Loving People Like Jesus
Why would we want to “love people like Jesus”? What does that even mean? And for that matter, what is love?
If I can love my mother and love pizza and love my wife and love football, there is either something wrong with me or the definition of love is very broad indeed. That’s why it is useful to think about how someone like Jesus defined love. After all, most will agree that Jesus was at least a great, wise man and therefore worth listening to. With his definition of love in hand, we will be able to decide whether or not we want to pursue his kind of love.
Now, instead of analysing Jesus’ teachings to get at his “theory of love”, let me tell a story that Jesus told to help us see love as he envisions it. I have adapted it to a modern Western setting so that we are more likely to hear the point he is making.
At various times, Jesus was asked to comment on a theological question that was keeping many Jews of the time busy. It came up in many forms, but the basic question was this: “What is the greatest command?” That is, what is the most important thing that I can do in my life.
Once, when a lawyer asked him this question, Jesus bounced it back, saying: “Well, what do you think?” The lawyer quoted the Jewish Bible: “You shall love God with all your heart, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Jesus praised this answer. But then the lawyer wanted to justify himself: “But who is my neighbour?” he asked. Jesus replied with a story, which I adapt below:
A woman was walking home late at night, when a man dragged her into a dark alley, robbed and raped her and departed, leaving her half dead. Now by chance a father of two was walking on the main road, but when he heard her groaning he passed by the alley mumbling something about being late for dinner with his family. Similarly, a young student, when she passed by the alley and heard the woman, put her earphones in and quickened her step. But an illegal migrant, coming out of the mosque next to the alley, heard her, came to where she was, and as he saw her, he had compassion. He went to the woman and gently picked her up, and brought her to his home where his wife dressed her wounds. She slept in their bed, while they spent the night watching over her. The following days, they fed and cared for her, nursing her back to full health.
“Which of these three,” Jesus asked, “proved to be a loving neighbour to the woman who was abused?”
Many of us might be able to identify with the father or the student in the story. Hearing groans coming from a dark alley is quite scary. Although it is clear that someone is suffering in that alley, getting involved in the situation can be risky, and will cost time and effort. It is much easier to make excuses to ourselves and just ignore what we heard, staying in the relative safety of our own lives. We might even question whether we really heard what we thought we had.
This is not abnormal behaviour. I would even venture to say that this is the norm.
But then an unlikely character shows up: the illegal Muslim migrant. Unlikely, because of what he went on to do, in contrast to the growing perception of “his kind” in the West. This man exemplifies the love Jesus is talking about.
Unlike the first two candidates, he does not shy away from the suffering he encounters. Rather, he has compassion. He enters into a dark alley, risking his own safety to seize an opportunity to love. Upon seeing that this woman probably is not of “his own kind,” possibly even of the “kind” that has shown so much contempt for migrants and has deeply hurt him and his little family, he helps her regardless.
The help he provides is very practical and according to his means. Unable to call the police or pay a doctor, he uses his own resources to relieve her suffering and show her love. He invites her into his family, a small caring community where the little money they have is spent on the food and medication she needs to regain strength, while their time is put at her service.
While both the father and the student in the story might have had lofty ideas about love, even plausibly claiming to be loving people that care about the poor and the hurting in this world, the test of reality found them wanting.
Jesus summarized his ethic of love the following way: “Do to others what you would want them to do to you.” That is not the same as “refrain from doing to others what you don’t want them to do to you,” i.e. don’t murder, don’t steal, etc. Rather, he is saying: be creative, think of what you would want others to do for you if you were in their situation, and do that to others.
For example: what would I want others to do if I was lying half-dead in a dark alley? I’m not saying the only right answer is to rush into the dark alley. But I am saying that everybody finding themselves faced with this situation should think creatively in order to come up with a loving and appropriate way to deal with it.
I live in Lebanon among Syrian refugees that fled the horrific civil war that is still tearing their country apart. They tell stories of the shells that would fall in their streets, maiming and killing those present. Everybody knew that when a shell hit, another one might fall at the same spot not long after, to hit those caring for the wounded and the dead.
In full knowledge of this, people would see a shell hit a crowd, and then rush into the street to care for the people whose lives and bodies they had just seen torn apart. Because that is what they would want others to do for them as well. This is Jesus’ love at work, that is, to give oneself for the deliverance of others.
That is what Jesus claimed to be doing throughout his life as well. God become human, he entered our situation of distrust, hate, greed and shame, breaking down the barriers that we have built between ourselves and others, and between ourselves and God. When Jesus was crucified for his confrontations with the religious leaders, he even forgave his enemies while dying on the cross. And in the end God vindicated Jesus’ radical way of love by resurrecting him from the dead.
So how can we “Love people like Jesus”? His is a beautiful love that creates community, invites the supposedly undeserving in, and cares for them in practical ways. It is a love that sacrifices of oneself for the needs and dreams of others. It is not an easy, fluffy kind of love, though it can be that at times too. But at other times, it just seems inhuman and unrealistic.
But then isn’t it worth trying? Don’t we ourselves want to be loved that way too?
Jesus was very realistic about this kind of love. He did warn people that attempting to follow his way is not easy, and that it requires radical commitment and transformation. And he acknowledged that we couldn’t achieve this by ourselves. So he invites us to walk with him, to let him change our thinking, to start doing those selfless acts of practical love, and day by day to grow in his way of love.
Why not begin today?
