A lot of Christians have an odd habit of making a big fuss of love. From "God is love," to "Jesus loves you," to "Hate the sin, love the sinner," love is a word from which Christians get major mileage.
Sometimes I wonder why we do it.
I mean, to a lot of people out there, Christians aren't the ones expressing love. Condemnation, hate, anger, this is what so many see in us. Perhaps we should admit: we have made a mockery of love.
It's easy for me, as it is for most of us, to love people I like, people who like me, people who care for me, and people who just so happen to be quite fantastic in most regards. I mean, seriously, awesome people are, well, awesome.
But I wonder, is the love Christians profess to believe in, well, isn't it bigger than that?
And since the answer to that question is a resounding "Yes!"... What then, is love? True love, deep love, saving love, Jesus love?
Jesus love is best exemplified when we are able to love not the ones who love us, the ones we like, but when we are able to love the ones we cannot stand to be around, the ones we detest, the ones we wish were in someone else's life, somewhere else. To love people who we or society deem loveless, well, that, friends, is love. To wish well upon those we want to hate, to pray for those who wish us ill, to give to those who would rather take.
After all, this is what Jesus did. Who Jesus was.
When we are known for what we are against, rather than who we are for, well, the paradigm could use adjusting. Love should not be conditional. Love is not a reward/punishment motivator. When I withhold love because I disagree with someone, whether it be politically, theologically, emotionally, or even religiously, I am not representing the One whose image we bear. I am not respecting the image of the One we bear in the other. When you are a Conservative, and I am a Liberal, there should exist between us love, not malice. Disagreement has never been an excuse for withholding love.
Even excommunication is an act of love, a last-ditch effort to bring a person back to their home. Even then, in a moment where differences are near-irreconcilable, there exists a love that is greater than human, greater than I, greater than you.
It shouldn't matter that your sexual preference is for the same gender, we should love you. It shouldn't matter that your religious belief is atheistic, we should love you. It shouldn't matter that you didn't do your dishes, we should love you. I should love you. Jesus loves you.
And more, love with an agenda, is this love? If I am offering support to you, just in the hopes that it'll lead you to agree with my religious beliefs, is that love? Would a realization of my agenda bring you closer to the God I claim is Love? Make no mistakes, I am a believer in the Gospel, Evangelism, truth. But if my only goal in a relationship is conversion, am I being truly loving?
I want to love unconditionally. I don't want to withhold love when I am upset or disagree with someone. I don't want to be known for what I am against, instead of what I am for. I want to agree with Jesus, when He tells His followers that it is through their love that the world will know they belong to Him.
And God knows I'm the last person to claim any superiority in this arena. There are people I can't stand, and I have failed in Love. There are people I disagree with, whose mere presence can infuriate me. I have failed to love. There are people who spew hate and vitrol from their mouths, and claim this is what God wills. I have failed to love them too.
I think the truest mark of theological accuracy is in this: Does it cause me to love God, and through my God-love, love others? As beings equal to myself? As beings more important than my own desires?
There are times where it is hard for me to consider myself as a Christian, when the actions of so many seem so far from what it seems to me the faith is about. There are times I think of Christians in the third person, as if I were not amongst this brethren. As if they were someone else. But this love. This love that compelled God Himself to equate Himself with us, to declare that victory was found in sacrifice, not battle, in love, not politic, in service, not power. To culminate this Truth in death and resurrection?
This is where I could not claim separation. If this is what Christianity is about? If love is the end-all, and the expression of this love the purpose of this life?
Then Christian I am. How could I be anything else? When this love, so profound, so beautiful, so perfect is waiting?
And so I apologize to anyone and everyone whom I've ever failed to love, and to whom I will fail to love. I apologize for all of us who have ever loved with an agenda, who have used love as a currency to get the behaviour we desire from others. For all of us who have forgotten that to love others as we love ourselves means we have to love ourselves... and others. For all of us who have judged and divorced from our minds and hearts. Of this we are all guilty. And I perhaps, worst of all.
I just pray that we remember to love. And to love. And to love some more.
Because Love won. On the cross, in the resurrection, in life, love won. And as love won, love wins.
It always wins.
