| This song got stuck in my head tonight... ain't the words great?
"Your love O Lord
Reaches to the heavens
Your faithfulness
Stretches to the sky
And your righteousness
Is like the mighty mountains
Your justice flows
Like the ocean's tide"
cyberspace worship.Gotta love it.
!-- Story time
A friend I had lunch with this week gave me a bit of mind-blowing brain food. And I must say that to not have this kind of awesome dialogue on a regular basis just must really suck. I think your brain just craves a bit challenging meat to chew on every now and then or else it deteriorates and you get sick, and I'd hate to be mentally anorexic. I have met so many amazingly insightful people that are stock-full of this "food for thought" -- throwing intellectual Whoppers at me-- I think that if I didn't have either a relatively fast brain metabolism or else this huge hole in my head I'd be in morbid threat of becoming mentally obese just from hanging out with them.
And I digress.
So He said to me between a breaded bite of Subway and a quote off of a paperback book jacket these raspy, provacative words:
"I think what we really need to start hearing and learning about in church is how to love ourselves. Really. That's what it comes down to. I know it sounds selfish, but if you look at it from God's standpoint, I mean, He loves us as individuals and that's what He commands us to do. How can we expect to know how to love other people if we can't even love ourselves?"
Wow. In the seconds that came afterwards I could hear a red-flaming hot sound coming from somewhere in the back pews of a thousand Sunday sanctuaries: HERESY! HERESY! And I found myself joining arms with them. How individualistic-- how ego-centric-- how consumer-driven in your thinking can you get?
Let me debrief. As I came to, this friend and I talked about what it means to love-- to truly love someone, moreover how that looks in an everyday setting on a bus or with a cashier-- a stranger you don't really know and probably won't get a chance to talk with in depth. The whole "not with words or tongue, but in actions and in truth" type of deal, and what Christ and his disciples lived out. The competing theories of "share the gospel at all times, and if necessary use words" against the slightly-less-well-known "...whenever possible-- use words" (for the sake of their eternal destiny at the cost of your own comfort tatctic) seemed to be at the heart of the argument, as he pulled for one side and I (playing devil's advocate,) for the other.
There were several remarks made about explicit messages, bumper-sticker witnessing vs. implicit tintings of the truth disguised in art. I confess I fully expected the discussion to dive headlong into the theology of what it means to be a follower of Christ as the fallen, finite human beings that we are and thus to make the logical descension into the murky waters of "sin and salvation," and debates on who the modern day pharisees are among us, what it takes to be saved and whatnot, blah, because THAT'S where I'm USED to going with these sorts of things. You know, the good old fundamentalist A, B, C's-- give me the bottom line and I'll get the gist of it and fill in the rest for myself, because I'M a fully capable intellectual thankyouverymuch. If you're anything like me, summaries and paraphrases do wonders for my learning curve.
Instead we swerved off the road and took a beautiful alternate route.
There's a story in the Bible that I love where a single, soundbite answer is demanded of Jesus, and he doesn't give it. The pharisees want to know what was the greatest of the 10 commandments, and to them, challenging Jesus in the presence of the Jewish syna-goers it was like asking a parent to pick the favorite child at the dinner table, the president on national TV during elections what his favorite state is. Their constant attempts to set the parameters and limit his words were purposefully set-up to A.) play him as the fool and B.) incriminate him. Jesus Christ wouldn't play their game and refused to limit the truth where truth demanded a slightly larger platform. He does not even address their criterion and instead overarches all the commandments with the TWO things we are called to do as Christians in this lifetime.
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
What I wouldn't pay to see the Pharisitical (<--like that) jaw-droppage at that moment. The fascinating thing about that is how he tells us to love others -- the exact verbage-- Not more than, not less than, AS. He wouldn't have said it if He didn't mean it. And that's when it hit me....
Once you've experienced a direct relationship with God and discover that no one knows you or loves you as much as He can, it is incredibly overwhelming the to realize how how much love you have to give. How much I am now free to give. It'sl liker you're now an extension chord that just got plugged into an electrical socket. He loves me as is. He loves you AS IS! Broken, dirty vessels that we all are, somehow He pours his Spirit of love into us to the brim and our cup runneth over! It is by his power that we love each other, because He first loved US. There is NO ONE ELSE on this entire planet who can reflect his image the way YOU do. Remember the shepherd who left the 99 to find the 1? You are the one. And God loves you more than anything. If nothing else love yourself, because God made you. He loves you just the way you are and created you entirely unique with certain talents, abilities and a specific purpose in mind. As his child he desires your love in return--the whole of your love, every part, he wants your soul and mind. It is out of this that we can comprehend how we can love others as ourselves. Don't let a day go by believing the lie that Satan tells you that you're not worth the absolutely unconditional and everlasting love God has for you. It is from the wellspring that life flows freely, for God so loved YOU that he gave his only Son. Maybe you already know all this, and none of it is even remotely new or fresh-- Hopefully you've already made the first movement of faith and you're on your way. Praise God! Perhaps God has taken you aside and pulled the bowstring all the way back and then released it, shooting you out into the real world, and thereby loving people left and right, sharing the awesome gift of grace without a second glance at what lies behind you. That's awesome, may God continue to bless you and fulfill your every need and effort, transforming you inwardly as you extend outwardly. But maybe you're not as assured as all this, and IF that's the case, well 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can beagainst us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen. |
