Happy Valentine’s Day!
In honor of the special day, I thought we might take a brief look at the inconvenient love to which Jesus calls us (his followers), and of which He Himself demonstrated for us.
In His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus tells His followers, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor (Lev. 19:18) and hate your enemy (Deut. 23:3-6).’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
He follows this up in a later teaching in His Sermon on the Plain (yes, these were two different talks – an ancient sermon series, if you will), in Luke 6. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you…”
Well that sucks.
We like the original statement – love those who love us and hate those who hate us.
Except…
Except that that’s not even quite how it went, was it? It was, ‘love your neighbor…’
Jesus later addressed a question about the greatest commandments, and someone asked Him to explain what He meant by “neighbor.” So again, Jesus gave a horribly inconvenient example in which none of the heroes of the story were really the hero. It wasn’t the priest or the Levite who loved their neighbor in His parable, even though the man who had been robbed and beaten would have most likely been a priest or a Levite themselves (these made up the greater population of Jericho, where the victim had been traveling to). No, it wasn’t the heroes but rather their enemy – a stinking Samaritan – who was the hero of the story.
Who is the person or people group that you think of as your enemy? “God’s grace might be for most people, but not for them.” This might be a political group, a national group, a socio-economic group, an ethnic group, or someone else. These, for you, are Samaritans.
Ouch.
And your heroes in the story – you and the people who think like you, act like you, know all of the right ideas and politics and philosophy and theology like you… these aren’t the hero in Jesus’ parable. But it’s the stinking Samaritan that shows love to his neighbor.
But Jesus took it a step further, and actually lived out this teaching, providing us with an example to emulate – should we like to call ourselves followers of Christ, that is.
I won’t give an extensive list here, because we all have access to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and can read those on our own time.
But I will give two short examples: First, in John 4, Jesus goes to Samaria, blesses the people and sparks a revival – “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Jesus must have known that most of us would be unwilling to minister to our enemies, and yet that’s where the harvest is plentiful, at least according to John 4.
And second, as Jesus is being arrested in garden of Gethsemane and led through several illegal “joke-of-a-trials”, Jesus shows grace, dignity and honor to these people who at the very least had viewed themselves as enemies of Jesus.
I love the passage where Simon Peter jumps up with his sword to help Jesus start his bloody revolution, but only gets so far as taking one mostly failed swing at the leader of the incursion (Malchus, the servant of the hight priest) before Jesus yells at him to stop. And then Jesus does something that no one had expected – He healed His enemy’s wound!
If you’ve ever tried to start a bloody revolution, then you’ll probably agree that it doesn’t get very far when the very leader of your movement stops everything to start administering first aid and healing your enemies.
But that’s the point. The crowd might have viewed Jesus as their enemy, but He didn’t view them as His enemy.
Love.
Inconvenient love.
Revolution quelling, violence undoing, hatred abating love.
So I’ll leave you with a small list to reflect on and mull over this Valentine’s Day (and beyond). These are some of the Greek words used to describe different aspects or types of love. How can you share this inconvenient love to the world around you this week?
- Eros – passionate, romantic love.
- Philia – affectionate, brotherly love and friendship.
- Pragma – longstanding, mature love, often found among long-established couples.
- Storge – natural affection, parental love which seeks to give more than to receive.
- Philautia – love for self.
- Agape – the unconditional love of God.
Just for a Closer Walk 