Revolutionary Love

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson for  4.28.12

What was it that made Jesus so different from any of the other religious leaders of His time? Well, His message was clearly different: keeping the rules can’t save you, be a servant, love your enemies. That was all new stuff to the people of Jesus’ time. I think sometimes we forget how really different the things that Jesus was preaching were; we’ve heard it all our whole lives.

What Jesus was preaching was truly revolutionary, a complete break from the religious teaching of His day. But do you think if Jesus had just preached … just stated His message and gone home, do you think He would have had any followers at all?

What drew people to Jesus had less to do with what He was saying and everything to do with what He did – how He treated people – that is what was revolutionary. His earthly ministry was boots-on-the-ground, gritty, hand to hand and one on one. There was nothing safe or sanitary about it. Jesus’ ministry was pretty much the complete opposite of how we want it to be.

I just read about a software company that has created a computer program that makes it possible for high school students to dissect virtual frogs. Now, a good many of you probably remember that experience in high school. None of us who experienced it, will ever forget the smell of formaldehyde. Some of you may have found it a fascinating and enlightening experience. I remember dreading the day my biology teacher would wheel out the cart with the dead frogs on it. I have never been real interested in finding out too much about those gooshy things inside us, and I was especially not interested in the gooshy things inside a dead frog! Combine that with the fact that my lab partner for the frog episode was the boy who a couple of years earlier swallowed one of the worms we were supposed to be dissecting. Needless to say, frog day was not my favorite day of high school. There was nothing sanitary, polite, or pleasant about it.

I think sometimes we expect sharing the gospel to be like dissecting virtual frogs; detached, sanitary, and not too complicated, right? Handing out literature on the third Sabbath of the month, just a quick “hello”, a handshake and we’re outta there, right? How far do you think Jesus would have gotten if He had run His ministry like that?

It probably wouldn’t have gotten him killed, for one thing. The Pharisees wouldn’t have felt threatened by Jesus and His ministry if He had kept His hands clean.

The Pharisees lived safely behind their ceremonial wall of clean and unclean. They taught that what a person touched could make them unacceptable to God; they taught that having a rule for everything kept their hands clean.

So, when Jesus came along and He talked to people the Pharisees wouldn’t go near. He ate with people the Pharisees didn’t like, eating with riffraff and staying overnight with “those people.”

And “those people,” when they saw how much Jesus loved them, that He wasn’t afraid to touch them, talk to them, and heal them, loved Him back.

Jesus had compassion on the people He met every day and people were changed by that kind of revolutionary love – love that touched lepers, ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, and treated them like good friends.

There it is … the people that Jesus ministered to, talked to, and preached to weren’t numbers on a chart somewhere for “contacts made.” They were His friends. He loved each one of them; He loves each one of us. Yes, the things Jesus said were amazingly different, but what He did was revolutionary.

You know, I work every day with people who might make some folks uncomfortable. I work with intellectually delayed adults. I have to admit that when I first started working with these people, I was pretty intimidated. Some of them don’t look any different than you and I do, but some are quite different. Some need help feeding themselves. A few need help with more personal things. Almost a year and a half ago, I spent a lot of time trying to not touch anybody or be touched by anyone. I thought I could do my job without getting too involved in any individual’s life and then go home.

That’s not the way it works. My clients can sense, just like you and I can, someone who’s just putting in his or her time, someone who is emotionally distant, someone who is in a hurry to get away. And, as I work with each client, I become involved in his or her life. We are not separate anymore. We are friends. I care about each one.

When I was growing up I remember hearing people talk about something called “disinterested benevolence.” I remember hearing people say that meant that we shouldn’t get personally involved with the people we were witnessing to; we should just provide the information and move on. Now maybe I misunderstood, but that seems like a very pharisaical way to witness. “Here’s your information, do with it as you will.”

“Divine love makes its most touching appeals to the heart when it calls upon us to manifest the same tender compassion that Christ manifested. That man only who has unselfish love for his brother has true love for God. The true Christian will not willingly permit the soul in peril and need to go unwarned, uncared for. He will not hold himself aloof from the erring, leaving them to plunge farther into unhappiness and discouragement or to fall on Satan’s battleground.”[1] 

Some folks talk about how important it is for churches to stay “culturally relevant.” I’m not all that sure what that means to them. To me it means that those people who say they feel that we should adopt some more worldly things to bring people in and keep them interested. Maybe we do, I don’t know, but in my experience, as long as people know that you are interested in and care about them specifically, whether or not you are playing their specific kind of music isn’t that important to them. If they sense that we aren’t that interested in them personally, they’re not going to keep coming, no matter what we offer them. People want to know that we are interested in them.

“How many of the wandering ones have you, reader, sought for and brought back to the fold? When you turn from those who seem unpromising and unattractive, do you realize that you are neglecting the souls for whom Christ is seeking? At the very time when you turn from them, they may be in the greatest need of your compassion. In every assembly for worship, there are souls longing for rest and peace. They may appear to be living careless lives, but they are not insensible to the influence of the Holy Spirit. Many among them might be won for Christ.             
If the lost sheep is not brought back to the fold, it wanders until it perishes. And many souls go down to ruin for want of a hand stretched out to save. These erring ones may appear hard and reckless; but if they had received the same advantages that others have had, they might have revealed far more nobility of soul, and greater talent for usefulness. Angels pity these wandering ones. Angels weep, while human eyes are dry and hearts are closed to pity.” [2]

Do you want to show the world revolutionary love today? I do.

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[1] E. G. White, Acts of the Apostles, p. 550

[2] E. G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p191

What’s My Motivation?

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson for 12.31.11

Why do we do the things we do?  Because someone is making us?  Because we’ll get some kind of reward?  To stay out of trouble?  What motivates a fireman to run into a burning building or a soldier to go into the most dangerous part of the battle?  Is somebody making them do it?  Is it because of a set of rules somewhere that says they have to?  What motivates a person to spend years in prison because of his (or her) beliefs?  What motivates a 21 year old to leave her family rather than give up her religion?

“A young Christian in Myanmar was forced to choose between faith and family recently when her relatives demanded that she recant her faith. On Sept. 19, 2011, 21-year-old Ying was preparing to leave for classes at an underground seminary when her relatives locked her in the house. They threatened to disown her, beat her and withdraw support — including food — if she continued to attend seminary or church. In addition, they threatened to send her to a remote village with no known Christians if she did not recant her faith. Instead of giving in to their demands, Ying ran away from home and left her family behind.”[1]

I’m pretty sure that most of the people reading this, right now, have not had to choose between our families and our beliefs; it’s really hard for me to imagine.  But why did she do it?  Why didn’t Ying just give up her Christian beliefs and go back to being Buddhist?

What motivates a person to do the “right” thing when it would be easier not to or when no one would notice or even care what he did?

“Within an hour of closing on his first home, Josh Ferrin, an artist for the Deseret News, used the keys to take his first official look inside. While taking it all in, he noticed a tiny scrap of carpet peeking out of a small door in the ceiling of a workshop at the back of the garage. He got a ladder and climbed up to explore the unseen space. It was dark and musty, but Ferrin could see a black metal box sitting there. It was a heavy metal box—the kind used to haul ammunition during World War II—and it was filled with cash (more than $45,000), old stamps, bond certificates, and other random memorabilia.
And he gave it all back!
“‘You can't make plans for money like this,’ Ferrin said. ‘It just doesn't feel right to do anything but give it back. So I immediately closed it, locked it in my truck, and called my wife. 'You won't believe what I just found.’ His wife Tara immediately knew the couple had to return the money to its rightful owners.
But Arnold Bangerter, the former homeowner, had passed away in November 2010, and his youngest son, Dennis Bangerter, the executor of Bangerter's estate, had just signed the 1950s red-brick rambler away. It took at least three hours for the Ferrins to sort and count the box-full of cash, all the while teaching a lesson of honesty to their two young sons, who wanted to keep ‘just one’ of the bundles and kept trying to slip coins into their pockets.
“‘The house needs some work,’ Josh Ferrin said. ‘I could use the $45,000 for remodeling, but he didn't save that money for us. He saved it for his family. I never considered the money mine. You can't allow yourself to think like that.’”[2]

I mean, come on, who would have known if the Ferrins kept that money?  The house was theirs now, wasn’t it?  The guy who’d put the money there was dead; what’s the big deal?  Would anybody say that Mr. Ferrin was living “under the law” because he felt he needed to give the money back?  Was he doing the “right” thing because someone was making him do it?

On the other hand, what motivates people to do the “wrong” thing…actually, maybe “wrong” isn’t the right word…you decide:

“Several years ago I knew a girl who had signed a contract to teach. In August she received another offer from a school closer to where she wanted to live. So she broke the original contract. Had she acted on the biblical principle in (Psalms 15:4), where God says that He is pleased with a person who swears to his own hurt and does not change, she would not have done that. The department chairman ... said her justification was ‘I have a peace about it,’ and he commented rather sardonically, ‘Isn't that lovely? She's got the peace and I've got the pieces.’”[3]

I guess that young woman would have said she was doing the right thing…doing what was best for her.  But it doesn’t seem like the honorable thing to do, does it?  She wasn’t acting with integrity.

“Integrity is keeping my commitment(s) even if the circumstances when I made the commitment(s) have changed.”[4]

Would anybody say that living with integrity is living “under the law”?  I guess that would depend on a person’s motivation.  Is he trying to “look respectable?”  Or would he act the same way if nobody would ever know the difference?

When Paul was writing to the Galatians, he wanted to know that some people were motivated by, what we would call, legalism.  They wanted things to “look respectable” but they didn’t care much about what was going on inside or underneath (in the hearts of the new Christians).  Paul was worried that the church in Galatia was being misled, by the Pharisees, to do things just to make things look right.  The Pharisees wanted them to look respectable but didn’t care whether or not they lived with integrity. 

Legalism doesn’t care why we do something, as long as we do it.  Integrity cares about motivation first.  Does that make sense?

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”  Galatians 6:7-10

So, what’s your motivation, respectability or integrity?  Can we do both?  Can we tell by looking at someone whether or not they’re living under the law or under grace?  Not always.  But God knows…

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[1] “Faith Over Family” Voice of the Martyrs,  http://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom.aspx?story_ID=NDMy

[2] Wendy Leonard, "Big Cash Discovery Becomes Lesson in Honesty for Bountiful Family," ksl.com (5-18-11); submitted by Van Morris, Mt. Washington, Kentucky

[3] Paul E. Little in a sermon, "Affirming the Will of God" (in Great Sermons of the 20th Century). Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 16.

[4] David Jeremiah, Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 2.