The other day my son approached me with a question that really impressed me. For clarification, he’s a high school student and a man of few words.
He said, “Dad, what kind of Christian are we?” To be fair, what he was really asking was “Are we Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Catholic or Baptaluthrepiscocatholic… WHAT ARE WE?!!”
To be fair, if you grew up in a nondenominational setting, that’s a difficult question to answer. To simply say “We are the kind that believes what the Bible says is true.” or “We are the kind that follows Jesus.”, doesn’t really clarify anything. Most people who are in a church setting or who have been a part of a Christian community, believe that this is what they are doing.
We had a great conversation about that. My initial answer was “The good kind I hope!” My stock answer to that question has always been “The love God and love your neighbor kind.” These days, that might be confusing as well. It seems that the word “love” or its cousin “empathy”, is starting to get a bad rap.
As followers of Jesus, there are many things we can differ on and still have unity. We can disagree on how and when Jesus is coming back.
We can disagree on liturgy or how a church service might look.
We can disagree on Spiritual gifts and how they are used.
We can disagree on how often communion should be served, if it should be wine or Welch’s, if it is a saltine or a loaf of bread. My vote’s for actual wine and actual bread. Thanks for listening.
Is Baptism a sprinkle or a dunk? Many of us differ on that.
We can even disagree on how the Bible should be taught. Is it better to have a topical message or an expository one? Even in throwing out these questions, I know you probably have strong opinions about which one you prefer.
One thing we cannot afford to have a different opinion on, is the importance of love. If you type the word love into a Biblegateways search, you will get 684ish hits. Now, it is important how the word “love” is used in those passages but the sheer frequency that it is mentioned shows you how central to our faith it is.
If you are a “Ten Commandments” kind of Christian, check this out. First off, love the Ten Commandments, big fan. The first four commands (no other God, no graven images, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, remember the Sabbath) can be categorized under the umbrella of “Love God”. Why shouldn’t we worship other God’s? We love Yahweh. You can ask those questions with the other commands as well. By the way, I interpret “using the Lord’s name in vain” as saying you follow God but doing something contrary to His nature (1 John 4:8), not using bad language or accidentally saying “God” when you are frustrated. I’m not saying those things are good, I’m just saying it isn’t using His name in vain.
The next six commands (don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t lie…etc), are an expression of loving your neighbor. If you do those things, you can’t say you love your neighbor! Are you with me? Even God’s top ten in the Old Testament point to love. You can even find the phrase “love your neighbor” as far back as Leviticus 19:18! Leviticus people!!! That’s the place where you stop reading your Bible when you attempt to read through in a year. I speak from experience.
Jesus gives us a fresh take on loving your neighbor in the Gospels. In John 13:34-35 He gives His followers a “new command”, which gives us a new perspective on discipleship. This fresh command is to love “just as I have loved you.” In other words, the disciples need only review the tape and look back on their lives to consider how Jesus loved them and then imitate that faith!
When we try to break free from loving people, because it is too difficult or costs us too much, Jesus gives us the story of the “Good Samaritan”. You know the drill. There was no such thing as a “Good Samaritan” in the culture Jesus lived in. Yet, he is the hero of the story. He showed compassion when the religious elite would not. The point? You can have all of the knowledge about God, without actually practicing the way of God. Jesus is the way (John 14:6)! The Pharisees were a perfect example of that. They looked good on the outside but were dead and rotten on the inside (Matt 23:27).
Ultimately, people will push back on love as the ultimate test of discipleship by saying “but what about truth?” That’s a fair question. When someone tells me that God is truth, I usually don’t contest it. I might add “and…?” But I have no problem with saying that Jesus is the way to truth. As a pastor, I’ve frequently told people that “Truth without love is cruel. Love without truth is confusing.” Love and truth go together and, on some level, cease to exist without the other. At times we interpret truth with “telling it like it is” which is usually overwhelmingly negative. That isn’t truth. You are leaving out some details that would help illuminate the situation, and bring clarity, even if there are some things in it we don’t like to hear.
Love considers the person that truth is being spoken to, and speaks truth in a way it can be received.
Obviously, truth can be rejected even if it is delivered compassionately and lovingly. My point is, that love “considers” and “weighs” how truth is spoken. It might require prayer or counsel with someone else but truth is considerate.
We might also add to the confusion by trying to define “our neighbor” as someone that believes like me, looks like me and has the same life experience that I have. Jesus doesn’t let us get away with that. He tells a story of the Good Samaritan (referenced above). He also models it by spending most of His time with people pushed to the margins and overlooked by society. He cares for the tax collector, Roman centurion, adulteress, and the demon-possessed.
Another objection I’ve heard to “loving one another” is that it requires you to accept everything someone else believes when you love them. This is not love AND it is not true. This is placating and appeasement, not love. You can love someone without agreeing with everything they believe. Jesus did it all the time. Think about how perfect His theology was, being the Son of God and all. Yet, the criticism leveled against Him was that He was “a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” (Matt 11:19) The catch is, you have to treat them lovingly, you can’t just say it.
Jesus modeled a life that was loving and truthful. Here’s the kicker…people still wanted to be around Him! He showed people that He loved them more than He said it. So how do we do this?
Pete Scazerro gives us a suggestion in his book “Emotionally Healthy Discipleship”. He writes:
“The life of Jesus teaches us three dynamics that characterize what it looks like to incarnate in order to love people well: we must enter another’s world, hold on to ourselves, and live in the tension between the two worlds.”
What a great way to put it! We can enter someone else’s world, through listening and empathy (not a bad word by the way), while still retaining what makes us unique. We can have an opinion about things, while still being compassionate and kind toward other people and their opinions. Empathy helps us with that. It is a helpful instrument in our toolkit for loving our neighbor.
If we begin to take empathy out of love, we have truth without love. Empathy is a form of incarnational love. Jesus entered into our world and our pain, and walked among us. (John 1:14) Empathy is another way to enter someone’s world but it doesn’t necessitate letting go of what makes you unique. Your beliefs about God are yours and empathy doesn’t magically take that away but it does give you a perspective on how to treat others.
If you care for someone, you will do your best to understand the world they live in because it is probably different from yours. It has its own set of challenges, a different family of origin, a different timeline and there are unique circumstances that necessitate different decisions to be made. They had to do what they had to do with the time they were given and skill sets they learned. Their life was different from yours.
Empathy gives us insight into HOW to love someone.
I was reading through Mark 12 a few days ago. It is a story that Jesus tells about a vineyard and farmers who rent land from the owner. It is clear in the telling of the story that God is the owner, the tenants are the Pharisees and the messengers are prophets. The last messenger sent, however, is Jesus. Each messenger is sent to collect fruit from the vineyard but is beaten and sent away by the tenants. Jesus adds that they were “treated shamefully”. This happens on repeat and the violence escalates into killing the messengers. Finally, out of frustration, he sends his son to collect and they kill him thinking “the inheritance will be ours.” (v7)
That’s pretty messed up right? Not to mention, flawed thinking. Jesus closes the story by adding that “The Stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” The whole point of the story is that the Son has the inheritance, not the tenants. Killing the son presents serious problems for the renters, and solves nothing!
The vineyard, is a common reference to God’s kingdom and can be found in Isaiah 5 (among other passages). Here was my takeaway from that morning, “It’s His vineyard. Not mine.” Maybe another way to say it is this “Not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)
The way Jesus asks us to interact with one another is through love. Remember, love and truth go together. They cannot be separated. That is a tough tension to live in isn’t it? It is agonizing for me but a tension I have to navigate carefully. Yes, it is tough to be empathetic while still lovingly speak truth just as it is tough to speak truth and be compassionate about it. That doesn’t excuse me from the task. Why?
It’s His vineyard.
When someone tells me that “empathy is a sin”, it gives me pause. Understanding someone else’s world is not evil, it’s compassionate. Once I understand someone, I am more compassionate in how I deliver truth. It puts my relationship with that person ahead of my need to be right! I am still free to believe what I believe, as long as I have treated someone as Jesus would have.
If the identifying quality of a disciple is love, we need to have as many tools at our disposal as is necessary to show compassion while retaining what makes us unique. Empathy is one of them. When I am being encouraged to take empathy off the table, I am deeply suspicious of why.
It makes me think that if empathy is removed, love might be next.
Whether you lean right or left politically, we all need to remember this. We must listen to one another and love each other. That does not end with people who call themselves Christian, it includes all of our neighbors, which Jesus made clear is everyone. We cannot grow cold toward people groups because we want or need to control our circumstances. We have to love people God’s way. Why?
That’s the kind of Jesus followers we are.
We are the love God and love others kind.
As it turns out, that’s the only kind of disciple there is according to Jesus.
Afterall, it’s His vineyard.
mlsnellings 