It is mid-night and I am having trouble sleeping, so I thought I would post about the topic that has been running through my head. Maybe if I put it down here I can drop it and go to sleep.
I had a brief discussion tonight after my adult life group about the following statement that Paul Shackelford mentioned at his talk and I repeated the following week in youth:
"The poor have been divinely designated to be the recipients of our expressions of love for God."
Which basically says since we can't directly express our love to God, He wants us to redirect that love to the poor. Kinda like: If you love me, show it to the poor.
This person was in some ways objecting to this statement. I found myself defending a statement that I am not sure I totally believe. I do not know who to attribute the statement too, but I remember when I first came across it, it made an impact on me. I thought it was provocative and I asked myself "could this be true?" I think I even blogged about it several years ago on one of my former blogs that I deleted. I like the statement, just because it is provocative.
We ended our discussion not really resolving anything, which is probably why I am still awake. Here are some of my thoughts about it.
I think the statement does not tell the whole story. How do we love God? There is not much we can do to show him love like hug or kiss him. So how are we supposed to? Where has he devinely designated our love for him be expressed? John 14:15: "If you love me, you will obey what I commanded. " Read John 14-17 and you will more. These verses suggest that we love God by learning be like Jesus. By becoming a disciple and learning to do all that he commanded. GC stuff. Of course, that is kingdom living. There you will learn to become that type of person that easily and routinely does what he taught, which is basically loving others.
So far so good. Not too much controversy here if you do not think too much about how you do that whole kingdom living thing. But here is my question. In living life in the kingdom and loving others within my sphere of influence, does God have a preference for who I love? You can't say everybody because then it isn't a preference. Is there a group that he wants us to make an intentional effort to love? I can think of several groups that the bible singles out. They would include our ememies, the widows and orphans, the poor, the downcast, those suffering. Can you think of others?
So, I think the original statement is true, just not complete. If we are living life in the kingdom of heaven now, we will love all we come in contact with. But we will make a special effort to show love to those who are poor and are suffering.
What do you think? Think it counts if we are showing love to our friends and family in WLR but don't do much for those in need?
There, maybe now I can go to sleep.
6 comments:
I think i like what you said that it is a true statement just not complete...yes we are supposed to love the poor...it says so in the Bible...but it also says to love a lot of other kinds of people too...and the people that i will add on to your list of people that need love are...the rich and all the other people's whose lives may be just fine...i mean i would feel left out and unloved if i constantly heard "we should love the poor and everyone who has a crappy life...but we can just forget about loving the rich people and the people whose lives are just fine."...that seems to me like we are being almost selfish with out love...so i think it deffinatly counts if we love our friends and family...i mean it does say to love them in the Bible too right?...maybe God does have a preference on who He wants us to love more...but then again..maybe He just wants us to love everyone equally...why should we get all sterotypical with are love and only love on people who we think need it? why not listen to God and see who He thinks we should love at a given moment...kinda goes back to living in the moment...if you do that im pretty sure you will know who you are suppose to love...
i think that is what set jesus apart back in his day. he was hanging around the poor, loving on them. he also commanded to love your enemies. we are also commanded to love our neighbor, and your neighbor is more or less, someone in your own social status. i dont think it is greater to love one group over another, although it may be harder.
Okay, you guys are going to give me insomnia again!
I like most of what you said Aaron. But something else seems to be bothering me.
Clay, who is your neighbor??? The pharisees asked Jesus this same question. Do you remember his answer? Of course, he did not really give a straightforward answer (my role model!).
You both seem to be saying that we are to love everyone equally. Okay. How's that working for you? Got things worked out equally? Have you loved on the "others" (enemies, poor, downcast) equally today? Yesterday? Last week? How many lunches have you eaten with that ounpopular, ourcast teen? How many visits have you made to those "under the bridge" (metaphor for poor)? How much time have you spent with the widows and orphans this week compared to the time you have spent with your friends and family? So do you want to feel guilty or do you want to revise your statements?
The other issue is this. Like you pointed out, Clay, if you use Jesus as an example, he seemed to be intentional about who he hung out with. Are we that intentional? Are we intentionally deciding to hang out with our friends and family most of the time instead of the "others"? Are we intentionally spending 99.9% of our time in West LR? Are we intentionally spending 99.9% of our money on ourselves or our rich, white church? Of course, these are rhetorical questions. What does all this mean?
And another thing that does not feel right. There always seems to be a bit of defensiveness and rationalization that goes on when us rich people discuss these things. Why is that?
Am I overstating things?
Help me out here! I want to sleep well tonight.
What does loving others equally really mean? Does it mean equal time or equal in how we respond in love? Do you think Jesus spent time with others equally? Did he spend as much time with the upper class as the lower class? Did he spend as much time with those he knew well versus those he did not?
He seemed to show love equally. He asked the Father to forgive his ememies while he was suffering on the cross.
One thing that does appear evident is that Jesus was intentional in who he reached out to. If God does have a preference, it seems it would be shown in Jesus. He spent time with the sinners, the sick, the poor, but he also spent lots of time in the synagouges. Contrary to what many may think, the pharisees and religious leaders where among his most faithful audiences. So it does seem like Jesus spent time with all sorts.
This contrasts, however, with what most people tend to do. Jesus pointed out this contrast many times. Most tend to hang out with our own. Jesus noticed this many times and called us on it. Since we are currently on Mark 12 (aren't we?), check out the example of the section in the widow's mite. Pay attention to the black letters.
What I commonly see (and this has been true in my own life), is that because we are not intentional, we default to loving only those who love us. Many of us live our life in such a way that we are oblivious to how people outside our circle live. We are just ignorant. We hang out in WLR so we never have the occassion to see the poor, homeless, widows, etc. Is ignorance an excuse?
Maybe what we need to do is just start being intentional. Jesus was. Let's learn to be like him. Let's do what he did in Mark 12:41. Let's intentionally observe. Maybe in doing that, God will "speak" to us in a way that we can hear.
We did some of that last Sunday night. Where can we do it today?
I dont think ignorance is an excuse..if anything it is the problem...cuase if ignorance is an excuse then..well..i dont know what to say...but its not like people dont know where to find homeless people or sick people or poor people...or the rich people...now i could understand if someone was afraid to show love to someone like that but they didnt know how...so they didnt...i could understand that...i have that problem sometimes...
and we can intentionally observe in a lot of ways...like sunday night...or just watch for opportunities on where you can show love...i try to do that...a lot of the times it doesnt work cuase im not focused enough on watching for those opportunities...but they are there...
You are suggesting that there are Christians who know they should love "others" but don't know how to do it?
Maybe that is where the observation comes in. Instead of sitting in church on Sunday morning, we ought to go to east little rock and observe.
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