Love One Another - Part V

"I love you"  We hear these words fairly often, either directly or indirectly. Our spouses, children, friends, acquaintances and even strangers will express their love for us and each other by words or by loving actions. We overhear the communication of love within our communities, hear it in song or see it expressed in movies or television. Consequently, we return an expression of love by affirming love for others in our lives. In it's purest form, love is reciprocal; an action that demands reaction and vice-versa.

But how do we react when the reciprocal nature of love is absent? How do we love and express love to those in our lives that are not easy to love? How do we love when love is not returned to us or even acknowledged by the other person?

The familiar words of John 13:34 call to us from the lips of Christ, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." He makes no promise that love will be returned to us, or even that it will be received as a welcome sentiment. There is no expectation or guarantee that we will see the benefits of love, or that a tangible manifestation will be created for the common good of society. Quite simply,we are called to love. But there's a subtle catch that may or not have been intentional.

When the command to "love one another" reaches the ears of those who hear, we cannot ignore the "one another" present within the command. If you and I are sitting in a room together and hear the words, "love one another", can we ignore the fact that if we are loved, we must express love in return? Christ doesn't simply compel us to "love others". We are called to "love one another". If heard in isolation, the command would make no sense, but it is meant to be heard, responded to and acted upon based on community. The assumption is that there will always be an "another" in any situation in which love is expressed.  So, while we may never be promised that love will be returned to us, we can rest in the essential co-existing nature of love. As with the air that we breath, love is sent forth and love is brought back within.

In our continuing discussion of what it means to "love one another", I asked the following friends to contribute a few sentences on what the concept means to them. Can you spot the common theme?   
    

"For me, "love one another" is action, not just feelings. In fact, it's action in spite of feelings. And for me, the action boils down to just being kind."

- David Hayward 

 David Hayward has a Masters in Theological Studies as well as in Ministry and Religion and has served local churches for over 30 years. He left the professional ministry in 2010 and launched an online spiritual community called The Lasting Supper. He is best known as the nakedpastor, a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.

 “Loving one another is being kind, caring, committed and compassionate towards others...loving other people as Christ loves us. It's not an easy task and it goes against human nature, but it is God's loving nature to love us in spite of all our faults...to look past all the sins and all the warts and see and love the beautiful person God has created. I think it is also about forgiving...simply striving to be Christ-like in an ungodly world....” 

- Jerri Brezik

Jerri is a leader at Hope Church in Houston, Texas, currently serving as a prayer ministry leader and leading prayer servant training. She is also actively involved with praise team and choir. She was baptized in the Baptist Church and grew up in the Christian Church. Jerri is a Retired NASA contractor manager and has been married to her husband Jim for 26 years. Between them both they have three children and four grandchildren. 

“To love one another is to help all people become most fully themselves. This goes beyond the golden rule of doing to others as we would like done to ourselves, but means understanding others so well that we treat them as they desire to be treated. While this often involves helping remove roadblocks and injustices that stand in others' way, it starts with seeing and accepting others as themselves and not through the lens of who we would like them to be.” 

- Julie Goss Clawson

Julie is an author, speaker, and mother who lives in Austin, TX. She is the author of Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices and The Hunger Games and the Gospel. Connect with Julie at julieclawson.com 




“Every definition of what it means to Love One Another will risk oversimplification: "To serve in a way that leads to friendship, but does not demand it." Love is serving others, even enemies, in a way that might make possible a friendship; not based on competition but unconditional admiration. Friendship is better than sacrifice. "Self-sacrifice" is not an end but a means to a eudaemonistic end of loving friendship. "

- ChrisHaw
Chris is the author of two books: Jesus for President (2008) and From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart (2013). He lives with his family near Notre Dame University, where he is doing his PhD in theology and peace studies. For the last ten years he worked as a carpenter and adjunct professor (and a bunch of other stuff) in Camden, NJ. Connect with Chris at chrishaw.com

 "I believe loving one another well means seeing them through the eyes of Christ. It is not approaching the relationship in a way of thinking "how can I serve you" or "what can I gain from our relationship" it is recognizing that each person is a Creation of the Almighty and is Holy and Dearly loved in His sight. It is in focusing on that aspect of a person that allows you to Love them as Christ does." 

- Erika Steele
Erika is Executive Director of Lighthouse Christian Ministries, a non-profit in Bacliff, TX.  She is blessed to be the wife of an amazing Christian man and the mom of two energetic, bouncing five year old twins. 

Love One Another - Part IV

Love One Another is a series of blogs that I began developing back in November. I took a break during Advent to focus my writing on the themes of the season in a series called Advent Reflections. In the beginning of this endeavor, I simply began asking various people to express what it personally meant to them to "love one another" (John 13:34) in 2-3 sentences. My intention was not to encourage deep theological dissertations or even much contemplative thought. I simply wanted to find out what people thought in a more off-the-cuff manner. I asked a wide and varied group of people from well known Christian leaders, authors and speakers to everyday folks that I know in my community. The response was so positive that what started out as a single blog entry has now become a series of blogs including one video post by The Whiskey Preacher, Phil Shepherd.  

As we journey through the landscape that is our lives, we run across more than our share of opportunities to love one another. Even to those that we have no communication with, simply by a smile or eye contact, we have the ability to reflect love. Love is much more than an action or decision to love. Love is an all-encompassing emotion that transcends how we feel, what we do or what circumstances surround us. When we reflect on what love really is, we see that it is an emotion that involves much more than any other emotion. In fact, one could even venture to say that love is more than a sentiment, but a supernatural occurrence that frees us from the restraints of human emotion.

As we begin the New Year, let us be reminded that when we love one another, we are not just expressing a simple human emotion to the world around us; we are expressing the very existence of God in this world and His unending love made evident through Christ.

Meet the contributors for Love One Another - Part IV:

"Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, which is no small thing. But the fragmentation of North American culture has made it difficult for most of us to even know our neighbors. "Love one another," it seems to me, is a call to be the sort of community where people can know one another. And that means sticking around, even with those people who bore you or annoy you or enrage you. This is not possible without forgiveness, which is why we cannot love one another without a strength that comes from beyond us."

- Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Jonathan is Co-author of the celebrated Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, and author of several books on Christian spirituality, including The Awakening of Hope, The Wisdom of Stability, and The New Monasticism. He is founder of Rutba House in Durham, North Carolina, where formerly homeless are welcomed into a community that eats, prays, and shares life together. Jonathan is also Director of The School of Conversion, a nonprofit organization that educates people in Christian community, and Associate Minister at the historically African American St. Johns Missionary Baptist Church.



“I always liked this Thomas Merton quote: “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them”

- Michael Gienger
Michael is Director of Youth and Impact Ministries at The Watershed Church in League City, Texas  and an MDiv student at Perkins School of Theology. He is also the founder of EXIT39 , an intensive poverty simulation ministry, educating others to the plight of the poor and powerless in American culture.     

"I think Jesus said it best: "Treat people the same way you want them to treat you" Matthew 7:12, and "Do not judge, and you will not be judged" Luke 6:37. Even with people we dearly love, at times that's a real stretch, and with irritating or hostile people, it's practically impossible. Here's the key: "The things that are impossible with people are possible with God" Luke 18:27”

- Joy Wilson
Joy is a freelance writer and author of Uncensorded Prayer: The Spiritual Practice of Wrestling with God. You can get to know more about Joy at her personal blog: Solacetree.    

“To love means to listen; to sit down with a person and hear their story - not with a dispassionate demeanor and a subjective viewpoint; not with a pre-planned rebuttal nor an agenda - but to listen with your full presence and an unguarded heart. This allows for sometimes shocking and scandalous affection, which I believe is a part of our spiritual nature, to be nourished and grow. Once you know someone’s story - and by ‘know’ I mean that it touches your core beyond what your belief system thought possible - then judgments fade, walls crumble, and you begin to find yourself in love.” 

– Chad Estes
Chad is a former pastor who works with people to help share their redemptive stories through the art of photography and writing. You can find his blog at www.chadestes.com

and more of his work at revealmission.org

"Love is knowing someone cares about you even when you aren't doing the very best you can do. Love is the struggle to rise to the occasion in yourself...for others."

 – Gene Anderson 
Gene Anderson is a middle school STEM instructor, a sometime preacher, and an all the time djembefola. He is also an ordained pastor, has spent time in the US Army, cooked an awful lot of food in various restaurants, and once hitchhiked across the United States. He loves books and cheesecake, though not necessarily in that order."

 


 

Love One Another - Part III - Special Outlaw Theology Edition

"I think that before we can even remotely try to figure out what it means to love our neighbor, we have to first embrace the idea and the notion that we are to love ourselves."

My friend Phil Shepherd, The Whiskey Preacher, shares with us what it means to him to love one another in a special edition of Outlaw Theology. Thanks Phil, for not only contributing to the discussion, but for taking the time to speak directly to us.

Connect with Phil at philshepherd.com, Outlaw Theology and at his faith community, The Eucatastrophe. 

Grab a cup of coffee, check out Phil's vid. and join in the discussion....



How Do We Love Our Neighbor?

The Practice of Love

Most of you know that I recently had the opportunity to join a community of authors in writing for The Practice of Love: Real Stories of Living into the Kingdom of God.  This is a collection of essay by a community of writers that examines what it means love God, ourselves, our neighbors and our enemies in today's culture.  We know that God has called each of us to love in extraordinary ways in all facets of life, but reality proves that this is sometimes easy said than done.  This book provides real life personal stories that will cause the reader to examine what it really means to love in the Kingdom of God.

In contributing to this project, I experienced a lot more personal spiritual insight than I thought would.  I chose to write about what it means to love our enemies because this has always been a difficult thing for me.  We live in a very self-centered culture, so our first reaction in dealing with enemies is usually to place focus on ourselves and how we've been hurt. I don't know about you, but I often think of the person who wronged me and immediately contemplate how I can get revenge and make the offender hurt as I've been hurt.  Not only that, but I usually feel the need to be justified.  What I mean is that I want the other person to realize what they've done was wrong and know, deep within their heart, that they are wrong.  Nothing aggravates me more than someone arrogantly strutting around as if they've done nothing wrong, completely oblivious to the pain they've caused me.  But as a follower of Christ, is this what He calls me to do?  Is this the kind of reaction that will advance the Kingdom of God?  Or does my returning anger with anger, only hinder others seeing the Kingdom in the way Christ wants it to be seen?  These are the questions that I wrestled with as I wrote my essay.    

Ironically enough, over the last few weeks, we have been witness to possibly the quintessential example of an enemy in Osama Bin Laden.  Consequently, with his death, we have all been given a opportunity to examine this issue in the clearest example that we will probably ever have before us.  To me, it was as if God revealed this scenario to me and said, "OK.  You just wrote an essay on what it means to love your enemy, right?  Well, here's THE enemy.  Love him."  Really, God?  I tell you that it's hard for me to swim and you throw me in the middle of the ocean?     

After my experience with The Practice of Love, I find myself wanting to love more.  Specifically, I find myself wanting to expand the way that I love my enemies.  Basically, I came to a realization that I don't want to hate anymore.  I don't want to judge anymore.  I'm finding that I don't feel the need to be "right" all the time, and "win" the arguments, whatever "winning" means.  Instead of actively seeking reasons to be angry with my enemies, dislike or even hate them, I'm learning to seek out ways that I can love them.  What are ways that I can connect with that person and find unity?  Whether or not they "feel" my love for them, how can I really love them, and more importantly,what does that look like in the Kingdom of God?

Those of you that know me, know that I can have somewhat of a temper.  It doesn't take much to set me off, and usually that comes out in dealing with my enemies.  But many years ago, a mentor of mine gave me some advice that I've never forgotten.  It was one of those gems of wisdom that is written on your soul, under the file name: Wisdom.  This man, that was quite a bit older than me, recognized that I often got angry with those that hurt me.  Not only that, but he also recognized that I had the somewhat obsessive desire to "be right" or "win" the argument.  One day, he sat me down and said the following: "Jake, people are going to wrong you throughout your life.  It's going to happen again and again.  But YOU have the choice of how you are going to react to them.  Why is it so important for you to be justified?  Instead, allow them to believe that they've won.  For whatever reason, they felt the need to hurt you.  Let them have it.  It's theirs.  Instead, find a way to do something kind for them.  Find a way to show love to them.  By doing that, you will almost always soften their hearts.  When that happens, then, and ONLY then, can you sit down with them, explain how they hurt you.  99% of the time, they will understand and ALLOW you to be justified.  Then you both win.  That's a better deal, right?"  Yes, Pat.  That's a much better deal.  Thank you.

The Practice of Love

The Practice of Love is a project that I was privileged to work on this year and developed by my friends at Civitas Press. It's a collection of essays by a community of great writers, delving into the aspects of loving God, loving ourselves, loving our neighbors and loving our enemies. The result is personal stories that examine what would happen if we actively chose to engage our culture in a deep sense of love, even when the situations are difficult. Writers from all over the country joined together to share their personal experiences that will challenge the reader to reconsider what it means to live out the practice of love in each of our lives.


Christ invited culture to engage love as a way of living each and every day. In doing so, He revealed a way of living that in essence revealed the Kingdom of God. To live this way requires courage and conviction and often means facing fears that are not easily overcome. Unconditional love requires us to be vulnerable, and often opens us up to the possibility of experiencing pain. But in the end, the practice of love invites us to discover something deeper about what it means to be human.


I encourage you to check out the links, ask questions and consider ordering your copy of The Practice of Love today. To a large degree, a book's success can depend on the number of orders placed on or before the release date, which is set for May 1, 2011. It is available for pre-order, so reserve your copy by ordering today!

Multiple Quantities

1 Copy $15.99 3 Copies $44.97 5 Copies $69.95