Love and Freedom

S

(John 13:34-35) A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are My disciples.

O

The "this" that Jesus referred to was His people's assimilation of God's love: (1) Receive it for yourself, (2) Give it away to everyone, (3) Own up to the new identity as being both a disciple of Jesus and a crazy-lover of people, like He is. What's even more surprising about this commandment is its context. What prompted Jesus to say that was the events that immediately preceded that command: He served the final Passover meal to his disciples (including Judas), He washed His disciples' feet (including Judas's), and He released Judas to actively betray both Him and his fellow disciples. Jesus' love included serving His betrayer, without betraying or exposing or hindering him. Respecting people's freedom to be idiots is part of agape love.

A (Personal)

I've learned long ago that God's love is to be received, experienced and enjoyed, and given away--and in that process, to discover that the more it's given it away, the more deeply and tangibly it's experienced and recognized by a watching, awestruck world. What I don't understand is how to balance that with this granting freedom to be foolish or destructive. Isn't my will ... my good intentions ... my better understanding sufficient to override your choice if mine is better?

When zealous, well-meaning crowds tried to forcibly make Jesus king--at the wrong time, with the wrong method, for the wrong purpose--Jesus foiled their plans. When jealous, malevolent crowds (perhaps some of the same people) wanted to toss Jesus over a cliff or later to stone Him--a premature murder attempt--Jesus quietly foiled their plans again. Jesus doesn't participate in evil or even foolishness, but He discerns when it's best to give us freedom to act out our idiocies. Sometimes He saves us from ourselves, but always whatever He does is love.

A (Psychological)

Preventing suicide ... preventing abuse ... preventing divorce. How much freedom do we have to impose my (our) will on someone else? How much power or control do we have against such things? How much moral authority do we have? Does the possibility of success have anything to do with whether we should attempt interventions? People who are among the few professions or individuals who have struggled to organize these ethical burdens have some idea how difficult these decisions can be in real circumstances. Like other professions, psychology is just beginning to labor through and unravel these issues, and (forgive the triteness) those who have started this struggle have equipped themselves better than those of us who haven't engaged in this struggle.

Prayer

Lord, Your love is so much greater than anything I can comprehend. Your care for Your betrayers is shocking. I want to both receive and give away Your love. I know--speaking as one of Your betrayers--I am eternally grateful for Your mercy. Without the freedom You gave me to sin, I would have never realized how dark and corrupt my heart is without Your transforming love. O Lord, teach me all over again how to love people with Your love.

Forging True Love

S

(Romans 6:17) But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have now become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

O

Forget doctrine as we've learned it. This "form of teaching" (didache) Paul described (also translated "doctrine") isn't the frighteningly dry stuff that first comes to mind. First, it's a mold such as what liquid metal is poured into to cast a coin, a tool, a sword, or a statue. Second, it's a commonly understood standard against which people can measure compliance or competence--a yardstick or a scale. Third, and specifically how Paul used it, didache was the teaching style Jesus used. Instead of teaching intellectual systems of philosophy, Jesus did things that demonstrated love. He went to the cross. He gave Himself. He laid His life down. He rose again and ascended on high... and He punctuated His deeds with simple, clarifying explanations. That is the original form of doctrine.

A (Personal)

I want to "become obedient from my heart to this form of teaching, which has been entrusted to me just as Jesus entrusted it to His first disciples." The Gospel they preached was essentially the facts of what God the Father, His son, and the Holy Spirit did for us and has been doing in us. The disciples punctuated these facts with their own acts of obedience with accompanying simple explanations. Powerful. Convincing. Memorable. Much easier to understand and follow and love than a system of abstract, hard-to-apply rules and principles. Much easier to adapt into any culture or individual circumstance. The catch is that it requires, therefore, much more heart-hearing obedience and personal relationship with King Jesus.

A (Psychological)

Are systems of logic and ethics and theology necessary? Sure, they still serve a limited purpose when people fail to be obedient to the relational doctrine Paul described to the Romans. That's why psychiatrists and psychologists (as well as other mental heath workers, pastors, etc.) have found it necessary to band together and agree to abide by strict codes of ethics. It became obviously necessary by observing the too-frequent, gross fallibilities of people who should have known--and done--better. Otherwise smart people misused their power and influence to exploit vulnerable people for their inappropriate personal benefits. The old Hebrew prophets knew that was unfortunately a common trait of leaders (Ezekiel 34). The more we find ourselves disappointed by people (including ourselves) failing to live up to ethical codes, whichever ones they might be, the more appealing the Good News of Jesus Christ appears in contrast.

P

Jesus, You are indeed the perfect template for my soul, but You're much more than merely a perfect intellectual system. The Gospel--the Good News of who You are and what You've done--is a perfectly complete motive for change. Only by knowing You as my sacrifice and my Savior do I find enough heat of passion to melt my hard heart. Continue, Lord, to soften my heart so I become increasingly pliable to Your Spirit and redeemable into Your likeness.

No Innocent Harm

Scripture

(Romans 5:6-8) For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Observation

It is pointless to argue that many people choose to die for others. Paul was not writing of a parent's sacrificial, life-risking love for their children, a husband's risks for his wife, a police officer's for the community, or a soldier's for national security. He certainly wasn't referring to the safety-defying attitudes that mercenaries, treasure hunters, sociopaths, and thieves nurture within themselves. He was acknowledging the rarity of a person being so righteous (rigidly law abiding) that a good (benevolent and kind) person would die in the righteous person's place--which sounds rare if only because of the absurdity of such a situation.

But far more absurd would be a good person deliberately dying so a bad person--someone who had been opposing that goodness--could continue to plague the community. Righteousness, by definition, opposes evil. Goodness, likewise, hates to hurt others. So, at the point of Jesus being impaled to the cross, when He prayed, "Father, forgive them--they don't realize what they're doing," God's holy righteousness and His unblemished goodness would have remained unblemished if He'd chosen to return the torture and annihilate all humanity. Either Righteousness or Goodness should have stopped the crucifixion, but Love chose absurdity. Still being rigidly righteous, He chose instead to absorb all unrighteousness on Himself, to pay for it; thereby, creating the opportunity for sinners to be forgiven and healed.

Application (Psychological)

Any harm against innocent people should appall and anger us. Fyodor Dostoevsky (like Shakespeare and so many others who preceded modern psychology) observed the human psyche and wrote for us with disrupting insight. He lived in a culture that argued for the occasional suitability and greater good of innocent people suffering miserable lives or even worse deaths (it's suitable as long as someone else is the sufferer). Class privilege is built on that premise, but for it to be established, it must first thrive in individual hearts.

Trying to jolt our consciences and ethical alarms awake, Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov. To demonstrate that even one innocent person's death isn't justifiable for the common good, he described (near the end of the chapter called Rebellion) the horror of an innocent eight-year-old boy who was chased and killed by hounds. "If the suffering of little children is needed to complete the sum total of suffering required to pay for [eternal harmony]," he concluded, "I don't want that." Righteous and good people should be shocked by that absurdity of requiring others to suffer on their behalf. This is why Jesus' death has to be honestly absurd to us: He should not have died for us, which in turn makes His love even more appalling and inviting. And only God--not any of us--could fulfill that task of dying an innocent, substitutionary death for others. It never was, nor will it ever be appropriate for us to consider that sort of death ourselves (which is a huge relief).

Application (Personal)

Surprisingly then, Paul later advised the Romans to duplicate Jesus' all-giving, sacrificial love back toward God: "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, with is your spiritual (reasonable) worship" (12:1). When I first became a believer, in my youthful optimism and physical safety, I gladly offered myself to the Lord for any life-risking service He might deem beneficial. Privately, I considered martyrdom to be a profitable escape from life's or ministry's miseries. What I didn't appreciate was that, in God's mercy, He called me to be a living martyr (the Greek meaning of Paul's words). My demonstration of living righteously with long-suffering kindness towards others is the highest form of voluntary self-sacrifice. Sure, Paul agreed that dying would be much easier, but living for Christ--loving Christ--is far better (Philippians 1-3).

Prayer

Lord, I pray that my love might abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment so that You may liberate my life to be a living demonstration of what is excellent, pure, and blameless. Would You fill me, Lord, with the fruit of Your righteousness so I might bring glory and praise to You? (Philippians 1:9-11).