Love one another
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (John 13:34)
And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29–31)
Once there was a church that decided that their vision statement would be “to love everyone as God has told us to do.” When others said, “Well, who does that include?” they said, “Everyone.” But not everyone in that church thought that was a good answer. Surely, they thought, there are some people we don’t want to welcome to our community. There are a lot of folks out there, they reasoned, who just don’t agree with us. Do we really want to love them? And so some people in the church began to criticize others among them for being too inclusive, too progressive, not traditional enough. And even though the church bulletins still said “a place where we love each other,” the simple fact was that some of the people there thought that some of their fellow church members were making too big a deal about LOVE. What about sin? What about justice? What about salvation? What about repentance? And so they began to call for a return to the “good old days.” The days when you could be content with loving just the people who looked like you, just the people who voted like you, just the people who believed like you.
Meanwhile, the people who still wanted to love everyone who walked through their doors began to feel unloved themselves. They searched the scriptures, and they found there a Lord who loved the sinner, the outcast, the widow, and the orphan. They saw a Lord who sat down with those people who others refused to love. They saw a Lord who, before he gave himself up for his friends, urged them to love each other. So they renewed their commitment to love one another, and to love strangers and enemies. But it wasn’t enough, because, the more they tried to show love, the more their opponents criticized them. Gradually, the ones committed to love wandered away, looking for somewhere else they could live out their faith in love.
Finally, there was no one left at the church who thought love was the highest calling. There was no one left who believed that “everyone” really meant everyone. And one day, someone said, “Why do we still have that old vision statement? Let’s change that.” So no longer did the bulletins say anything about loving as God intended. There was a new statement of faith: it talked of the inerrancy of the scriptures, the call to holiness, and accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior.
And those who remained were secure in the knowledge that they had finally rid themselves of a corrosive influence. And they still called themselves “Christian.” And not one of them truly reflected the love of Christ. For they had turned their backs on the ones he had called them to love. But they all lived happily ever after. Or so they thought.
