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."