I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life-we hear in our collect this Sunday, we see this phrase several times in scripture, most famously in John's Gospel. Jesus invites those who wish to follow Him to steer their natural affections and their gut reactions, beyond reason and towards a life of praxis. “A life of practice,” we might say. A practice that I promise is categorically uncomfortable and discomforting.
As John Calvin wrote, "The love of the Father towards the Son, and of the Son towards us, and us towards God and our neighbor are joined together with an inseparable knot.”
In Christ, there is no east or west, we sung this morning.
Jesus's words to His disciples in John's Gospel from Chapter 15 are clear; "God loves Me, I love you, you love God, love your neighbor and keep my commandant." Easy. Done. God loves me, Andy Doyle. What do I have to do to maintain this love? I have to keep God's commandment. And what is that commandment? That commandment is to love others as God has loved me. Simple.
Our human nature brings us right to the commandment part. The commandment seems clear. So as the Stephen Stills song says “we love the ones we are with.”We love our family. We love our children. We love our friends. We've got the commandment checked off. And why not? It seems natural.
It turns out it is actually natural. This is actually how human beings work. Psychologist, researcher, and author, Brené Brown writes, "We have an irreducible need for love and belonging. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired. It is our makeup to love, to be loved, and to belong.”
Moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, points out that our affections rule us, and our reason merely guides us. Our affections are wired to be sensitive to those who will be good partners for collaboration and reciprocity. We look for those who will do good things for us and with us, when we do good things for them. And we are sensitive and disinclined as human beings to do good for those who cannot return the favor. We are wired to be sensitive to those who will be a good team player, those who will join in and work with us on our team. And we reward these relationships naturally (Haidt, Righteous Minds, 2013)
Haidt also writes that we are wired to ostracize those who aren't on our team. In a flash of a second, our emotions, our affections tell us if we have a partner or not. We surround ourselves with these kinds of people naturally. We work for and with them. In fact, we move into neighborhoods that are filled with people who are just like us and who we can trust to be good partners.
Loving God and loving neighbor is actually what we're wired to do. It comes naturally. This makes us a strong tribe, a strong family, a strong church, a strong city, and a strong nation. Our emotions take us here and our natural reasoning helps us to defend our choices; we love the ones that we are with. But that is not the Gospel: that is not what the Gospel says.
God in Christ Jesus invites and offers us a much harder discipleship-turning the situation upside down and inviting us to pause. Jesus invites us into a life beyond our natural capacity for community. Jesus invites us to live outside of our affections and beyond our reasonable defense of our natural actions. Jesus invites us to live a life of practice that is more than loving the one that we are with. He does this primarily by redefining the word "neighbor." Jesus redefines neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan, and I would offer that in His own ministry, He challenges the disciples to do, to show, and to reveal this new definition of neighbor. In the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan, the neighbor is more than family, more than kin, more than tribe; neighbor is more than the people of our small community. Neighbor is more than those who think like us. Neighbor is more than those whose faith is the same as ours. Neighbor is more than those who share the same moral system as you and I, which is clear if we were to dive into a deeper understanding of the differences between the Samaritans and Jews.
When Jesus is talking about this love commandment, he uses a particular word on top of this and that is the Greek word, “agape.” Agape is more than the love that is given to those who can return it -it is not an exchange or reciprocity. Agape is uncaused and there is no reason for it. In other words, a person does not receive it by somehow deserving it. This love that Jesus is talking about, this agape love, is indifferent to merit. It is not earned. It is beyond our tribal identities, our political, religious, and national identities. It makes something new. Agape love is based on God's love of creation and for all people. It is a love which is given on the cross, though we deserve it not. Agape is alone characterized by grace.
Your emotions will tell you whom to love, and you will love those that you are with. But Jesus is calling you and he is inviting you to a higher love than what comes naturally. He is raising the bar beyond your habitual way of doing things. We are invited to rise above the natural limits that we place on love and community and to love as God loves. You cannot earn God's love, God freely saves sinners like you and me. As Christians, we recognize that we are beneficiaries of this redemptive love. We experience a God who loves us, no matter the broken road that has brought us this far on the way.
God’s love for us is unearned, unmerited, and undeserved. And God in Jesus Christ invites us to overcome the natural boundaries we place around love, our limited definition of kin, of family, of neighbor, and tribe. This is His way, this is His truth and this is His invitation.
No comments:
Post a Comment