If You Only Love the Lovable, Do You Expect a Pat on the Back? (Luke 6:24-38)

…If I am to answer this question honestly, I’d have to say “yes”, “Yes, I sometimes do expect a pat on the back for loving the loveable.” I mean, when we do things well – if we are especially kind, loving, generous, and gracious – isn’t there within us a hope that what we do will be noticed? Does it matter that it was “easy” to help, share, give? The challenge, for me at least, is to respond with love regardless of the situation – to respond with love and a gentle word to the person who is rude to me in the store… to respond with love and a prayer for safety for the person who cuts me off in traffic… to respond with love and compassion to the person who seeks to harm me or my family… What does this kind of love look like? and How do I live it?

Today’s scripture says it is a generous love, a grace-full love – the same kind of love that God showers upon me. I think the difficulty begins with our categorizing everyone. Now this isn’t always a bad thing – for example, categorizing helps us remember people we’ve met, helps us remember things about them. But often we carry this categorizing business too far and categorize people as worthy or unworthy, loveable or unloveable. If someone does or says the right thing – “right” being whatever I agree with, of course – then I find it’s easier to be kind and generous… God doesn’t ask that we believe a certain way before God loves us – God simply loves… The difficulty, I believe, is that we live in a place between the world we see each day – the world of hurt and cruelty and abuse – and the World of God that is not as easy to see with our eyes – the world where we are called to respond to one another with the grace and love of God. It is God’s love for each person that gives them value, makes them loveable – yes, even me. So how can I find others loveable? …By seeking to see them through the eyes of Jesus…

In my humanity, I am humbled by the love of Jesus Christ – by the way he loved each person as they needed to be loved… so in faith I seek once again to live the question, “How is God calling me to love this person?”…

If You Only Love the Lovable, Do You Expect a Pat on the Back? (Luke 6:24-38)

In my life, two separate events have spoken directly to the question this week. These events address two different types of people that are very difficult to tolerate, let alone love. One is determined to destroy their own life, taking along those that love him/her deeply; the other is determined to wreek havoc in the lives of innocents for their own gain.

From the book Living the Questions in Luke, I have pulled the passages that lept off of the page. Someone else reading the same material will find other passages more meaningful. I hope you share them with us.

From the scripture: "Polularity contests are not truth contests .... Your task is to be true, not popular.... Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! ....Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back -- given back with bonus and blessing."

In this lesson from Living the Questions in Luke, the authors quote from In the Presence of Fear, by Wendell Berry. Berry's words were written after September 11, 2001: "The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, neither by job-training nor by industrial-subsidized research. Its proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" -- which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first."

The authors also present a passage from The Clown in the Belfry, By Frederick Buechner. Here, Buechner quotes the author Henry James giving advice to his young nephew:

"'There are three things that are important in human life. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.'"

Buechner continues:

"Be kind because although kindness is not by a long shot that same thing as holiness, kindness is one of the doors that holiness enters the world through, enters us through -- not just gently kind but sometimes fiercely kind....

Be kind enough to others to listen, beneath all the words they speak, for that usually unspoken hunger for holiness which I believe is part of even the unlikeliest of us because by listening to it and cherishing it maybe we can help bring it to birth both in them and in ourselves."

Which is Simpler?

The Ash Wednesday’s passage (Luke 5:17-32) causes me to wonder…

I wonder how often I approach life and faith believing “only God” can do a certain thing? …or believing “God wouldn’t/couldn’t” – like, God wouldn’t heal…? We want miracles to happen but we don’t expect them to. How often, like the Pharisees, do I decide for God what God will and won’t do…? When I do this, I know I am making God after my own image thinking God sees justice and right/wrong the same way I do. When I do this, putting God in my box, it sure makes me more comfortable… but it limits the Spirit of God working through me. How often do I bypass “bold belief” and settle instead for the limits I’m comfortable with? …Which is simpler? Which is Christ calling me to live?

I wonder, also, when Jesus said to me “come along with me”, did I “walk away from everything” to follow Jesus as Levi did? On this journey of faith, am I following Christ with the best that I have to offer, or am I settling for doing or being “good enough”? To answer honestly is to confess that too often I offer God comfort-faith not bold-belief. And I know that means that instead of walking this journey with God – dependent upon God and allowing God to lead – in those times of “comfort-faith” I am asking God to walk with me, to let me dictate the path… God calls all of us to live not out of a sense of scarcity, but to live in the abundance of God’s love – so how do I move from comfort-faith to living bold-belief? …Which is simpler? Which is Christ calling me to live?

What do you think? In what ways did this passage of Scripture speak to you?

Thoughts about our Blog...

If you are new to blogging or you are an old hand at it, we welcome you here. This blog is sponsored by members of the Worship Department at Riverside Avenue Christian Church. It is our hope that our walk together through this Lenten season is one that enriches our journeys of faith. Each week we will post notes from that week's topic of study. We will also post at least one essay or personal reflection that, we hope, will help us to think more deeply about our lives and the living-out of our relationship with God. We encourage you to reply to the postings found here with your own reflections and comments. I pray that, as we help one another along on this path of faith, we will come to understand how deeply we are all held in the grip of God's love and learn to live-out our lives from the center of that love.

Translation Note:

The study series that we are using during Lent this year uses The Message translation of the Bible. If you don’t have a copy, you can read the passage each week at http://www.biblegateway.com/ On that site, you can type in the Bible verse or verses and select the translation you wish to use. It is sometimes helpful to read familiar passages in new words to see deeper meaning, so I encourage you to read The Message version as we journey together seeking to deepen our relationship with God.