Tag: love

Squeezing a Christian

An old object lesson that floats around ministry circles observes that when you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, and when you squeeze an apple, apple juice comes out, but what comes out when you squeeze a Christian? When the pressures and stresses of the world, pandemics and political crises, put pressures on followers of Jesus, what do they produce? If the analogy holds, something of Christ should come out. Jesus’ love should come out of a squeezed disciple of Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace – should ooze from the one who is Spirit-filled.

Surely, we’ve had three and a half years of evidence that this largely is not what happens to followers of Jesus in America. We every bit as much as our secular neighbors produced anger, anxiety, and fear. The consequent and ongoing shrinking of the Church only makes sense. When, in the midst of crisis, Christians flock to conspiracy theories and obvious lies and demonstrate no particular confidence in the power of divine providence, why would anyone believe us when we say that two thousand years ago a man walked on water? But in the coming season, the Church will again be asked the question, “What’s inside of you?” Maybe we can produce a different answer.

Perhaps, as 2024 looms, we ought to think about the likely cultural climate with our intended ends in mind. It will be another year of political turmoil and conflict being produced by world leaders who ought to act like models of civility but who instead act like spoiled children. That is of little concern. What matters is how Christians respond. A card player is not good because the deal is good; a card player is good because of what she does with the hand. We have some probable sense of what the next season will deal us, so the question then becomes, how shall we play it?

I’ve begun to pray that as the polarizing conflicts of American society begin to again force people to take sides, the Church will sound like the voice of Jesus. Imagine a Church where we care so much about profound ethical issues that we insist that they must be discussed, and yet, where we are so committed to the absolute dignity of the individual and the love that God bestows on every one, that we insist that our conversations leave people feeling cherished, regardless of political affiliation, religious doctrine, or agreement. Imagine an institution famed for Inquisitions, witch trials, and heretic executions reaching a midlife conversion itself, so that for the rest of its history, it is known for being the circle of grace that its founder originally meant for it to be.

Three, Two, One

A snow-capped couple used to sit next to me in a café, clucking away with each other and passing friends. The first time I noticed them, I was trying to read Athanasius’ “On the Incarnation,” but couldn’t pay attention. I was privately amused at the way they loved each other, giggling as they finished each other’s sentences and offering to get up one for another, because at their age, it was too much of a commitment for them both to stand up.

I was conscious of my eavesdropping, but not of the effect they were having on me. They became part of the aesthetic of the café – the warm, sun-filled widows, the robust, walnut-toned coffee, and the happy old couple as familiar as the furniture. They were always there.

Until one day I saw her alone. When I stopped to ask, I withered to hear of his passing. She was thereafter different than she had been before, as was the café.

cloverThat couple for me is a better metaphor for the Trinitarian God than most of the go-to illustrations. St. Patrick notably used the three leaf clover to explain the Trinity to the pagan Irish, but his metaphor was flawed, because if you pull a leaf off of it, you still have a deformed clover, but a clover nonetheless. A widow is something fundamentally different than a spouse. One does not merely lose a spouse, one loses spousehood. When we love and are beloved, to lose love changes our identity.

Imagine the Trinity not as a mechanical philosophical concept requiring technical definitions of “substance” and “nature,” but rather a being who is so infused with and exuding love that the Father, Son, and Spirit are giddy at finishing each other’s sentences, that within the nature of the one God is a love so overwhelming that it must be reciprocated. Trinity is love immune the frailties of human love. It’s love made perfect, love like the first time a baby laughs, love like a wedding, love like a hero dying to save someone else. Imagine a love so urgent it can’t resist exposing itself to the risk of betrayal and brutality. It will pay the cost if only to love one more. Imagine a kind of love that promises a day when inseparable lovers are reunited, because that’s how a good story is supposed to end.

A friend of mine who is a missionary in a Muslim country tells me that she sometimes tells Muslims that there is “love if,” “love because,” and “love despite” – you can love someone if they will do something for you, because they have done something for you, or despite anything that they do for you. She has been told more than once by the people to whom she ministers that “love despite” isn’t real.

Imagine love despite. That’s a better description of Trinity that most of our metaphors.

Wedding Details

My sense is that the rising generation is afraid of marriage.  I don’t blame them.  It’s not primarily for selfish reasons (though those are a factor).  It’s because they’re shell shocked after a childhood of divorce and dysfunction.  And then there are the selfish reasons.  Or I talk to young couples who don’t want to have kids, because, for however they word it, they are anxious about moving from a position of independence to a position of vulnerability.

Image

There are a few things that I wouldn’t have learned if I didn’t get married and have kids, and they’re captured in this picture of a couple getting married during flood season in the Philippines.  If I had to pick a picture that pretty much summarizes what life is like, it would be this one.  And part of the reason why I like being married is because it has made me a realist.  Marriage is a good microcosm of all of life.  There’s just no other way to learn these things than to make one’s self vulnerable to relationships.  And my sense for what life is all about comes out in the advice I give to young couples about their weddings before they get married.  I tell them:

  • There’s always a glitch.
  • It’s not about the details, it’s about the relationship you’re building.
  • Whether or not it’s a happy occasion has more to do with your insides than your outsides.
  • How you respond will tell your friends who you are.
  • Life is a mess.  Learn to deal with it.
  • Are their smiles better or worse because of the rain?
  • Why are you complaining about the rain?
  • You can tell a couple is healthy because you know they will one day laugh about the disasters.
  • On the day you die, the few days of your life that counted will not have been sunny; they will be days when you laughed at and loved despite the rain.

hw

My new book is

Hardwired: Finding the God You Already Know

(Abingdon Press, 2013).