Have we lost the plot?

Love is the greatest sign and characteristic of Christians according to Christ, their namesake.  Yet looking around at some public displays of Christianity lately, you simply have to ask the question, along with the Black Eyed Peas so long ago:  “Where is the Love?” 

Much of society views Christians as unloving, irrelevant, impractical, arrogant, and narrow.  Can you blame them?  “Christ” has been co-opted to advance political agendas, bully the outsider, judge the ‘other’, and justify positions, statements and protests on just about anything.  Tragically many also use Christ as a means to power-up over others and exert superiority over them, including toward their fellow Christians.  There’s a warped theology-of-sorts behind that which I won’t get into here, but it exists and it shows.

Some Christians have lost the plot.

So many Scriptures, like 1 Corinthians 13, repudiate the arrogant and unloving posture of Christians.  Without love, we are like noisy gongs and clanging symbols – noticed, but unpleasant and without a harmony of meaning.  Christ often speaks to the fact that it is not grand displays of our version of spirituality and moral values that draw people to the love of God (see Matthew 6:5).  Instead it’s the quiet, localized and faithful expressions of love that makes the difference.

Don’t think that God needs you to ‘defend the faith’.  Don’t believe the rhetoric that you have to go public or viral with your faith in order to ‘make’ society or individuals conform to Christian principles.  Christ doesn’t give you a bully pulpit. He needs none of that.  He’s  chosen, as Robert Louis Stevenson expresses in The Call of the Wild, “the simple things, the true things, the silent men (and women) who do things” to eventually change lives.  The small things, like being yeast, seed, salt and light eventually change the environment in which they are scattered.

Eugene Petersen

Put down your placards. Silence your horns. Stop separating yourself from ‘them’. The thing we are to do is to come alongside others and love - unequivocally. That’s how the world will know we are Christians. But it’s not even our ‘reputation’ as Christians that is the important thing here. Since love is the very character of God, it is through demonstrating that love that the world is changed into the design God had for it from the beginning.

It’s not about your design for what this world should be.  It’s about God’s.  You won’t see that happen without doing it His way – the way of love.  

The Gospel Story has one plot - the Love of God.  Don't lose it. 

Love & Vocation

Age & employment transition make interesting bedfellows.  They talk a lot to each other.  The pillow talk I hear is very intimate and reflective.

At 60, I am nowhere near done vocationally and believe I am entering my best years.  I’m not employed at the moment, so am in the process of seeking a context for my next best contribution.  In this liminal space I am reflecting on who I want to be in the next phase  One recent reflection was prompted by re-reading a classic Bible passage I have often quoted and then just as easily gloss over because of its’ familiarity.

What struck me in a fresh way as it applies to vocation, is how the passage juxtaposes the things we do alongside the context or atmosphere in which we do them.  I summarize the passage, 1 Corinthians 13, in this way:

“If whatever you do to contribute to this world isn’t done with love as the key component, what you have done is either just noise or it will amount to nothing.”

No matter your age, that should cause you to stand up and take notice of the way you approach work and life. Imagining myself in the next phase I ask: ”HOW will I show up”?  

Reflect with me:   

• At the end of life, what is of greater importance: a personal legacy of love or accomplishment?
• How would the workplace change if you expressed respect & love in tandem with advancing your goals?
• What does it do to yours and others’ quality of life when you focus on personal/professional achievement at the expense of relationship?
• How could you express love in a way that would make our on-line and face to face world a safer environment?

The key question to answer here is: What is love?  To start, here is how the Creator-God describes it in the passage I referenced above.  As you read this and begin to imagine the impact of its application in our current society, what’s your take on its’ impact on the atmosphere of human relationships?

Love is large and incredibly patient. 

Love is gentle and consistently kind to all.

It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else.

Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. 

Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. 

Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. 

Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. 

Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. 

Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. 

Love never stops loving.

The world desperately needs a new atmosphere – of love. 

We are choking in cynicism, competition, selfishness and hate. 

Be part of clearing the air.

Harv Matchullis - in Transition