Tag Archives: love

Reflections on love. and Jesus.

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Jesus was summarizing simply the law.

“Love God,” he said.

“Love your neighbor.”

“Who do we have to love?” was the follow up. “Who counts as my neighbor?”

That’s the story of the good Samaritan. If you walk by someone in serious trouble, and you can help, and you don’t on account of being too focused on being good, you aren’t. Good, that is. Or loving.

Jesus got more specific when talking to the guys who followed him most closely. He gave them a command:

“Love one another.”

The way people would know the disciples were following Jesus, he explained, was that they would love each other.

When the Bible talks about love, different words in Greek are translated using the English word “love”. One of them, phileo, is like our word “bromance”. When a group of guys support each other, cheer for each other, play softball together, you could describe it as love. And that, it would seem, to make sense when talking to these guys.

But Jesus uses a different word. agape. [uh gop a (long A)]. It means “the dying for you kind of love I’m showing.”

When Jesus says “Love one another” he’s not saying, “Be nice to each other” or “be a great team” or “sleep with each other”. He’s saying, “Be like me.”

We say, “How in the world do I do that for this person I have nothing in common with?”

God says, “Exactly. You have nothing in common with him, other than me. And that is exactly enough. You can’t talk yourself into loving that person. You can’t say, ‘I bet I’ll get points if I love that person.’ You have to ask me to help.”

And he will.

God-changed communities are full of people who used to hate each other.

How to deal with obnoxious Christians

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If you are not a Christian, that’s easy. Do whatever you want.

Throw stuff at them. Tell them to shut up. Give them a cup filled with cool water and say, “I think that Jesus said you were supposed to give this to me.” The guy wanting to burn the Koran? Feel free to remind him that Jesus said to love your enemies, and then He proceeded to pray for the people who were killing him. Or change the station. The gal who tips with a tract instead of money? Run after her and say, “I think you forgot to read the part of this that talks about loving.”

If you are a Christian, this is easy too. Love them.

The person who is boycotting the funerals of veterans? Yes. The guy wanting to burn the Koran? Yep, him too. The person who likes a different kind of music for church services, the person who loves tattoos/hates tattoos, the person who wears long skirts or short skirts or suits or jeans or lots of makeup or no makeup? Love him or her or them.

But that’s impossible, isn’t it?

Absolutely.  And not only is it impossible, it makes no sense. I mean, if I love someone, it will look like I’m condoning what they are doing. And the last thing that I want to do is condone what “that person” is doing.

But here’s the deal. Jesus says “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” If I want to obey what he commands, and I do, I have to love the people who say that they are following Jesus.

Of course, his love for me doesn’t mean he condones everything I do.  He looks for the hole in my heart and offers healing.

That’s how.

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UPDATE: For more on what to do, see  “So I have to love him?” – Part one.

loving through interruptions.

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Jesus is counting down the hours he has with the disciples. He’s facing death. It’s a burden. Though he knows it will turn out okay eventually, he is not looking forward to the process. So he’s covering the important stuff, the ideas that will be on the exam.

Judas leaves the room, Jesus takes a deep breath, and says,

“Okay. Let’s start. This is the end of the beginning. I’m going to leave. Here’s what I want you to do: Love one another. The way that people are going to know that you belong to me, that you are following me, that you have learned anything from me, is by how you take care of each other.”

It’s great teaching. It gives a reason for paying attention (I’m leaving, listen closely).

But Peter wasn’t ready for the command part.

“Where are you going?”

You can’t go, Jesus says.

“But I want to go with you. Why can’t I go? I always go with you. You can’t take a step without me being there. Remember on the water? I was there. Remember the mountain? I was there. Remember identifying who you are? That was me. Getting money out of the mouth of the fish? Me.”

And Jesus says that Peter is going to say he doesn’t know Jesus three times before the next morning.

And then Jesus answers Peter’s question, the one about where he is going.

It’s funny, isn’t it? Jesus rewards Peter’s disruptive classroom behavior. Jesus should have said, “Peter, you aren’t listening to me. Why don’t you go sit in the corner. Now class, let’s talk about this the important thing, loving one another.”

Instead, Jesus showed his love for Peter.

1. He warned him about the upcoming failure.

2. He kept talking to Peter.

That’s what love looks like.

but it is really really challenging.

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We talked about love yesterday, about loving each other. It sounds delightfully lovely.

It isn’t. It’s tongue-chewingly, ego-brutalizingly, priority-devastatingly lovely. Walk backwards with me through John 13.

  • Right before Jesus gave his new command, to love one another in the same way he had loved them, Judas left the room, slipping away, arousing no suspicions.
  • Right before that, Jesus let Judas know that he knew what Judas was up to. He defined a secret sign and then calmly offered it to Judas. And with the sign being food, it means that he offered hospitality, a gift.
  • Right before that, it was clear that no one else suspected Judas. Everyone wondered who it could be. Each one asked about himself.
  • Right before that, Jesus washed the feet of each disciple, including Judas.

Jesus left Judas no reason for betrayal, at least not in terms of personal treatment that night. There were likely philosophical disagreements. Judas argued that money wasted on perfume could have been spent on the poor. There were certainly ethical disagreements. Judas wanted to steal the money from the poor. But after all the high moral posturing and low moral behavior, this one thing is true. Jesus treated Judas exactly the same as the rest of the disciples that night, with the respect and service which characterize his love.

Of course, all of the disciples would be gone before the evening was over. All would walk or run or deny. All of them would be completely human, completely like us.

As you walk into this weekend, with time, perhaps, for more reflection than usual, reflect on a couple ideas:

  • If you wonder whether Jesus loves you, look at how he treated Judas.
  • If you ever wonder whether you can love, ask the one who treated Judas that way for help.

do why I do.

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We look for punishment.  We want to know what the penalty will be if we don’t do something. We want to know where the boundaries are, how far we can go before we get hurt or scolded or destroyed.

I understand that feeling. I get a phone call and think, “Oh no, what did I do now.” Someone says, “Can I talk to you for a minute tomorrow?” and I think, “I wonder what the problem is going to be.”

We look at the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and think, “This is going to be another one of those guilt things, isn’t it. I bet Jesus is going to make us miserable if we don’t do this thing, too.” That’s often how we do church. We look for the rules, the limits, the expectations, the penalties. Because it is easy. Because it comes naturally.

But look more closely at what Jesus says to the disciples after he finishes washing their feetand gets dressed. He starts with a should, just like we expect:  “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”

He piles it on: I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

Now the kicker:  Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Wait, what? Not “you will be cursed if you don’t?” Not, “I did this to make you feel guilty?”

Nope. Jesus said that serving blesses the servant. But that shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, he’s not doing it out of guilt-avoidance. He’s doing it for love.