond what we are "freed from" and frames the conversation in terms of what we are "freed for."  But that's exactly what the Christian way of life leads us into--a deeper understanding of freedom that is so much richer than saying, "Nobody can tell me I'm not allowed to dump the wontons or smash all the fortune cookies, because I'm FREE!" Followers of Jesus are people who find our freedom through serving others and discover our deepest satisfaction and fulfillment by caring for the needs of neighbors around us.  Rather than living our lives by constantly shrugging off our obligations to others, we find ourselves freed... to attend to their needs, to care about their stories, and to put their interests before our own.

I'm reminded of an insight of our older brother in the faith, Martin Luther, who began his famous treatise on Christian freedom with these two seemingly contradictory premises:

"A Christian is an utterly free person, lord of all, subject to none."

"A Christian is an utterly dutiful person, servant of all, subject to all."

Luther gets it:  our way of being free is also our calling to love and serve others.  The rest of the world will think it sounds like nonsense, but we know it is the God's-honest truth.  We know that freedom that isn't expressed through love is really just childish self-interest dressed in the garb of respectability. 

Today, the question to ask is, "How can I exercise my freedom through love for others?"  And then, just see where the answers you come up with lead you.  Your way of loving others might look different from the next person beside you, and you might end up with a whole sampler platter of different ways to express Christ-like love. That's just how it's supposed to be--that's what freedom really looks like.

Lord Jesus, remind us of our freedom as you remind us of our calling to love like you.

The Clothes We'll Keep--October 29, 2024

The Clothes We'll Keep--October 29, 2024

"As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." [Colossians 3:12-14]

Here's one of my rules of thumb for kids' costume shopping at Halloween: I'm willing to spend more on a costume if you'll wear most of it later as part of your regular wardrobe.  So, the Stitch onesy that can double as pajamas in the winter?  That was a yes.  The Miles Morales Spider-Man hoodie that could actually be worn as a sweatshirt all through the school year?  That would work, too.  But the complicated inflatable costumes that are literally useless at any other time of the year beyond trick-or-treating? I am much less willing to shell out a big pile of money for that.

In other words, I'm much more interested in the clothing that becomes an essential part of our daily lives, and not just the things we wear once and get rid of.  I'm more invested in what we'll be clothed in for a long time to come.

That's why I am intrigued by the way these verses from Colossians talk about the Christian life. The writer here talks about "clothing ourselves" with a way of life, and in particular with "love, which binds everything together."  This isn't the language of a costume for pretending.  This isn't the suggestion of faking our Christ-likeness with our appearance.  And this definitely isn't about a one-time day of dress-up where we spend a lot of money on something we'll never be caught in again.  It's about what becomes an essential part of our wardrobe, so to speak--about the practices and habits that are so fully integrated into our everyday life that they become a part of us.  And for Christians, our core identity is meant to be the love of Jesus.  It's not a costume we put on for show--love is meant to be our daily dress.

And of course, the real challenge here is that these verses from Colossians don't let us leave the notion of "love" as some vague, abstract concept.  They put together a whole outfit for us:  compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience are all part of the ensemble.  They flesh out the picture of what it looks like, for all of us, to be "clothed in love" like Jesus.

That's important because we live in a time when it is very easy to hear folks claim the label "Christian" or name the name of Jesus, but then seem perfectly comfortable with being cold, cruel, arrogant, crude, and short-tempered (you know, the opposite of the list here in Colossians).  It's easy to say, "Well, sure, I believe in Jesus, but all that kindness and humility stuff just doesn't work anymore!"  And in a lot of Respectable Religious circles, it's fashionable to say that being patient, humble, or meek just makes you look "weak" or like a "loser," and therefore that Christians can't be expected to actually live this stuff.  Instead, we can just talk a good game, look pious on Sundays, and then go back to "the way the world really works" all the rest of the week.  The love of Jesus can come to be just a costume we put on, rather than our authentic attire. So much for clothes we actually keep wearing, huh?  That kind of fake discipleship is like getting the expensive outfit for Halloween that you never really wear in real life.

Over against that way of thinking, the apostle here in Colossians calls us to make small acts of love and the regular practice of gentleness and compassion to be our daily apparel. Or, more accurately, we are called to allow ourselves to be clothed with Christ--to let Jesus' kind of love seep into us and to shape us into his likeness.  But we should be clear: Jesus will transform us.  He isn't interested in just giving us a costume Christianity, but in making us into living, walking, talking reflections of his own likeness. Jesus is interested in making us into people who love authentically like him, even if the world doesn't understand or thinks we look foolish and weak.  Jesus offers himself, not to play dress-up, but to make us into new creations.

So in a world of pious pretending and posturing, today's the day to let Jesus' kind of love become like that coat you put on every day now that it's cold, or that familiar sweater you've worn over the years so it's an old friend.  In other words Jesus offers himself and his way of life as the clothes we'll keep.

Lord Jesus, dress us in your love and free us from pretending at religiosity so that we can love like you.

Love To Stinky Face--October 28, 2024

Love To Stinky Face--October 28, 2024

"Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." [Romans 8:33-39]

One of my favorite theological treatises is a children's book entitled, "I Love You, Stinky Face."

The premise is a child being put to bed by his mom, and when she says to him, "I love you, my wonderful child," the son asks whether there are any situations that could arise which would negate that love. "What if I were a big, scary ape?" he asks, wondering if she would stop loving him then, only to be told that if that happened, she would comb all the tangles out of his fur, make him a banana flavored birthday cake, and say, "I love you, my big scary ape."

The son imagines all sorts of alternate scenarios: what if he were a giant skunk whose name was, "Stinky Face" (hence the title)? What if he were an alligator? What if he were a dinosaur, a swamp creature, or an alien? And to each reply, the mother answers, no matter what could happen in this life, she would always love him. He would always be her son. Those other changes could not undo the claim of love.

The story ends with the child satisfied that there is nothing he could do or be that would undo her claim of love, and he says, finally, "I love you, Mama," to which she offers the same reply as always: "And I love you, my wonderful child."

In so many words, that's what God says to us, forever and always. Paul the Apostle thinks up as many possible scenarios as he can to ask whether any of them could trump the power of God's love for us in Christ, and his conclusion is that not one of them--and not even all of them put together!--can separate us from God's love in Christ. As tedious as those verses might sound to our ears, reading through it like a laundry list, it's really Paul's way of making sure there are no exceptions, no fine print, no unconsidered possibilities, and no unlikely alternatives, where God's love does not hold. And the point, after all that rattling off of angels, rulers, powers, height, depth, and so on, is just like the conclusion of "I Love You, Stinky Face": there is nothing that can undo God's claim of love on us. Nothing from outside can get in between us, and nothing from inside me will change God's mind about me. In Christ, God only and always ever calls me, "wonderful child."  Like the song by Sara Groves puts it, "You cannot lose my love."  And it's true: we can't.

Now, that by itself is a thought to let sink in for a bit, because to be truthful, there have been lots of time that religious folks have inserted their own exceptions without God's permission. There have been voices who insisted that if you were divorced and remarried, God's love did not claim you any longer, or that people with AIDS were receiving God's wrath and were ineligible for God's love. There have been times that religious folk said if you committed suicide, that could prevent God's love from applying to you anymore (because, they said, you couldn't go to a priest to get proper forgiveness afterward), or if your parents weren't married, or if you weren't married but had a kid, or that if there wasn't a record on paper of a sufficient amount of water being sprinkled on your head by a religious professional and you died in infancy, you were also doomed to be cut off from God's love. As clear as Paul makes it here that "nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus," for the last two millennia, we Respectable Religious folk have been looking for ways to shoehorn in some limits, exceptions, or conditions to that exhaustively unconditional promise. All too often we have tried to suggest that we can be separated from God's love in Christ based on what we've done, who we love, what we think, what our bodies are like, or where we've come from. And frankly, that has to exasperate the apostle, because he has listed everything he could think of to insist that nothing--literally nothing--can separate us from God's love in Christ. Not even if we were all giant skunks named Stinky Face.

And to go one step further, Paul has tried to make it clear that God's love cannot sputter out because of even death itself. Not our death, and not Christ's--because he is risen from the dead now and can never die again. Jesus' love won't give out because of what we do, and it won't give out because of his own limitations or lifespan--because he is risen forever and is beyond the grip of death.

That makes the love of Jesus even more powerful than a mother's. Because, to be blunt about it, the bedtime conversation between a parent and child only lasts so long. At some point, kids don't think they need to hear the unconditional promise again. And at some point, time or distance separate parents and children. At some point tables turn and children take care of their parents, or as memory becomes foggy, grown children become the ones who tell their moms and dads, "I love you no matter what," and then at some point, death even interrupts that scene, too. The people who promise us from childhood on up that they will love us forever are not immune to death, and so even that promise of a parent, the closest thing most of us ever get to an unconditional promise of love from another person, has an asterisk and the condition added, "...as long as I am alive."

And that, dear ones, is what makes the love of Jesus qualitatively different. Jesus' kind of love has already gone through death and out the other side into resurrection, which means that God's love for us in Christ has no expiration date--not based on our death, and not based on Christ's. Because Christ is risen, he will never succumb to death again, and that means God will never stop saying, "I love you my wonderful child," of us. And even though we will have to deal with death ourselves, Christ's resurrection assures us that he does not let go of us even when we breath our last. We shut our eyes in this life hearing him say, "I love you, my wonderful child," and we wake to him saying it all over again in the resurrection life. Nothing can get in between.

Go ahead, imagine the most extreme possible scenario--becoming dinosaurs, skunks, aliens, monsters, or all of them put together--no matter what, God's love for us in Christ will not give up or give out.

Now, live this day confidently, because you are beloved.

Lord God, let us dare to trust the power of your resurrection and the strength of your love.

The Fulfillment of Life--October 25, 2024

The Fulfillment of Life--October 25, 2024

"Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." [Romans 13:8-10]

It is a good and beautiful thing to be loved in this life; that is for sure. But the other side of the equation is a gift of grace, too: it is a good and beautiful thing to be allowed to love others, too, in this life. And it is one we too easily take for granted.

It's worth remembering that, especially when we hear the phrase "love your neighbor" in the context of being a commandment. Commandments, of course, are not optional. They are rules. They are requirements. And we often bristle, especially we often-pridefully independent Americans, at the idea of anybody telling us what we have to do. So when we hear a commandment like "Love your neighbor," even if it is a good and beautiful commandment, there's some part of each of us that wants to grumble like a petulant child and say, "Why do I have to?"

Commandments are "have-to" statements, right? We don't ever think of them as "get-to" statements. But maybe it is worth spending a moment to recover the gift and the grace it is to be allowed to show love to others in this life. Because if we take those moments and opportunities for granted, we will find ourselves missing them later if we have to go without them for a time. And we will have been the lesser for it.

Maybe you already have a sense of what I mean. We who lived through the COVID pandemic remember what it was like to feel like we were missing the chance to give hugs... or to have coffee with friends at a cafe and really get to listen to one another... or to visit at a hospital... or to weep at a funeral. Maybe some of those aren't particularly "fun," but when you have the chance to show up for people as an expression of love, it is exactly where you need to be, and you wouldn't have it otherwise. And when we cannot offer those gestures, or have those conversations, we miss being able to give them as much as others may miss having our presence to give them.

And beyond the pandemic, maybe you know what it is like, too, to feel the privilege of being allowed to be the one to help a friend move... or to paint their walls with them in a home improvement project... or to pick them up at the airport... or to wait with them in an Emergency Department. Maybe you know what it is like to get to help a child who is scared... or to bring a smile to someone who is homebound and doesn't get many visitors. Maybe you know what it is like to offer some small gesture of kindness and see that it means the world to the person who receives it. And in those moments, you realize that loving your neighbor isn't mere drudgery. It's not a "have-to" kind of chore--it is a "get-to" kind of honor.

And we find that when we are given the chance--the utter privilege--of being allowed to love other people, we are more fully alive ourselves.

That has a certain urgency if you think about it. Maybe living through those times when we couldn't be around people taught us that these blessed opportunities to show love are not "owed" to us--we are not "entitled" to them; but they are grace, and it is a damned shame to waste those chances to love. We may not always have them.

I am reminded of an observation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who learned the truth of these words himself when we was separated from his community and family and loved ones when he was imprisoned by the Nazis for resisting Hitler. Bonhoeffer wrote: "It is easily forgotten that the community of Christians is a gift of grace from the kingdom of God, a gift that can be taken away from us any day.... Therefore, let those who until now have had the privilege of living a Christian life together with other Christians praise God's grace from the bottom of their hearts. Let them thank God on their knees and realize: it is grace, nothing but grace, that we are still permitted to live in the community of Christians today." That's just it. Something--anything, almost--can happen in this life and the chances we had to show love may vanish, whether for a season or forever. Any chance you get to show love to others is worth taking. Any opportunity to do good to a neighbor is worth the effort. Honestly, at the end of my life, I don't think I'll look back saying, "I wish I hadn't been there for my friends when they needed me in the hospital waiting room... or on the ride to the airport... or making messes of ourselves helping on a project." I don't think I'll wish to have spent those hours watching more television or making more money. I won't want to have read less to my kids or gotten more naps in. It is worth it, right now, to take the opportunities we are given to love.

That's not just the fulfillment of "the law" as Paul notes; it's the fulfillment of life itself.

Lord God, don't let us waste our chances to love others today.

Even Jesus Asks--October 24, 2024

Even Jesus Asks--October 24, 2024

As [Jesus] and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. [Mark 10:46-52]

At first blush, it might seem embarrassing that Jesus asks the man at the roadside, "What do you want me to do for you?"  

I mean, after all, isn't Jesus the wonder-working Son of God who knows what is on our hearts before we have said anything out loud?  Doesn't he have a way of knowing what his disciples are thinking even before they blurt out their gut impulses?  Doesn't it seem obvious to him that a man who was pushed to the margins of his society because of his impaired vision would ask for Jesus to restore his sight?  And since Jesus knows what we need best anyway, shouldn't he just institute a messianic policy of fixing things his way first without having to consult the poor suffering slobs who need fixing?

Well, honestly, in a word, no.

No, he shouldn't just barge in and undo every malady without so much as a word. 

And, no, it might not be obvious what someone else thinks they want from Jesus. (This man, for example, might have just been asking for Jesus to buy him lunch rather than a miracle; or, by calling him by the politically charged title "Son of David," he could have been taken for a zealot calling for Jesus to provoke an insurrection.  One of those would have been asking too little of Jesus, and the other would have been to misunderstand Jesus completely.)

Even if it is true that Jesus has a way of knowing what's on our minds before we have put it into words (or before we even know how to put our needs into words!), it seems that Jesus makes the intentional choice to ask Bartimaeus what he wants. He asks, in other words, not so much because he can't guess at likely responses, but because the asking is important if you are going to treat others as people to be loved rather than problems to be solved.  And that's just it: Jesus operates out of love as his dominant mode of being, and love recognizes the personhood and dignity of other people rather than reducing them to a list of troubles or a set of symptoms. Even the wonder-working Son of God asks what the panhandler with impaired vision wants Jesus to do for him, because Jesus loves him as a person rather than treating him as an object in need of fixing.  To borrow Martin Buber's classic phrasing, Jesus always operates out of "I-Thou" relationships that regard other people as Somebody, rather than out of an "I-It" paradigm that sees them as some thing.

In other relationships in our lives, we already know and practice the skill of asking questions as ways of honoring people.  I might know ten times out of ten what my daughter will want to have in her lunch, but I ask her every morning anyway, as a way of honoring that she has agency and choice in the matter. (Of course, I reserve the right to overrule a request for an all candy-and-Cheetos lunch, but I do ask her even when I can already predict what she'll say.)  I know I have been asked into my son's room if he calls for me, but I still knock at the door and ask if I may come in when I have arrived at the threshold, because I want to model a way of treating other people with that kind of respect--even if he is the one who called me in the first place.  I ask my wife about how her day was and what happened in it, even if I could probably have guessed with more than 85% accuracy what will make the day's summary.  Inviting the conversation is a way of honoring the other person.  And asking people what we can do for them rather than assuming we already know is a way of leading with love rather than reducing people to items on our to-do list.

And this, dear ones, is an important lesson for learning to love the way Jesus does.  Jesus takes the time to see people as people rather than his rehab projects.  Jesus takes the time for conversation with people, meeting them where they are rather than jumping ahead to some "sales pitch" approach to get them to sign up for his club.  Jesus take the time even to ask people what they want him to do for them, even when it might seem obvious (or, like the disciples James and John asking for the spots at his left and right hand, when the thing they are asking for is not his to grant).  Jesus doesn't walk through the world reducing us to our afflictions, but rather he sees us as three-dimensional people who are often complicated, usually messy, sometimes righteous and sometimes rotten.  He doesn't see the man with leprosy from a mile away and launch a blast of divine energy at him from a distance, but waits for the man to come up close, ask Jesus if he is willing to help, and then touches the man with compassion and makes him well--in response to what he has asked.  Jesus doesn't see the paralyzed man lowered through the roof and assume that that only thing that matters about him is the immobility of his legs--he starts by announcing that his sins are forgiven!  Jesus doesn't raise dead Lazarus from the grave with a business-like efficiency to check another miracle of his to-do list, but breaks down in tears and weeps over the death of someone he loved.  Jesus sees us as actual people, and that means when he comes face to face with Bartimaeus, Jesus will take the time to invite conversation with him rather than just treating him as a statistic.

So much of our culture teaches us to oversimplify other people by seeing them as puzzles for us to solve or problems for us to fix.  When someone comes to us needing to vent what's on their heart, we are quick to interrupt with a question like, "What do you need me to do about it?" when sometimes there is nothing to be done, other than to listen to the person whose heart is breaking and in need of care.  Or when the news tells the story about a struggling neighborhood in the city, it is easy to sit at a distance and diagnose the problem from the comfort of our living rooms or back decks rather than to listen to the stories of the people who are living there, to find out what they see they need and why our cookie-cutter solutions lobbed at them from a distance might not "fix" them.  Or when churches go on overseas mission trips to other countries, it is terribly tempting to go with our own sense of assumed superiority to tell people what they need us to do or how to fix their troubles, rather than to listen to their assessment and to assist in ways they would actually find helpful.  For a very long time in Christian history what passed for "missions" really boiled down to one group of well-to-do people imposing their way of doing things on other peoples without ever stopping to ask what those other people actually needed or wanted. Maybe it's time to recover Jesus' way of asking people rather than assuming we know what they need and then launching into our efforts to "fix" them without asking their permission first.

I have a feeling that the people around us would find themselves feeling much more seen and much more deeply loved if we started, like Jesus, by asking them how we can best help them rather than to assume we already know "what's best for them" and turning them into our pet projects. If we want to grow in loving like Jesus, it will require that we stop first and learn to ask people about their lives, their stories, their successes, their struggles, and their needs. It will mean a concerted effort not to project our assumptions on them, and it will mean treating people as people rather than problems to be solved.

It might be hard to unlearn those old ways of reducing people to our off-the-cuff assumptions of what's "wrong" with them and how we should "fix" them, but it's worth it to make that effort.  It's worth it because that effort is the difference between seeing others as items on a to-do list and people worthy of the kind of love Jesus offers them.  So it's worth it for us to take the time to listen to people about their needs, struggles, joys, and all the rest.  It's worth it to inquire how they would like us to share the journey with them.  It's worth it to be humble enough to consider that we don't already have the answers and that people aren't problems to be "fixed." After all, even Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he needs.

Lord Jesus, help us to love other people as human beings rather than our pet projects--the way you have shown us first, and the way you have loved us first.

More Than A Slogan--October 23, 2024

More Than A Slogan--October 23, 2024

"After Jesus had washed the disciples' feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.... I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." [John 13:12-15, 34-35]

To hear Jesus tell it, it means virtually nothing to call him "Lord" if it does not lead us to serve others in the same love he has shown us first.  If we name Jesus as "teacher" or "master" or "king," he inevitably directs us to follow his lead and look to his example and look for ways to serve others and put their needs before our own.  In other words, Jesus is not looking for people merely to salute, bow, or mouth words of allegiance to him--he is looking for disciples who will take up our basin and towel alongside of him.

All too often, I think we settle for empty gestures or slogans as the signs of our love for Jesus.  But Jesus turns out to be much less interested in putting on a show by saying the right thing and much more interested in loving other people the way he loves.  As Jesus puts it in Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21).  And as the letter we call First John says, "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also" (1 John 4:20-21).  In other words, if you actually ask the voices of Scripture about how we are to love Jesus, they all point us to showing love to the people around us, including putting ourselves in the roles of serving and seeking the well-being of others ahead of our own interests.  The way to show that Jesus is your Lord, Teacher, and King is to wash feet the way Jesus did--which, if we are honest, includes both friends like Simon Peter or James and enemies and betrayers like Judas.

When I hear Jesus' instructions to his disciples here in John 13 on Jesus' last night with his disciples, I hear the words of that 1990 ballad, "More Than Words," by the band Extreme.  (Can you hear the strum of the acoustic guitar or remember the artsy-serious black-and-white of the music video from that song?)  "More than words is all you have to do to make it real, then you wouldn't have to say that you love me... 'cause I'd already know."  You know, for a hair-band ballad, that's pretty close to Jesus' direction to his disciples here.  He tells his disciples that if they recognize he is Lord and Teacher, the way to show that is to love the way he has loved them--to serve others the way he has served them.  He's looking for more than words--even fancy, pious words.

It is so much easier in this life to slap a "Jesus is My Co-Pilot" bumper sticker on your car while you still cut other people off in traffic than to let it be clear by the way you love and serve people who your Lord really is.  It is so much more tempting to virtue signal to people about your piety by giving the right appearances, saying the right religious words, or wearing the right faith-themed fashion accessories than to set the cross-stamped rings and bracelets aside in order to pour the water on the smelly feet of the person next to you... or to find the 21st century equivalent of being willing to do the quiet, grubby work behind the scenes that nobody else has bothered to do.

So today, let's decide right now not to let our faith be reduced to a slogan.  Let's commit not to settle for mouthing the words "Jesus is Lord!" like it's a magic spell or mantra, and let's certainly not let it be co-opted into a bit of performative theater for partisan politics. If we are going to acclaim Jesus as our Lord, King, and Teacher, he has already told us how we will be known: not by empty talk, but by love that shows up in serving action more than words.

Whom might Jesus be sending us to serve today as a way of embodying our love for him?  And are we willing to let him lead us beyond empty gestures in order to meet them with our pitchers of water at the ready?

Lord Jesus, direct us again to love you by loving others, and to show you are our Lord by the ways we love like you.

More Than Mere Chemistry--October 22, 2024

More Than Mere Chemistry--October 22, 2024

"You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors." [James 2:8-9]

Love isn't really about whether we feel like it or not. Seriously.

Somewhere along the way most of us learned (wrongly, James would argue) that love is basically an emotion--in particular a feeling of liking someone, but with the dial turned up to eleven.

You could hear it in our thinking already when we were kids in elementary school, when the local gossip around the bike rack at recess was all about who "likes" whom (friendship), who "LIKE likes" whom (a crush), and who "LOOOOOVES" whom (whatever children think romance looks like). We learn to treat "love" as just the high end of a continuum of liking someone, and we treat it as something just about as dependable as a fifth-grade courtship as well. If love is a feeling, after all, you can only be expected to do kind things for the ones you love while you "feel" like it, which may not last for very long at all.

And maybe, in some way, some part of us still struggles with letting that childish thinking go as we enter into adulthood. I know plenty of adults who are still stuck in that mindset that love is a feeling for people you like, and of course that makes it terribly easy to bail out on romances, friendships, and other commitments as soon as they don't "feel" like sticking around or working things out. I know even more adults, including folks who have been going to church all their lives, who find Jesus' command to "love your enemies" completely baffling and nonsensical, because they can only hear "love" as a stronger form of "liking," and by definition they can't "like" their enemies.

That much is a fair point, of course--it's meaningless to command someone to feel a certain way about someone else, and even more ridiculous to insist you have pleasant feelings for someone you really find detestable. But what if we were wrong back at the bike rack in fifth grade when we thought that love was merely a feeling? What if we're still wrong when we equate "love" with the flurry of chemical reactions from endorphins firing in our brains that we call emotion? And what if, beyond the shallow sentimentality that we usually settle for when talking about love, there is something with substance that doesn't depend on our flighty feelings?

I want to suggest that this is where the Scriptures are pointing us. James is certainly pointing us in that direction, but he's hardly alone. He, along with the commandments in the Torah and Jesus himself, sees love as something more than a feeling that must come first before action. For all of the biblical writers, love is the commitment to do good to another--and that doesn't have to depend on whether you "like" that person or not. And because it's not first and foremost about getting your own emotional needs met, it is something that the Torah can instruct us to do for everyone--all who are our "neighbors" (which, again, is everyone, to hear Jesus tell it). If the commandment, "Love your neighbor," is about my feelings, it loses any meaning when a new family moves in next door who shout all the time, set a hateful sign laced with profanity in their front yard, play loud, terrible music into the wee hours of the morning, and whose dog eats my prize petunias. But if loving my neighbors includes even the bad neighbors whom I do not like, then it's got to be about more than my emotional response to them. It's about my willingness to do good for others, to seek their well-being, even before my own.

And really, this is it. This is what makes the way of life marked out by the Scriptures so beautiful, so compelling, and frankly so countercultural. When love is defined by who or what I already like, it will by definition be about partiality--only those I already like, or who are alike enough to me, will be eligible for love. And those who don't make the cut won't be worthy of love. But when love is about seeking and doing good for others regardless of how I feel about them at the moment, I can love everyone who crosses my path, because their likability is bracketed out. It's not about whether I "like" someone, or whether they can do favors for me, or whether we are enough alike that we belong to some social grouping. I can show love even to people I deeply dislike because love is no longer seen as a reward for being sufficiently likable, but simply a reflection of God's choice to love them and me both.

So in our verses for today, the situation that seems to have come to James' attention is about discrimination between rich and poor. And James' point here is that the people of God are called to show love regardless of whether someone can do favors for you or looks more expensively dressed or has a bigger house than you. We are called to seek the welfare of all people, which means especially caring for those whose well-being is at risk. That's why James sees showing partiality as such a violation of the commandment to love--it's one more way of reducing love just to "who is likable enough to warrant my care and attention."

Of course, we still struggle with exactly that same kind of partiality and sifting of people based on their wealth--you know exactly the ways people talk about "good neighborhoods" and "bad neighborhoods," or the ways we build little gated communities (to keep out undesirables, of course), or the ways the needs of poorer communities never seem to get the attention that the up-and-coming suburbs do. We live in a culture that teaches us it's in our own self-interest (for future resale value!) to make sure that no low-income housing developments get built near "us" and "our kind of people." And we just shrug it off as inevitable when the schools in the neighborhoods and communities with lower property values are falling apart because they bring in less income from property taxes compared with the communities where the millionaires live. We're still doing exactly what James warned against, but we just act like there's nothing to be done about it--as though we can't be expected to seek the well-being of others, who we don't even know, and who live in those "other" parts of town.

None of this is even to begin to look at the ways we are still doing the same along racial and ethnic lines, even in our own day. Or the ways we still often use gender, language, and physical ability or disability, to decide whose needs matter more than someone else's. James shines a spotlight on all of this and says, "This isn't what love for your neighbor looks like! You are supposed to be looking out for each other's interests, even when you don't know the other person, or even when you know them and don't like them!" When we settle for the childish definition of love as just "liking people a lot," then by definition we'll only ever seek the interests of people we know, have something in common with, and like. James, however, along with the rest of the Scriptural writers to be honest, sees love as more expansive--something not dependent on me knowing, liking, or agreeing with someone else. Love means we still seek good things for others, regardless of whether we are alike or different, whether we look, talk, and think the same or not, and whether we like each other or not. And every time we divide our communities, our country, and our world into "Me and My Group" over here, and "Those People" over there, however the lines are drawn, James says we are running counter to the call of love, because love isn't merely liking or sameness.

James calls all of that a failure to love, because it is showing partiality. James calls us to more than that. He calls us to "fulfill the royal law"--to love genuinely, which means actions more than feelings or empty talk. And it means leaving behind the childish notion that love is reducible to "liking" what is familiar, rather than love as seeking the good of the other, regardless of how you feel about them in the moment.

Today is a day for us to grow up, then, to move beyond immaturity, and to step deeper into the love we've been called into from ancient times, as old as the Torah's instruction, "Love your neighbor as yourself" and Jesus' direction, "Go and do likewise." If it feels difficult at time, or we are awkward in our learning how to love beyond sentimentality, that's ok. Growing up is like that. And growing up is exactly what this moment needs of us. It's what we need most for this moment, as well.

Lord God, help us to grow in love beyond flighty feelings or self-interest--help us to love like you.

How Love Moves--October 21, 2024

How Love Moves--October 21, 2024  

"So Jesus called [the disciples together] and said to them, 'You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many'." [Mark 10:41-45]

This is it, folks. This is the way of Jesus in all its clear-eyed simplicity, all its breathtaking beauty, all its radically powerful love. We lay down our lives for the sake of one another. In turn, others lay down their lives for us as well. We put the interests, the needs, the feelings of the other before our own--and at the very same time, on the other side of the equation, the others who walk this way with us are putting our needs, our interests, and our feelings before their own. It is an elegant dance, where each one bows to the other and is lifted up in turn. And it is given to us as a gift, with Jesus himself taking the lead and bending low for all of us first to set the tempo and bring us into his cadence.  That's how love moves through the world with even our clumsy feet.

Like so many places in the Scriptures, this scene cuts me to the quick and at the same time moves me to joyful tears. And strangely enough, both happen at the same time. One the one hand, these words seem so clear, the vision so obvious and compelling, that I think we should all be experts at this way of being "great" by serving. And then I take a look at our actual track record, we Respectable Religious folk... and I look in the mirror... and I look at social media... and I hear the crowds cheering when demagogues sell them slogans that belittle and dehumanize others while pretending they are pious... and I find myself so utterly... disappointed. Disappointed in myself, sure, and in an awful lot of what we allow to pass for Christianity.

Maybe it's the difference between the actual way of Jesus and what Frederick Douglass called "slaveholder religion," but whatever the phrasing, however we call it, it seems to me that Jesus has got to be heartbroken over us. He seems to be disappointed in his own inner circle of disciples in this passage that many of us heard in worship yesterday, so much so that he has to call them over for a literal "come to Jesus" moment so he can get them to see how wrong they've gotten it again. They have started fighting with one another about who is greatest, and they have been vying with one another for the best positions at Jesus' side in glory, seeking after their own benefit, their own name, their own cushy, privileged positions... and Jesus has to figuratively smack them upside the head (in love) to get them to see they've got it all backward. And he has to make the contrast clear to them: "The powers of the day, and the rulers of empires play the game like that, sure. They all grab for power. They will not concern themselves for who they step on. They are interested only into what's-good-for-themselves, and they will try and convince you that Me-and-My-Group-First is the way everybody operates. But don't fall for it. It's a lie. It is not so among you."

That's not the way love moves in the world, and so it isn't supposed to be our way of moving in the world.

When Jesus calls the disciples on the carpet for falling for the diabolical lie of "Me First," I know he's got me in his sights, too. He sees into me and this crooked heart of mine, too. He sees the way I let my own ego get the best of me. He sees the ways I want to assume I'm right and block out or ignore anybody who says something that might upset my assumptions. And he brings me up short.

And yet, there is such hope in the way Jesus speaks, too. "It is not so among you." That's an indicative-mood declarative sentence--it's not a wish or a hope or a possibility. It is reality. For us, who seek to be followers of Jesus, the "Me-and-My-Interests-First" mindset just isn't an option for us. We are free to discard it. We are free not to listen to its squawking. We are free not to not to insist on our own greatness or to get as much for ourselves as possible. We are free to be humbled and to learn from others rather than getting defensive. We are free from the need to abuse or exploit others, and we are free from the compulsion to block out and ignore the ways we have abused and exploited them, too. We are free, too, to look at our own stories, our own histories, big and small, with honesty, rather than looking for ways to make ourselves into the heroes all the time. We are free from all that garbage because Jesus just simply says, "It is not so among you."  

In a word, we are free... to love.

When we catch ourselves playing by the world's rules again, Jesus' words just come in and shake us up. "No--it is not so among you." And with that we are free again. Free, for real. It is not conditional upon a waiting period or adequate test scores. But we are free. Jesus pulls us up out of the death-dealing ways of the world's game-playing, and he just plants our feet on solid ground again, makes us alive again, and says, "You are free. Because you don't have to do things the old way anymore. You just don't."

It's like being raised from the dead with each new day. Every time I plunge myself back into the rottenness of "Me-and-My-Interests-First," Jesus will not let my dense thinking or selfish attitude be the last word. And he keeps on pulling at me, calling to me, compelling me into the beauty of his way in the world. And that means, too, that for all the ways I am sure I let Jesus down, he does not give up on me. For all the ways any of us Respectable Religious Folk say and do some pretty terrible things (or defend terrible things on social media... or stay silent in the midst of rotten things in front of us... or ignore the awfulness lurking in our history that we don't want to face and would rather whitewash), Jesus doesn't give up on us, or on his way.

I need that. I need him to keep tugging on my arm to pull me back on track, and I need the assurance of knowing he is not done with me even when I'm a disappointment. And what do you know--there he is again.

Lord Jesus, don't give up on us. Show us how we have blown it. Shake us up to help us let go of the terrible things we are entangled in. And pull us close to move in step with you again.

When We Were Enemies--October 18, 2024

When We Were Enemies--October 18, 2024

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath.  For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life." [Romans 5:6-10]

Let me be honest with you. Sometimes people ask me why I make such a big deal about loving our enemies as Christians.  

It is, for an awful lot of folks, one of the harder teachings of Jesus to accept and certainly one of the hardest to actually practice.  So, why do I keep rubbing it the faces of people around me (after all, I have a "Love your enemies" stole I often wear on Sundays, and frequently wear a lapel button with the same message on my suit jacket), when it would be an easier sell for potential new church members or on-the-fence seekers if my first message were something less, I don't know, explicitly countercultural and subversive?  (I recall, for example, sitting in a church gathering of some sort years ago where parents and their teenage children were around the table, and I had causally made some remark about inviting not just friends to church, but strangers or enemies.  In response, one of the young people there immediately turned to ask his mom, "Why would anybody do anything like that for their enemies?" to which the mother immediately answered in all sincerity, "Oh, well, you've got to keep tabs on your enemies and keep them close enough so you can get them before they get you!" It was as if both the child and the parent were completely unaware of the teachings of Jesus we have been looking at in these recent days, even though it is at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount.)  So, knowing how unpalatable this notion is even to lifelong churchgoers, why keep coming back to it?  

Here's the truth: it's my only hope.

Now, when I say that, I don't mean that I believe if I don't love my enemies perfectly enough I will get kicked out of God's good graces and won't go to heaven when I die. My hope doesn't rest on how proficiently I maintain love for my enemies, but rather on the gospel's claim that God has loved me when I was the enemy of God--and, frankly, when my hard heart and stubborn sin makes me act in opposition to God even now.  In other words, the good news of the gospel has everything to do with enemy-love, because it is first and foremost God who loves enemies and rescues us even when we are dead-set turned away from God.  The gospel itself is about enemy-love; it's not just a difficult moral teaching we tack on for expert-level Christians, but rather it's the currency of the whole economy of grace... because it is God who has loved us first even "while we were enemies" and saved us through Christ.

The Gospel depends on a God who doesn't just love us when we are already turned toward God or who tolerates us when we are basically pointed in the right direction, but who loves us and is willing to take action to save us even at our worst... even when we are turned away from God... even when we oppose God.

That's precisely Paul's point here in this critical moment in his letter to the Romans.  He grounds our salvation, not in our willingness as humans, as Christians, or as good little disciples, to be God's friends, but rather in God's choice to love us and reconcile with us precisely when we have been estranged and at odds with God.  This goes even further than what we read earlier this week from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.  When Jesus says, as he does in Matthew's version, that God "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous," it could sound like God only passively lets good things happen to stinkers because they also happen to the well-behaved.  It could sound like Jesus is saying, "God is already sending sunshine on the perfect peaches, and it's just too much of a hassle to prevent the sun from going to the crooks and cheaters, so God just lets it shine on everyone."  Or it could sound like there is some basic "free version" of God's love that doesn't cover very much or only applies to the weather, but that the "full version" of God's love operates by different rules for paying subscribers for salvation.  But no, Paul insists that God's reckless, enemy-embracing love doesn't only apply to sunshine and rain for your fields, but is actually the heart of our whole salvation history, because Jesus gave his life, not just for people you might label as "friends" of God or "followers" of God, but in fact for us when we were "enemies" of God.  The cross, Paul insists, wasn't just for the "godly," or the "strong," or the "virtuous," but precisely for the "ungodly," the "weak," and for "sinners."  That's the nature of God's love, not just for low-stakes things like sun and rain, but for the cross and the empty tomb.

My only hope, in other words, is that God is committed to loving God's enemies (myself included!) to the point of saving them and reconciling with them from God's side, even before I've "turned to God" or "gotten my act together," or even "prayed the sinner's prayer" or "accepted Jesus into my heart."  God's love did not need to wait for me to take the first step, or for me to at least show a little promise before rescuing me and a whole world full of us.

And maybe we need to stop and sit with that reality for a minute: if Paul is right on this (and again, I am banking my salvation on the trust that he is) and God's saving love in Jesus rescued us while we were enemies opposed to God, then whatever the cross is about, it's not about changing God's mind about us.  Let me say that again: whatever the cross means, Paul seems to insist here that it is NOT a matter of persuading an angry God on the verge of zapping us with hellfire into a change of attitude so as to love us instead.  God's saving love wasn't waiting for us to improve our behavior, and God didn't need to make Jesus suffer a certain amount in order to be able to stomach the sight of us.  (I feel the need to say this because, to be completely transparent here, sometimes you do hear Respectable Religious Voices whose theology sounds like Jesus had to die on the cross in order to make a change in God's mind, from vengeful rage to amazing grace.  And even though they intend to stress the goodness of God's love at the end of that transaction, it ends up sounding like God is emotionally unstable like an abusive parent and needs Jesus to step in to take a beating in order to keep us from bearing a violent outburst.)  And again, if we take Paul seriously here, there was never a moment in time when God's mind had to be changed about us, since even at our absolute worst and most diametrically opposed to God, God already loved us and was redeeming us in Christ through the cross.

So when I say that enemy-love is my only hope, it's because I realize that even in the moments when I am turned away from God, God isn't turned away from me--and God hasn't been turned away from any of us. Our call to love our enemies is simply what it looks like to take seriously that God has loved us all when we were enemies of God, all the way to a cross.  Even when humanity's expression of that animosity toward God crucified Jesus, God's anointed, God loved us and exhausted our hatred and violence.  

That's the hope on which our faith hangs.  That's the kind of love that not only changes the world, but saved it at the cross.

What will our day look like in light of that kind of love?

Lord Jesus, ground us in your unfailing love for us, even at our worst, so that we can love others as they are, too.