So I was reading in 1 john 2 today, and I came across this passage:
9Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. 11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
So I started off…. Hey, I don’t hate my brother. Kat’s a pretty cool guy (when hes not being melodramatic, which he doesn’t do much anymore =) ). So I’m ok! But then I thought, wait, Christ speaks of ‘brother’ as pretty much anyone you meet on the street (Luke 10, Good Samaritan). So do I hate anyone? Umm…. I don’t think so. So I’m OK.
However, then I gave it one more thinking… The story of the Good Samaritan about the fact that your brother is anyone who needs help. The religious guys who went around the hurt man were not loving him. The Samaritan, who went out of his way to help someone, even his enemy, was the one who loved him. The reason I point this out is that the passage above says that whoever LOVES his brother lives in the light. (By the way, this is not brotherly love or family love, its agapeo, Godly, selfless love). When Jesus gives us an example of loving our brother it is helping a guy who just got mugged. On top of that, its stopping and helping a guy who just got mugged in the slums of downtown
I say this because the guys who didn’t love the man didn’t spit on him or laught at him. In fact, they probably felt sorry for him but were too busy. So their ignoring him was a default hate. If you pass a drowning child in a lake but continue because you are busy, that’s default hatred towards the child. We are no different.
I wonder how many times we stop and help the homeless guy on the side of the road? I wonder how many times we just drive by those guys because we cant be late. Instead of helping we just callously assume that he is going to use the money for booze. Why not go buy the guy a bag of jumbo jacks? It takes $10 and 10 minutes. But that’s ok. Him eating today and tomorrow is not nearly as important to us getting to our meeting on time.
41"Then [Jesus] will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' 45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
I say these things because I am guilty of them. I pass by people all the time. I cant remember the last time I took my dinner money and went and bought food for the homeless guys over at the intersection of 20 and 820. I am too busy… I pass right by the least of these all the time.
May God change my heart.
1 comment:
I disagree with you about the Samaritan. The Parable of the Good Samaritan was not about loving your BROTHER, but rather about loving your NEIGHBOR upon which (and the first Law) hang the all laws and to prophets.
I also disagree with your interpretation of the last scripture. This produces a legalism that is condemned in Christ's other unexpected anathema: "22Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' 23"And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you..."
These people did all the right things, and they assumed that these things would ameliorate them to God. I think you might have given too little thought to verses 5 and 6 (Hurley Language Edition) "This is how we know that we are abiding in Him: the one who is abiding in Him, imitates Him."
Again I site my old platitude, put nothing before the glory of Christ, not even good works. The point is not to feed the hungry, the point is to be so familiar with the ways of God that you will feed everyone. The point is not to do good things, the point is to be so intimate with the character of God that everything you will do is right.
Another aspect of this is that of charity. Giving to the poor is not charity. From Chesterton "It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them."
Charity to the poor is merely hypocrisy if you do not also imitate God in the same charity that He gave to Zacchaeus; the same charity that He (as the father) gave to His prodigal (and more importantly: undeserving) son.
Yes, I pray that we are heartbroken over our sin, but I pray that we are heartbroken over the right sin; over the whole sin.
I know it sounds like I'm scolding you; I'm not. I'm merely refocusing your attention. You tend to get sold on these details, which is good, but you need to remember that every single one of these details hangs on a central focus. Separated from that focus, from that branch if you will, that detail becomes worse than worthless, it will be cut off and thrown into the fire where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. Never overlook this focus when God shows you one of these powerful convictions.
Again, I'll rephrase my well-worn adage: don't be heartbroken over your lack of generosity to the poor for even the sinners give to the poor, rather be heartbroken that you do not know the glory of God enough to imitate Him.
I say it again and I'll say it to my dying day because it's so terribly and pivotally critical: never, NEVER, NEVER put anything before the glory of Christ.
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