Why We Won't Love

In our efforts to become more practical, we tend to neglect the most profound. In thinking through who and how to love, we tend to neglect the profound (and simple) commandment to love in the first place. One of our greatest mistakes is making our love dependent upon the actions of the object of our love. Before taking that first step in their direction, certain stipulations have to be met. We must run their countenance, culture, behavior and character through our filtered "biblical" filter. If they pass, we love. If they don't, we keep our safe distance - and justifiably so!

But Jesus makes his commandment inconveniently simple - not dependent upon the object of love, but upon the God who is love itself. Jesus frees us from the slavery and complexity of other people by making us his slaves. We may not use another person's actions as an excuse as to why we should not follow his command to love them. He gives it independently of them. This is what makes love so glorious. It is also what makes love so impossible.

Too often our filters are based not on what the other needs, but on what we refuse to give. We don't like the surrender involved. We don't like not knowing what may be required. We don't like pouring our lives out for someone who could care less about us. And we are seemingly allergic to placing our schedules in the hands of irresponsible people. This is precisely the rub. Those Christ calls us to love - orphans, widows, foreigners, and the poor - are not particularly as "tidy" as we are. That's our definition of irresponsible right? - not as "tidy" as we are.

The poor don't base their life around iCal. Orphans don't typically have a gym membership, Netflix, or plans to go on vacation. And widows are typically too broken to be addicted to Starbucks. These people have probably never even thought of the top ten things we place on our most important list. Therefore, to love them would mean to forfeit those things. And this is why we won't love.

Paul Miller said it so well in his book Love Walked Among Us. "It is one thing to notice a blind man; it is quite another to stop and talk with him - that gets scary. He might ask for money or interrupt our schedule. It's as if we are afraid that his blindness might affect us. This fear is not irrational - when we pause to have compassion, something of the other person's problems comes on us. Some of his pain touches us. At the very least, slowing down and noticing someone takes time...Compassion affects us. Maybe that's why we judge so quickly - it keeps us from being infected by other people's problems. Passing judgment is just so efficient."

Love has become far too simple for me. Simplicity, however, should not be considered synonymous with easy. It is the simplicity of Christ's command that makes love so impossible. When we try to love, we are immediately confronted with our inability to do so. Temptations flood our minds to cover love up with practicality - with strategies on how to "help" others without surrendering ourselves. We want to cure without taking up a cross. We want to show mercy without becoming messy. This is my life anyway. And Jesus is jacking me up.

Our union with Christ is the only rescue. The gospel is our only hope. In order to love we must know what love is. To know what love is, we must look nowhere but Christ - the love who walked among us. And as we cling to him in faith, we are empowered by his Spirit to feel, surrender, repent and love. In union with him we trust that surrender is eternally safe, and that because of Christ, our enemy is not excluded from the category of those we are called to love.

Love is far from convenient. It is not, however, more inconvenient than that filter that we have been carrying around to see if others are convenient enough to love or not. Christ's words are true - he who loses his life will save it.