Selective Love and Compassion
My youngest daughter and I recently made a quick trip to visit my family. Pandemic, job, family and educational commitments, along with our daughters’ extracurricular activities had made visits difficult and infrequent. The last time we were all together was for my mother’s funeral.
Arriving on Saturday night, we attended church with my siblings the next morning. Entering the foyer, the size of the church struck me—not a mega church, but definitely a large one. Rather quickly two people greeted us (I later found out they were pastors). One of them helped me register my daughter for Sunday School.
I have to be honest, I went in with some assumptions about who would be there. I assumed they would have a particular demeanor, worship bent, and politics. All of them different from mine. And perhaps they are. But what I very quickly experienced were brothers and sisters in Christ for whom I immediately felt an overwhelming love.
That morning the pastor did not preach. Instead, residents of a local Christian addiction recovery program, gave their testimonies. They talked about how they were trapped in addiction, had ruined relationships with family and children, had nearly overdosed, and how their journeys led them to the treatment center.
At the end, the center director talked about how much he continues to learn from these men and how the discipleship and admiration among them is mutual. He paused for a moment to gather himself. Then he went on to frankly admit that not everyone in the program makes it. This of course is a travesty. As the men shared their testimonies, my siblings and I were deeply and visibly moved. Several of us fumbled for the tissue packet stashed in the pocket on the back of the seats in front of us.
As I sat teary-eyed, I contemplated the fact that I didn’t think myself superior to those men at the treatment center. Nor did I feel superior to the parishioners. I have my own sins and am in constant need of God’s help and grace and also in need of help and grace from others.
However, correctly, or incorrectly, I did assume we had political differences. These differences are dividing the US right now, even those who share a faith in our Savior, Jesus. The way we handle these differences can allow prejudices to gain a foothold in our lives. These are differences that are hardening our hearts toward one another and tearing relationships apart.
Yet, as I looked around at the faces of family and strangers, I was struck by an overwhelming love for those surrounding me. I did not focus on sociopolitical, economic, regional, or theological differences though they surely exist. What I saw were my brothers and sisters in Christ seeking to be obedient to Him. I saw an overflowing generosity of Spirit that spilled out of the church and into the community. This deserves the rowdiest of celebration.
Now, it’s possible that if they knew more about me, they might form prejudices against me. Christ came to destroy the barriers between God and humankind, but also to destroy the barriers, walls, and borders of hostility—call them what you will—that keep us from loving and serving one another (Ephesians 2:14-16).
Nowhere in Scripture does God give us permission to opt out of loving our neighbors and enemies because of political, denominational, theological, or ethical disagreements. Yet if we observe the current behavior of some professing Christians on social media and elsewhere, including Christian leaders, we might be led to believe that disagreement does allow us to opt out of loving neighbors and enemies.
Crucial to my experience in the church, especially after a long pandemic and physical separation, was being among them in the flesh, among those I might otherwise be tempted to believe are my ideological or political enemies—especially if the news is my only source. But when it comes down to it, they are my family. I am their sister.
While it is true that love demands that we continue working out our conflicts, we can do so without erecting walls of hostility and dehumanizing one another. Relegating people to just beyond the reach of our tenderness, compassion, and grace is not the way of Jesus. We cannot be selective in our love or compassion.
When we observe prejudices building within us, it will do us good, if possible, to be among those we have constructed as demons in our imaginary, those on the other side of our dividing walls. Maybe then we’ll discover they are not the enemies we imagine and that we are the ones in need of prayer, that it is we who are in desperate need of God’s grace and their grace too.
–Written by Marlena Graves. Used by permission from the author.
