Advent 2024: Love
Love the world as it is
If you’ve been reading my posts this month—on hope, peace, and joy—you may have noticed a pattern: “here is what _______ is not; now let’s explore what it is or what it could be.”
It’s a little trickier with love. Hope is something you feel, something you carry within you. Same with peace. Same with joy. Hope, peace, and joy can all be sheltered within the soul, but love has an external component. Love is the connection between you and the object of your love.
Love is energy between us. Love is an awareness of the interconnection between all things, what I have elsewhere called “the web of love.” To open yourself to love is to open yourself to that web of connection, to share part of yourself with another, and to receive what another shares. This is why love is risky, why love requires vulnerability: part of ourselves, if not all of ourselves, is on the line.
Love is a choice. We must choose to love. We must choose to open ourselves in order to love and be loved. If we choose love, we choose vulnerability. When we love, we risk loss, we risk hurt, we risk pain. I’ve heard grief described as “the mirror of love.” The depth of our grief is equal to the depth of our love.
In the other posts I’ve written, there is another pattern you may have noticed: in order to experience true hope, true peace, true joy, we cannot suppress or hide from the pain and suffering of the world (or within ourselves). We must acknowledge and accept the reality of sorrow. By this recognition, we can embrace life in its fullness, its darkness and light, its pain and its healing. By recognizing the fullness of human experience, we can come to true hope, true peace, true joy. And, perhaps, a truer, fuller understanding of love.
Two Prayers
In my sophomore year of college, I began to claim Christian faith for myself. I had grown up in the church, believed in God, was a “good” person, but didn’t really understand what my faith was about.
After some reading, prayer, and self-reflection, I realized a startling truth: I hated people. My hatred did not originate in bitterness or anger or revenge. Hatred protected me from confronting my fears. My primary fear? Being rejected by others.
I couldn’t articulate that fear at the time; all I could recognize was my hatred of other people. I did not want to share my true self with them: nothing risked, nothing lost. My hate was a pre-emptive move against rejection. I rejected others before they could reject me. For those who knew me at the time, you wouldn’t have noticed this. I have always been a quiet, timid person, so I never rejected anyone to their face. I kept it all inside. You wouldn’t know by observing my interactions with others that I harbored this hatred. But it was there.
So, I started praying every day for one thing: “God, teach me to love people.”
God answered my prayer. Or rather, I became aware of—attentive to—how God could be answering my prayer.
I made a new friend the first week back, and that helped. He, too, was interested in growing in his faith. We stumbled into various ministry opportunities, serving in this or that context, but almost never returning to the same place twice.
This kind of ministry-hopping may sound like an example of what not to do, but for me in that season, it was precisely what I needed. The ministries flourished with or without me. In each new situation, God invited me to expand the circumference of my love.
In the past, my hatred took the form of feeling superior to others. God showed me how fragile “superiority” is. I began to recognize, through this “tour of ministries,” that I was not superior to anyone. We were people in different circumstances, yes, but we could be connected through love. It may not be a cozy kind of love, a comfortable kind of love, but it could be a love founded on action and solidarity.
Eventually, I worked for an organization in which I would form long-term relationships with youth. In some cases, I mentored the same kids for the remaining two years of my time in college.
The answer to my prayer was not finished, however. To this day, I am still learning what it means to love people, still expanding the circumference of my compassion.
In the spring of my sophomore year, I prayed a second prayer: “God, show me the world as it really is.” I imagined that I might see battles between angels and demons, that I would see spiritual phenomena all around me. I thought God would answer my prayer by pulling back the veil so that I might see the spirit world underneath this one. That’s not what happened.
The answer to this prayer came in two forms: people and books. Both expanded my understanding of the world; both changed my perspective. When other people shared their stories, I learned that the worldview I had was not the whole picture. When I read books, I learned about suppressed histories, cultural myths, religion-sanctioned violence. I also learned about alternative solutions to societal problems.
You might say I was “waking up” to the world as it really is. I was coming to awareness. Sometimes I welcomed this awareness with excitement. Other times, it felt threatening. This was particularly the case when learning about my complicity in systems of oppression.
The opposite of love is not hate. It is fear. When I come to awareness of the world as it really is, the world in its suffering, the world as I have wounded it, fear can be a legitimate response. Yet fear can also prevent me from love. True love loves the world as it is, the world in its suffering. True love seeks repair for the wounds I have caused.
A Dream
I am a prolific dreamer. I have dreams just about every night, and I wake up in the morning remembering them—an image or emotion at the very least, if not whole scenes, whole narratives (or what passes for narrative in dreamland).
There is one dream I had in college that I have returned to again and again in the years since. I had the dream, and upon waking, I had “the” interpretation of it. This happens sometimes. I’ll wake up, ask questions about what my dream may be telling me, and then immediately have some sort of answer that satisfies in the moment. Here is the dream from so long ago:
I was on campus at a play (or musical?) with a friend. The play was about the evils of Christianity, and it involved slavery, colonialism, piracy, and violence. After the show ended, my friend and I started walking downhill away from campus (Western Washington University is built on a hill—we were walking north toward downtown Bellingham). He said to me, “This is what’s wrong with Christianity,” and started rattling off even more sins of the capital-C Church. I didn’t want to hear it, so I started slowly jogging away from him. Very slowly—awkwardly slowly. Eventually, I got away from his shouting after me, and I ended up in an abandoned parking lot. It was night.
Suddenly, a house formed around me and I realized I was in the basement. I was embarrassed to have intruded into someone’s home, even though it wasn’t my fault. I climbed the stairs and entered a hallway by the kitchen. There were two stools at a peninsula counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. One stool was empty. The other was occupied by a young blonde woman. In the moment, I categorized her as a “party girl,” someone with whom I would not normally associate. She smiled slightly as I passed by to sit in the other stool.
There was an older woman bustling in the kitchen. She did not seem alarmed that I had just appeared from her basement. She handed the young woman a small tube of ointment. “You want anything to drink?” she asked me. “Water,” I replied. She turned around to fill a glass for me.
The young woman looked at me. “This is my STD cream,” she said. “Do you want to see how I put it on?” “Nope, no thank you,” I said quickly. The older woman handed me the glass of water.
Just then the front door—next to the dining room—burst open and a tall, jovial man walked in. I knew it was the older woman’s husband. “Hello!” he boomed. “I’m so glad you’re here! Welcome, welcome!”
And that is when I woke up.
My first thought was: the old woman is the church, and the old man is Jesus. The party girl and I are both in their house. I feel uncomfortable by the woundedness of this other person. I bear prejudice against what I perceive to be her lifestyle. Yet we are both welcomed joyously. The older woman cares for our needs. This is in contrast to the church portrayed by the play and my friend’s criticisms.
For a number of years, I felt that the play I had dreamed was unfair to the church. The church was not those things the play dramatized. In time, I learned that these evils were the church—if not directly church-performed then at least church-sanctioned, church-blessed. Slavery, colonialism, genocide, abuse, violence: these have all been perpetrated by “God-fearing Christians” and condoned and even justified by Christian authorities. Even today, Christian leaders use the Bible and theology to justify harm.
Coming to an awareness of the damage that has been done in the name of God, of Jesus, of justice, even of love, is hard to do. It may seem easier to live under the illusion that Christians can do no wrong, that the church is a force for good in society. Yet to recognize this harm, to truly acknowledge it, to accept that it has happened is to step into healing. Confession of harm done is an ancient Christian tradition. And it is part of lament, the first step toward true repentance. And repentance is the first step of repair. And what is repair but the restoration of the possibility of love—love not as a warm, fuzzy feeling, but love as a choice, love as a concrete action.
This dream also showed me that I needed to heal my perceptions of others. The young woman with the STD cream was not there for me to judge. She received her balm from the older woman just as I received my water. I had asked God to help me love people—here was an opportunity to show compassion. Like the old woman, I did not need to fear the woundedness of others, but to accept its reality. Only then could I more truly enter into love.
Two Titles
First a book I have not read yet:
Barry Lopez, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World (2024)
Second, a poem by one of my favorite poets:
Adam Zagajewski, “Try to Praise the Mutilated World”
Both titles imply that even though there is pain (mutilation, burning) in the world, we should still embrace it, praise it, honor it, love it, serve it, care for it.
Gullible, Foolish, Weak Love
Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:43–48).
Notice how Jesus doesn’t say, “Love those who are easy to love.” Instead, he says, “Love where there is pain, where there is conflict. Let your love be generous, as undiscerning as the sun and the rain.” This kind of love may seem unwise, overly vulnerable, overly naïve. Yet remember what Paul said about love:
Love believes all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7
Is this not an apt description of gullibility? Compare Proverbs 14:15: “The simple believe everything, but the clever consider their steps.” So is love foolish? Is love weak? Earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul seems to delight in foolishness and weakness:
God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:27–29).
Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God (1 Corinthians 3:18–19).
Let’s go back to the Sermon on the Mount. Just before Jesus’s declaration that we should love our enemies, he gives some practical examples of non-retaliation:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you (Matthew 5:38–42).
Is this not at odds with our modern sense of justice? The wrongdoer should pay. The victim should sue. Each should carry their own load. The borrower should pay back the lender (with interest). Don’t do these things, says Jesus. Instead, demonstrate your love by letting yourself be taken advantage of.
Love bears all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7
Now back to Paul. He criticizes the Corinthian believers for bringing lawsuits against each other. At first, he recommends someone be appointed to judge between believers within the church. But then he says:
In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? (1 Corinthians 6:7).
Have you ever heard such an ethic preached in the church? This whole letter to the Corinthians is a message built around foolishness, weakness, submission. It is framed by an ethic Paul expounds in another letter:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.
Let each of you look not to your own interests,
but to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:3–4
Paul addresses a question from the Corinthians about whether they should eat food sacrificed to idols. At first he admits the “knowledge” that some have:
We know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one.” … “We are no better off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do” (1 Corinthians 8:4, 8).
Since idols aren’t real, the food is not actually defiled, and believers can eat of it. That is the “knowledge.” But Paul acknowledges the “weakness” that other believers may have:
It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled (1 Corinthians 8:7).
Then Paul offers his solution—again, not a stance I’ve ever heard a sermon about:
But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed (1 Corinthians 8:9–11; cf. Romans 14:13–23).
Paul criticizes those who assert their rights and their knowledge. How unlike our supposed Christian nation! We assert our right to free speech so we can say hateful things against others. We assert our right to bear arms so we can plan for violence. We assert our right to protect ourselves but justify harming others in the process. We profess our knowledge so we can condemn others for “backwards” or “secular” views. We profess our knowledge so we can feel superior to others. We profess our knowledge so we can imagine ourselves to be the good people, the best people, the right people.
Now hear how Paul responds:
If food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall (1 Corinthians 8:13).
After listing all the rights he has as an apostle (9:1–12), Paul says:
Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. … But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this so that they may be applied in my case. Indeed, I would rather die than that. … In my proclamation I … make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:12, 15, 18).
Love endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other (1 Corinthians 10:23–24).
What a challenge for us today! So many things are legal that do not lead to greater love. Instead, the law can support our building of walls between each other. The law can justify oppression and condone violence—in the name of security, the name of freedom, the name of justice. Paul doesn’t equate the law of the land with the law of Christ (cf. Galatians 5:14; 6:2), but argues that love takes a different path. Love does not assert its rights, but acts according to what brings greater love into the world.
Love does not insist on its own way.
1 Corinthians 13:5)
Paul calls the church the “body of Christ,” and just before his famous love chapter he compares the body of believers to an actual body:
There are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior members, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; it one member is honored, all rejoice together with it (1 Corinthians 12:20–26).
Notice how the members of the body interact. They cannot say to one another “I have no need of you.” If a given part suffers, the body suffers with it. The body does not reject the suffering of any one of its parts. If a given part is weak, the body bears with that weakness. If a given part is “dishonorable,” it is treated with greater honor. The suffering, the weak, the dishonorable: these are not shunned by the rest of the body, but embraced.
Love rejoices in the truth.
1 Corinthians 13:6
Love does not shy away from the truth, the world in its mutilated, burning reality. Love does not fear suffering, weakness, dishonor. Love suffers alongside, love becomes weak to bear the other’s burdens, love clothes the dishonorable with greater honor. Love rejoices in the truth—love embraces the truth of the world’s pain.
Love is not just for easy situations. Love is not a fairweather friend. Love is a choice, love is an action. Love does not look to its own way, its own interest, its own advantage, its own rights. Love is a desire for the well-being of others.
If love allows itself to be wronged, that does not mean it is weak. Love accepts that there is evil in the world, and repays that evil with good, even if that “repayment” appears to be to love’s own detriment. This is love’s wisdom; this is love’s strength.
A Prayer
When the song of the angels is stilled
when the star in the sky is gone
when the kings and princes are home
when the shepherds are back with their flocks
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost
to heal the broken
to feed the hungry
to release the prisoner
to rebuild the nations
to bring peace among the people
to make music in the heart.
- Howard Thurman, prayer compiled in Bread of Tomorrow: Prayers for the Church Year (edited by Janet Morley)
Appendix of Related Quotes
If Christ wept for Lazarus, he must’ve done so not out of an absence of hope or faith, but out of love. It was an honoring. When we weep for the conditions of this world, we become truth-tellers in its defense.
- Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh, 97
Above all, maintain constant love for one another,
for love covers a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8
It is love that lets us experience both the livingness of life and the deadliness of death.
- Jürgen Moltmann, In the End, the Beginning, 105
If your enemies are hungry, give them something to eat;
and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink;
for you will heap coals of fire on their heads,
and the Lord will reward you.
Proverbs 25:22 (cf. Romans 12:20–21)
This is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. … Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us‚ and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action (1 John 3:11, 13–18).
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
1 John 4:18
I am most disillusioned with the Christian faith when in the presence of a Christian who refuses to name the traumas of this world. I am suspicious of anyone who can observe colonialism, genocide, and decay in the world and not be stirred to lament in some way. … In lament, our task is never to convince someone of the brokenness of this world; it is to convince them of the world’s worth in the first place. True lament is not born from that trite sentiment that the world is bad but rather from a deep conviction that it is worthy of goodness.
- Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh, 98
The only thing that counts is faith working through love.
Galatians 5:6