So today's reading is all about the ten commandments. In actual fact I have a lot of respect for the 10 commandments because, contrary to the view that 'Christianity is all about do's and don'ts - actually the ten commandments are just a guide for healthy living. God definitely had people's best interests at heart when He gave them. They make sense.
Upon reading these in Exodus 20, I was thinking about how, if God were to give 10 commandments in our day and age, what would they be? I can remember writing lists of 'modern', 'updated' commandments in Sunday School when I was a kid. But then I remembered that the Bible already 'updates' and offers a 'modern' version of the 10 commandments in John13v34-15 in which Jesus says:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Where are the do's and don't in that? Where are the tedious laws, rules, and regulations that are so off-putting? I LOVE this verse. Infact it is probably one of my favourite verse in the whole Bible. And it is so crucial to our world. I was thinking about this though, and it's all very well saying 'love one another' as of course we generally do love our friends, our family, our neighbours and those we are close to. But there are no specifics here. It just says 'love one another' and if we do that then hopefully 'everyone will know' that we are Christ's disciples. But how often do we only love people we like or people we know? As a church we can so often exclude people and rule people out of this all embracing, all involving love, so much so that actually we can cause more harm than good.
One of my favourite and most inspiring quotes is by a guy called Brennan Manning who says this:
"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
I personally couldn't agree more. Now I do not want to put anyone down or accuse anyone or say we are not doing enough. I know there are plenty of Christians and people in church who I can only dream of being like due to the love which oozes out of their every pore. However I definitely still felt challenged by this today. What can we do to 'love'? How can we really 'love one another'? It's all very well doing the 'obvious' i.e. loving your kids, respecting your parents, being polite to your boss, but what about our other automatic responses which we don't think about because they have become so normal, that we forget to love.
Here are some unassuming yet impacting things which I came up with. Some of them are controversial. Some of them I'm sure you may shake your head at. Others carry some truth....
1. Pushing through the tube barriers in the underground! I hate this! And I am guilty. If I'm in a rush, I push! Just like everyone else. How is that 'loving'?
2. Dividing and labelling 'non-christians' from 'christians'. How judgemental and divisive is that? Doesn't that just cause more judgement and separation? It is not about 'us' and 'them' or about some kind of 'statistical map' of how many converts we can make. NO!!!! It' about loving, walking with people, sharing the journey, providing for and helping people with their needs. What's the use in giving someone a Bible if really what they need is to be taught how to read?
3. Writing-off a person who does not believe in God as 'not worth it' or 'not good enough' without even having taken the time or made the effort to get to know them. Unbelievable. We are ALL precious to God and dearly loved. Even when we were sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5v8) including those who don't even know it yet!
4. Being afraid/scared/judgemental/reactional/rude about someone you work with or someone you know who may be homosexual, a drug user, a single mother, a striptease at weekends and so on. A friend of mine recently revealed her 'same sex preferences' and was outcasted by 98% of her 'christian' friends and had to leave her church. WHAT??? What is this? This made me MAD! What kind of demonstration of 'love' was this??? A loving, supportive family was all she needed; people to walk with her, to love her and to guide her. But all she got was ignorance and judgement. Her non-believing friends fully supported her decision and were the people she ended up confiding in most. We don't have to agree, but isn't the person FAR greater than the thing we don't agree with?
5. Ok I've said this before and I will say it again, (without meaning to cause offense or any disrespect towards anyone)... Married couples, please don't become so introverted and 'coupley' that you forget about/ignore/fail to acknowledge the fact that some of your single friends find it really difficult being single and get quite down and lonely about it at times. Please, I am not meaning to accuse or tell people not to be 'coupley' but let me illustrate an example. Recently I was at an occasion with a lot of friends from places I have lived in in the past. Being single, I was sat with other single people (who, were all non-believers). They were made-up to see me as it had been a while since we had had contact. My christian friends (all married couples - and when I say all, I mean ALL - I am the last one left...) were all sat together on tables with their partners. It took 6 and a half hours of being in the same room, (and a few angry messages) for a single one of my married 'christian' friends to acknowlege my presence there that day. They were all far too busy discussing wedding dresses, colour schemes, mortgages and so on. I cried for a L-O-N-G time that night. 3-4 of my current housemates (non of whom attend church/practise a faith) have also recently got engaged/bought houses. They knock on my door every day to check if I am ok and not miserable or sad or feeling lonely or left out. Now once again, PLEASE hear my heart. I am not saying this to accuse, belittle or vent my anger. I am just illustrating my point.
6. Let's love the weird, gum-chewing, tattooed, pierced, pink-haired, crazy 'freaks' we sometimes see in town, the young people in Watford, the elderly, the disabled... Did you know I was once refused communion because I have tattoos and piercings?
7. This is my biggest downfall. TIME. Friends, nothing is more valuable than the giving of time to demonstrate how much you love someone. Just this week I have been too busy to return a call to someone who actually ended up being hurt due to my lack of love and care. It was wrong of me. And I'm sorry. Let's really listen to people instead of nodding and smiling through glazed eyes and a mind that is elsewhere. Let's take the time to text someone we've not heard from in a while. Let's not just give up our sunday mornings to stand in a room, let's give of our time throughout the week.
I'm sure there are many more examples and ways in which we can 'love one another'. I have definitely said enough for today and perhaps even offended some people in the process, which definitely was not my intention. But seriously, let's not put people off through judgement and ignorance. Let's 'love our neighbour' and 'love one another'. It's not long, it's not tedious, it's definitely not boring and it's worth SO much. If Jesus did, how much more should we?
The first time I heard that quote from Manning was at the end of a DC Talk song when I was in high school, and it's something that challenges me every time I hear it. I make a big point of maintaining relationships both within the church and outside, and I'm very conscious of the impression that I make in both contexts...as well as trying my hardest to blur the divide in both directions.
ReplyDeleteYou make a very good point about the terms 'Christian' and 'Non-Christian' - while we do have something different about us, it can be a barrier to use language that suggests that it's just one or the other. I love the idea of seeing church communities as Christ-centric and all the people that come into contact with them at different places around Christ - some a long way away in one direction, others close in another direction, but all loved by God. The same applies to Christian responses to anything other than monogamous heterosexual relationships - I've seen people be far too quick to condemn and then merely talk about still loving the person, rather than be loving and trust in God to guide. One of my closest friends speaks powerfully about how condemnation from the church over her non-heterosexuality pushed her away from God, and how being open and honest about her sexuality and her faith has helped her find God again. To hear someone whose early experiences of same-sex relationships was casual orgies talk about considering whether she should be sexually active before marriage is quite profound!
Have you ever come across the love languages stuff? It's mostly aimed at couples, but I find it really helpful in all my relationships. Often, the way in which I can love someone isn't a way that would be natural for me, but when I do make the effort to find ways to love them that hit home for them, it pays off. I'm someone that values time above all else, to the point that I really don't know how to handle gifts. I find it really frustrating when I've made time to be with someone and they don't appreciate it - but that's just be being selfish. If I start by asking 'how can I show this person love?', I end up buying presents or paying for stuff or making things or just being thoughtful...
I love your blog :D xx
Hey Rob - thanks so much for this - I LOVE the Christ-centric mentality - that is AWESOME! Where did you hear about it or where can you read up on it?
ReplyDeleteYep, I've heard of love languages too - a great concept.
Thanks so much for your comment - really great stuff!
How can we be more 'Christ-centric' then?
xx
It's from a book called The Shaping of Things to Come ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shaping-Things-Come-Innovation-Mission/dp/1565636597 ) - probably one of the most influential books on my thinking about mission. The authors talk about incarnational mission - asking the question 'How can we give people an opportunity to meet Jesus inside their own culture?', and asking a lot of questions about the cultural assumptions that go with being Christian. They argue that the good news about Jesus has always come in an inculturated form - Jesus was a part of his time and place, so what does it look like to bring that good news to our own contexts.
ReplyDeleteAs for what it looks like - that's different for every context. Centred-set communities will talk a lot about journeying alongside and recognising everyone as loved, God-blessed, intelligent individuals who are part of a whole, and will see conversion as a process that starts before any commitment to faith and ends in heaven. They won't talk about being 'in' or 'out', or expect people to jump across a metaphorical boundary from their 'bad' lives into 'good' lives in order to be part of the community.
xx