When It Is Difficult to Love
inkprint from engraving, in a history of the Old and New Testaments by David Martin, 17th century, courtesy of the Digital Archives, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta, click on image to link to source.
“Love one another,” Jesus says. It’s one of the most basic lessons we learn during our early years of faith formation. The message is reinforced in countless Sunday school lessons, and inscribed on Sunday school bookmarks and Vacation Bible School crafts. In the abstract, it seems such a pleasantly perfect thought. But sometimes the real-world act of loving someone is difficult.
During the first sixteen years of my ministry among you, my office was a short walk from the county complex and bus station, which meant that not-easy-to-love strangers often arrived at our door.
For example, there was “David,” who claimed to be a Christian man down on his luck. He said he was waiting for a move-in date in subsidized housing in a neighboring community. As I worked to find resources for David, I discovered that he had worn out his welcome at area shelters and pantries. I was told that he had a criminal record. Some said that he was “working the system.”
David visited at inconvenient times, and ten minutes never seemed enough. He had bad teeth, and didn’t smell good. He was anxious, and I sometimes wondered what weapon might be hidden in his backpack. He had multiple needs that were intertwined, and I was not particularly skilled at meeting them.
The best way I knew to help was to match David to counselors and programs, but most of those people were ready for David to move on. Once, I helped David find a room for one night. On a few occasions, you all helped through the resources of this congregation to buy groceries and pay for bus fare, but these were just short-term fixes. Eventually, my patience began to run out, like everyone else’s. During David’s final visit, he asked for cash. I gave him bus fare and a granola bar, then walked him to the door.
David is just one particular case that demonstrates the practical difficulty of loving people in the trying circumstances of the real world. Difficult as it is to love a stranger, sometimes it is even more difficult to love a co-worker or a family member with whom we live month after month, and year after year. Sometimes, we just don’t feel anything resembling love.
Today’s gospel text contains a message for those who find it difficult to love. Jesus knew that loving one another can be hard work. It’s no coincidence that he speaks of love not so long before the disciples desert him, just as Judas walks out the door to betray him. As Craig Barnes says about another text, “Jesus doesn’t just love the church of his dreams; he also loves the church he gets, which is not so dreamy. His vow to the church, sealed on the cross, proclaimed that God was dying to love us as we are.”[1]
Somewhere along the way, we’ve received that love through parents, friends, or someone who took time and expended energy looking out for us when we were unable to look out for ourselves. John’s gospel says that if we look behind and underneath the love we have received, if we trace it back to its origin, we find it comes from the heart of God. It’s love defined not as a warm feeling, but rather as a commitment to work all things together for good – even death on a cross.
I love others imperfectly; no matter how I try, there never seems to be enough time, energy, or patience to demonstrate love as broadly and deeply as I should.
This week, I drove to Belleville to renew my driver’s license. Due to the current “Real ID” rush, it was the branch where I could get an appointment with only a two-week wait. I received four notices, I believe, to confirm my appointment, and to remind me to show up five minutes early. After checking in, it took 20 minutes before the next person, several people in front of me, was called to the desk. While I waited, I practiced meditation, trying not to feel annoyed about the one-hour round trip, and being asked to show up early, but served rather late.
Perhaps you have felt the same way. Especially when we are tired, annoyed, or angry, how can we act with the love of Jesus when we don’t feel love?
Part of the answer is recognizing in a deeper way that Jesus loves the ones who seem to us unlovable. That’s the sort of thing that happened in the conversation recorded in our first scripture reading. A sizeable portion of the early Church believed that their ministry should focus only on people who were ethnically and culturally like them. Even Peter, the chief apostle, was not exempt from their criticism. “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Peter tells his story; step by step, he leads them through his logic. He arrives at the conclusion: “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” It appears that most of the critics eventually were convinced. “… They praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” In other words, “If even the not-like-us people are loved by God, and profess faith in Christ, then how can we be justified to withhold love?”
If you’re the sort of person whose feelings don’t change so easily, then it may help to be reminded that love is more than a feeling. Love can be a decision to act in a manner that gives something good even when something bad has been received. Love can be an action that embodies the best we can do for another person in a moment when we are not at our best.
John Buchanan, who died earlier this year, served for many years as pastor of Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago. He once told a story about his less-than-best self. It happened one morning near the church building on Michigan Avenue, when Buchanan might have tucked in behind a car to make a turn, but instead accelerated aggressively to cut into the turn lane. At the light, the driver of the BMW he had cut off pulled up beside him, and lowered her window. It seemed that she wanted him to lower his window. And when he did, she let him have it with a stream of obscenities. Buchanan says he felt his anger rise. When we recall our own real-life moments like that, then we remember again how difficult it is to feel any emotion we would describe as “love.”
What did Buchanan do? Though he was sorely tempted to respond in kind, he says, thanks be to God, he smiled, and with all the love he could muster in the moment, said something harmless: “Have a nice day.” The other driver, roaring away, gave him the one-finger salute.[2] Sometimes, love is embodied in our best feeble effort during a moment when we are not at our best.
The fact that it can be so difficult to love has a corollary: for many it can be difficult to be the recipient of love.
Many people long to be loved, to be accepted and included for who they are without being the target of anger and hatred. Many are caught in the middle of some dispute they didn’t start and can’t understand, just longing to be themselves in a place without judgement. Because they find it difficult to receive love there always will be a place for churches like ours, churches that have received enough of God’s gracious love to share it with others, even on days when we are not at our best. Jesus says, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
NOTES
[1] M. Craig Barnes, “Faith Matters: Brides of Christ,” The Christian Century, 30 Mar. 2016, p. 35.
[2] John Buchanan, “Good Manners,” The Christian Century, 28 Feb. 2001, p. 3.
READ MORE, https://www.fpcedw.org/pastors-blog
