Mark 12:30-31 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: 'Love your neighour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
I was watching Oprah one day (oooh, the evils of Oprah) and she was interviewing these men who were on her show 20 years earlier. They were skinheads back in the day and they were speaking absolute hate and prejudice in their first appearance on the show. But when they came back on, they were different people. They were weeping, apologizing, and talking about how ashamed they felt about their former life. Oprah asked one man what made him change. Here is what he said in a nutshell.
After he did the first Oprah show, he ended up going to prison for burning down a synagogue and assaulting some black men.
While in prison he was assigned to a group of guys who was doing manual labour. Every single man on that team was black. He was the only white guy. His back was covered with tattoos of swastikas and racial slurs. Every man in that group knew he was a white supremisist. And yet, all those men accepted this guy, befriended him, and treated him with respect. Their act of love broke that man's heart and changed him forever.
This tore at the fabric of my heart. Here was this group of black men. They knew this guy was in complete opposition to them. They could have beat him up, shunned him, condemned him, judged him, told him that he was wrong, argued with him about the truth. But instead they just loved him, accepted him and treated him as they would want to be treated.
The concept of loving my neighbour has been mulling about in my mind lately. The Bible says that this is the greatest commandment (along with loving God). The Word of God says that the entire law is summed up with this command (Gal. 5:14) and it is also described as the royal law (James 2:8). God makes it very clear that loving our neighbour as ourselves is the one thing He wants us to fully grasp and practice.
Are we actually doing this? We say we are. We claim to be appalled by the history of Christianity that is bathed in the blood of the crusades and the hate of the religious war in Ireland. We are ashamed that the KKK claimed to be a bible based organization and feel so thankful that we have a better grasp on scripture than that. Do we?
What does loving our neighbour look like? Does it look like a inviting someone over for dinner just so that we can preach to them? Does it look like protesting abortion with signs like, "you are a baby murderer" as desperate women grasp at solutions? Does it sound like us preaching vehemently against homosexuality? Does it involve taking new Christians and laying down a set of laws about what they can wear to church, what language they are no longer allowed to use, and how they must immediately stop drinking, smoking, dancing, and having premarital sex?
I am disgusted with the church today because although many of us would say that we are loving our neighbour, we are not. Somehow we have interpreted Jesus' words to mean that our job, first and foremost, is to convert people and then bring them into our set of rules. Frankly, this makes me sick. Our job is so very simple and yet we complicate it so much. We are asked to love God and love people. It is not our job to change people. It is not our job to hammer them with rules that they don't buy into. We simply need to love. We simply need to show people who Jesus is.
Is it true that God has given us guidelines and boundaries for our lives? Oh yes. But we have messed that up as well. You see, our mission is to show the love of God to people. It is HIS job to change their hearts. And when He changes their hearts, he gives them a desire to be more like Him. And when they have the desire to be more like Him, they begin to make choices that align with those guidelines. This is God's process, not ours. This is His mission, not ours. We have screwed it up time and time again.
So maybe loving our neighbour means we invite someone over for dinner to just love them and bless them. Maybe instead of protesting abortion we can be a support to these women before they make their decision and, heaven forbid, after they have gone through with it. Maybe loving our neighbour means that we start to see homosexuals as people instead of freaks. Maybe it looks like showing new Christians how to have a relationship with Jesus and realizing that this process is long and messy and it will take months or years for their choices to fall in line with God's heart.
Sorry about the rant today, but I think we are doing this all wrong. Those African American criminals in the prison knew how to love their neighbour. They didn't yell at him and tell him he was evil. They didn't force their beliefs about equality on him. They just loved him. And you know what happened when they loved? That man's heart changed and his entire life was transformed.
Let's start loving people. That's all. And let's leave the changing part up to God. And let's allow Him to start with us.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Friday, October 07, 2011
The Dangerous Blog Post
I am fully aware that I have not blogged in a while. It's not because I forgot, it's simply because I wasn't sure what I wanted to blog about. Usually I have something bubbling out of me that finds its way onto the screen with almost no effort. And you'd think with all the stuff that is going on in our lives (or not going on, depending on how you view it) I'd have tons of stuff to share. Problem is, I think I have too much stuff going on in this scrambled brain of mine.
So, I decided today to sit down and see what ends up on the screen. I literally don't know where this will go! This is very dangerous because my mind is a vast expanse (ok, maybe not vast) of thoughts, opinions, ideas, and out-of-the-box views of life. I am fully aware that my mind often goes to extremes and those extremes end up finding their way out of my mouth at the most inappropriate times! Just one concept can cause one person to jump for joy and another person to be deeply offended. And as hard as I try, I cannot conform to normality enough to just please everyone.
But let's face it: I have never been one to conform. I have a non-existant desire to please people. It's not something I strived to become. It's simply in my DNA (I would like to take this moment to thank my father for this very freeing, although somewhat offensive trait). It's important to note that the "non people pleaser" gene is not attached to the "self-centered" gene. Those are two separate traits and I would like to think that I only missed out on one of them!
My lack of desire to conform can be frustrating at times. I think my life would be so much simpler if I just lived life like everyone else and I just absorbed the opinions of others in my society. But just thinking about that makes me throw up in my mouth just a little bit. Nope. I walk a different path with some pretty different views. I think that is why I am so often in spaces where my next steps look a little freaky... like right now.
I have decided not to go into details about the space I am in right now and some of the decisions that Kenny and I need to make. A blog is not a place to spill all of the "what ifs" when choosing our next course of action. What I can say is that we are making decisions right now about my future job, our future ministry, and our future dwelling place. Here is what I know to be true: in my quest for a job that works for me, I will go against the grain and wait for one that fits into my calling to be a mom even if that means I say "no" to all the jobs that seem perfect in the world's eye. In our quest to be in full time ministry, we will choose a path where we can live out our faith by loving others deeply, not in religion (yes, those are two different things and I hate religion... just another offensive thing I happen to believe). In our quest to live a simple life, we may choose to ditch the bigger and better mentality and just go for smaller and cozier.
I can honestly say that I do not know at this juncture what direction God is taking us in. It may be scary, strange, against the grain, or even a bit crazy, but it will be exactly what we need to do in the exact moment that we need to do it! And as soon as I know what our lives will look like... I'll be sure to fill you in!
So, I decided today to sit down and see what ends up on the screen. I literally don't know where this will go! This is very dangerous because my mind is a vast expanse (ok, maybe not vast) of thoughts, opinions, ideas, and out-of-the-box views of life. I am fully aware that my mind often goes to extremes and those extremes end up finding their way out of my mouth at the most inappropriate times! Just one concept can cause one person to jump for joy and another person to be deeply offended. And as hard as I try, I cannot conform to normality enough to just please everyone.
But let's face it: I have never been one to conform. I have a non-existant desire to please people. It's not something I strived to become. It's simply in my DNA (I would like to take this moment to thank my father for this very freeing, although somewhat offensive trait). It's important to note that the "non people pleaser" gene is not attached to the "self-centered" gene. Those are two separate traits and I would like to think that I only missed out on one of them!
My lack of desire to conform can be frustrating at times. I think my life would be so much simpler if I just lived life like everyone else and I just absorbed the opinions of others in my society. But just thinking about that makes me throw up in my mouth just a little bit. Nope. I walk a different path with some pretty different views. I think that is why I am so often in spaces where my next steps look a little freaky... like right now.
I have decided not to go into details about the space I am in right now and some of the decisions that Kenny and I need to make. A blog is not a place to spill all of the "what ifs" when choosing our next course of action. What I can say is that we are making decisions right now about my future job, our future ministry, and our future dwelling place. Here is what I know to be true: in my quest for a job that works for me, I will go against the grain and wait for one that fits into my calling to be a mom even if that means I say "no" to all the jobs that seem perfect in the world's eye. In our quest to be in full time ministry, we will choose a path where we can live out our faith by loving others deeply, not in religion (yes, those are two different things and I hate religion... just another offensive thing I happen to believe). In our quest to live a simple life, we may choose to ditch the bigger and better mentality and just go for smaller and cozier.
I can honestly say that I do not know at this juncture what direction God is taking us in. It may be scary, strange, against the grain, or even a bit crazy, but it will be exactly what we need to do in the exact moment that we need to do it! And as soon as I know what our lives will look like... I'll be sure to fill you in!
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