That's What It's All About

I used to think that being told to love someone is about you. I would read the Bible, or hear people speak and they would talk about loving our brothers, or being kind, or compassionate, or whatever, and I would feel guilty because I wasn’t living up to some standard. A good portion of the time, I still feel that way now, to be frank.

But lately something has begun to change. When you read through the Bible, or John’s letters, or you hear the things Jesus has to say, there are a few themes, and many people have said many things about what those themes are, so I won’t totally go off the deep end here, but what really fascinates me, is the concept of passion.

Everywhere, all over the place, we see it either played out, talked about, or lived with, or expressed through Jesus and His disciples.

Jesus throws over the money changers, He stops the group from stoning the woman; He doesn’t pull any punches with the rich man. The prodigal son’s Father weeping, Jesus weeping over Lazarus and over Jerusalem. Later, in the letters from John, he repeats the words love and truth over and over. How many times have I heard my dad tell the same stories, or say the same pieces of advice over and over? It has gotten to the point where I literally can mouth along what my dad is about to say.

And we do that with the concept of love, don’t we? “Love your brothers, love each other… etc)” It starts to have the drone of your father’s stories…
Jesus and John, however, had a certain sort of passion that infused every part of their lives. When they said something, they really meant it. So the thing Jesus talks about all the time is the Kingdom of God and John spends a lot of time talking about love.

Here’s the thing about love, if you have ever had it taken from you, or proved false, every statement John makes, every bit of the passion Jesus expresses, all of the sudden, those words become the most important thing you have ever heard.
I think Jesus and John knew what happens when we don’t live with honesty, with true love, that wants to see the best in others, that is hopeful, but also, just basically tries not to harm people in our path.

When Jesus was turning over the money tables, He was watching as the poor, the desperate, the hopeless trudged in and did everything they could to get to a God that was supposed to take care of them, and they trusted the men, the leaders, the religious that were there to help them get to that God. They had nothing else. I think He saw that and was enraged. Between Rome and the church they were the least, they were the true ‘99%’. Some probably knew, and hated the system, and I’m sure many had no idea how taken advantage of they were. And then they were told to worship and love this God. As their pockets were being emptied, and their children were being starved for education and bread, they were told God was still good.

Later, John was watching different things unfold. He was watching a new church start and people learn how to be in relationship that had never spoken to each other before; people from all sorts of backgrounds, ages, ethnicities and religions. Masters and slaves, generational feuds, people that had come from academia and people from the slums. All sorts of rag-tag converts attracted to a gospel with some teeth to it. And I imagine John couldn’t have been happier. This new group of people was going to have an amazing understanding of the world and who needed what and how to bring justice and goodness and compassion and food to each other. So he keeps saying love, remember to love. Go overboard. Love until it hurts and then keep going. They had something special, but it had to be protected. They needed to have grace for the differences, to let the foolish shame the wise and let the wise hurt a little. They needed the rich to become poor and the poor to get money so they could all walk a hundred miles in each other’s shoes.

In my heart of hearts, I believe a portion of that is because both John and Jesus has witnessed, had felt, had seen what it meant to have no love to your name. They had been rejected, bombarded, disenfranchised, disregarded and promised much, while given little, and then told to smile about it. Jesus had to feed thousands, question the norms and bring awareness back to the true message of the Torah and He was killed for it. Both had been called fools, over the top, too much, heretics, heathens, anything you could name. Their characters were called into question, their hearts, their minds and most of all, their spirituality. Jesus was accused of being possessed at one point. If that’s not offensive, I’m not sure what is.

People had come and gone from them. At the height of Jesus’ ministry, they say he had as many as 3,000 followers. By the time He died, no one was really shouting His name from the rooftops. They had watched people come in, looking for a cheap thrill, or something to make things better for a short time and then when the excitement wore off, they left. I think they had both felt what it meant to have someone promise to stand by you, to be with you, to love you and understand you, only to walk away when you went ‘too far’ or it just got tough.

I think about the people that have come in and out of my life, and every one of them I trusted to be something they weren’t. Mostly, it was just faithful, or gracious or even compassionate, but only a few, a true few have been able to really exemplify that. And not all of them are believers.

Losing love, or finding out that the love you were promised wasn’t ever real to begin is humiliating. And humiliation has an odd way of making people really mean and hurt and angry. I know this, because it has happened to me.

To tell the truth, I think John and Jesus spoke with passion and about love and the Kingdom because they knew people would need something to recognize other true, quality people by. Jesus talks straight to the heart revealing God and Himself and John comes later saying, this is how you recognize God in people, in each other, in yourself: love.

Forget the skin color, forget the country, forget the age, forget the occupation and status. Are they trustworthy? Are they kind? Are you trustworthy? Are you kind? Do you promise things you can’t give, do you hold onto to what you have so tightly because you fear if you let it go, you will never have anything? Then there is work to be done. It’s not going to be about religion. It’s going to be about letting your yes be yes and your no be no. Don’t take advantage of each other. Be different, but don’t use the differences as a weapon. They knew what it did to the heart to be hurt so deeply, and I think they wanted, above all, for their legacy, for the way that we showed each other and everyone else the heart of God, was to never do that again. It was to live with a soft heart, open eyes, a firm stance. It was full of passion, belief and commitment to the beauty that is love. Never about guilt, but always focused on the positive, rather than then negative.

You can almost hear both of them saying “Be careful. We are all vulnerable to the pain of life, and we, above all, have to be on each other’s team. We have to support each other, allow for differences, not give up on each other, we have to pursue truth together and respect someone else’s opinion. We have to protect this, so don’t promise what you can’t give. Commit to each other, believe in each other, hope for each other, be in relationship, talk stuff out, get a beer together and enjoy life together. You were created to love, so do it. Fulfill your destiny and purpose and be for each other the answers to all the questions. Let all of the laws hang on your love for each other and let everything else go. If you can’t enjoy the conversation, stop talking. Preserve each other above all. Get the ass out of the pit, even on Sunday. Because, that, my friend, is what it is all about.”