Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. (9-10)
How did we get to this point? How did followers of a man best known for the way he loved people become the people listed in this video? These perceptions are simply "unchristian," they are not like Jesus. If we are going to be Springs of life to those around us, we must be different.
Paul is clear that we ought to be people who love from our core. It's not that we do loving things, but that everything we do comes from love. It's the "I want you to want to" debate that spouses have every day. Just doing loving things does not make us loving people. Oh, but I wish it did. Wouldn't it be much easier if just going to a local soup kitchen would make me love. Activity is not the change-agent of our selfish hearts, though. God is the changer of our centers. He is the one who works his love into us so that no matter what we do - pushing papers, cleaning roadsides, performing surgery, working taxes, taking food to a friend, sitting with the elderly, defending the most vulnerable - it is the fruit of love. Loving actions are the fruit of love, love is not the fruit of loving actions.
Paul then says we are to run for dear life from evil, but hold on for dear life to what is good. When the Romans heard "evil" from Paul, it likely conjured up images of hard labor and hardships, toil and peril. The evil is about doing things. When they heard "good", they understood Paul as referring to their being, their nature. The good is about being.
Be good friends who love deeply. Paul is charging the Romans to a mutual, give-recieve, kind of love. This kind of love stems from a relationship between two people. In relationship we are given our greatest leadership exhortation - practice playing second fiddle. Put the needs of others above your needs. When we have a relationship with someone, that relationship drives us to step aside. When we fail to lead and love out of relationship, we slip back into activity and it will lead to apathy.
Let's direct a new video. Let's be a people who follow the one who love greater than any person in history. Let's let him open up a fountain of love in us, that we may be known as a people who love.
Ok, today is my day to play the contrarian. I don't disagree with anything in the post, but perhaps it's more my personality that causes me to struggle with the "don't do, just be" approach. When I read "hold on for dear life to what is good," that means something specific for me. It recalls the times I have to "gut it out" when my feelings betray me and I don't feel like pursuing the good. Sometimes that's in my marriage or my relationship with my kids or with friends or a person in need. Sometimes I have to just choose to serve. And when I do, the converse of the "be, then do" logic often happens. Sometimes, because I make a decision to "do," God responds and helps me to be.
ReplyDeleteWe have both core practices ("do") and core virtues ("be") that are part of becoming complete in Christ. Which come first? I think in a perfect world, all activity and all virtue grow out of abiding in Christ. But as in every relationship, in my relationship with Christ sometimes I just have to do the right thing, and my experience tells me that God honors that