I Need Some Help
I've been invited to talk to some people next week on a topic they're calling "Loving People Who Are Different" by which I think they mean "Loving Unconditionally" (which may be redundant) and I could use some input.
If you're all still out there and still checking the blog (which apparently you are) you represent some pretty disparate approaches to Life and I'd like to hear what you have to say about the topic at hand.
The warning (and a source of great apprehension for me): In order to dissect something you have to kill it.
If you're all still out there and still checking the blog (which apparently you are) you represent some pretty disparate approaches to Life and I'd like to hear what you have to say about the topic at hand.
The warning (and a source of great apprehension for me): In order to dissect something you have to kill it.
8 Comments:
Dan Allison from Price Hill.
Ben, you are an inspiration to me and have helped me think about things in new ways more than you will ever know. This is my attempt at writing something on the subject; it never comes to a concise ending or even close. At least it helped me to realize how I put conditions on relationships.
Luke 6:27-36
When I hear the words of this section of text, I think, “Sure, I get it,” because I’ve heard it or read it so many times before. My thinking gets legalistic and I begin to imagine that if I even consider anyone an enemy, I am failing. I start to believe that I have no real enemies because I’m such a good Christian and I already love everyone, even though I know how ludicrous that sounds. It took Lydia Powell praying that Sadaam Hussein would learn about Jesus to make me realize that, yes, I do have enemies out there, and no, I don’t love everybody already.
The truth is that there are definitely people in this world that don’t like me and would like to cause me harm. They are likely individuals who find my religious beliefs the antithesis of their own, what the media would refer to as extremists. But these people don’t concern me as much as a different group. I seem to have greater difficulty with the people who don’t even realize that they are my enemies.
For instance, the recruiter at work (and those of you who are veterans should cringe with me as I say the word recruiter) who has repeatedly omitted information that has caused me great distress. There were promised wages, bonuses, and raises that all turned out to be misinformation, as was the number of hours per week that would be worked. These multiple miscommunications resulted in me earning a little less than I though I was would. Because of this, I viewed her as a sworn enemy of mine, as if she spends her spare time plotting against me.
It took the good sense of my wife to show me the error of my thinking. In reality, my case was very different than all the other cases that she had to deal with, and she didn’t have the time or clairvoyance to address me specifically. She was just doing her job. The problem was mine. Yet, I had already begun to treat her less than cordially. My perspective of an enemy is someone who causes my comfort level to go down. This definition is irrespective of the other person’s intent. They may not actually want to cause me harm or even be aware that their actions have hurt me. I seem to spend way too much time on this area of enemy identification than I do on what is shared in Luke chapter 6.
Growing up, I thought that repentance equated to behavioral changes, just as Archibald Asparagus points out in Jonah: A Veggietales Movie: “Stop doing that!” But now that I am a “learned Bible college student,” I can tell you that it doesn’t. It basically means a change of mind or change of thinking. John the Baptizer told people in his day to repent, so I guess that meant that their thinking was in error. For some, it was the idea that their nationality or heritage was all that was needed to keep them in relation with God. But he flat out told them that if God wanted children for Abraham, he’d make ‘em out of stones rather than them. Maybe it was the idea of strictly observing a set of rules in order to be right with God. But the truth of the matter was that they couldn’t do anything on their own to fix their spiritual life any more than we can. We have to rely on Jesus to do, or rather, to have done it for us.
So how does repentance take form today? How do I need to change my thinking concerning loving my enemy?
Ben, were you at the CCiPH building back in 2004 when Kathy’s purse was stolen during the service? Like everyone else, I wanted to see her get her stuff back. But I’ll tell you that the last thing on my mind would have been the thief’s welfare. In my mind, this person should be held accountable, and by my standard, that involved at a minimum a lack of kindness toward this person. Then Ken comes in and tells us that they think they know who it was and asks, “Are we going to continue to love this person?”
I wasn’t ready for that. That kind of thinking was too far removed from my own. I spent the rest of the day wondering how to get to that point.
I know that part of it involves knowing the verses in the first place. In writing a ‘sermon’ for a class, I came to realize that I need reminders, constantly. In that case my problem was judging others, specifically at work. My solution was to remind myself of a text that dealt with my problem. Eventually, I began to just recite the book and chapter number and that was enough to help me through my trouble spot. Addriane pointed out that the same solution might work in this case also. Isn’t she great?
There is one notable difference. I knew I had a problem at work, so I purposefully made the effort to remind myself before I entered that arena. My difficulty with loving my “enemy” is not knowing where one will be found. Or is it that I am too self-absorbed to realize that I am more concerned with my own well-being than with anything else. That seems to ring a little closer to the truth. What to do, what to do.
Nothing horribly insightful or anything but something that always strikes me intriguing about this topic is that the focus needs to be on your heart. It's like having friends who make fun of each other, is it just words or do they mean the jokes sincerely? Loving someone doesn't mean liking them either, it means treating them with God's eyes. Just as God doesn't like what we do he still always loves us. Like and love are not the same and the love of a stranger is not that of friends or family or spouses. It often seems that there is confusion about what love really is. At least, in my humble perspective, it's doing what you don't want to do simply because it's right. Although that follows along obedience, loving is obedience, because if you do nothing for someone to represent God love for him. Is it not said love was his greatest gift to us, therefore should it not be our greatest gift to others as well? Trying to love someone more than yourself, even if they don't "deserve" it is part of that great love of God. Just as with our spouses and our kids we are to love them more than ourselves so that we give freely I think the same should be said of our behavior towards others. It would really make a difference in getting past sexual and racial and all sorts of other hangups people have. When you constantly put someone else first it makes it difficult to hate them.
Kristy
Continuous
Resolution
Of
Sacrificing
Self
ben...i'm sure it's no surprise that i'd refer to luke:)
jesus turns the greco/roman concept of friendship on its ear in luke's gospel. particularly in chapter 14. good stuff.
Not to play silly word games, but the use of "different" gives me pause; different from whom? The only thing remotely helpful that comes to mind is that we can't assume the path of love to be obvious. "Do unto others" is timeless wisdom, of course, but it can be taken too literally. What if my neighbor (or my brother or my spouse) doesn't actually want to be treated the way I would? What I can (and should offer) is the same consideration -- and that requires some creativity and a willingness to approach the Other as a person and not a category. Even with people who are terribly familiar, that can be a daunting challenge.
True or false:
Love that's conditional isn't love.
True.
The essense of love, before anything else, is selflessness. To add conditions implies that there is an element of reserve; that is, an element of fear that one's self might be hurt in the process.
Love is selfless. Oh, and good luck with your talk, if you haven't had it already.
"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete."
--the Buddha
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home