Breaking the Second-Greatest Commandment

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

--Matthew 22:35-40 (ESV)

Some of us in the Christian community have a tendency for making and trying to keep large bodies of rules.  I confess that I have often done that sort of thing.  When we do, we tend to completely lose sight of what really matters to God.  We wind up with a long list of things that make us "Christian" which, at bottom, have nothing to do with Christianity and are generally just yardsticks for our pride (see list, it's still humbling for me to read it).

I think many churches and Christians are getting better, though, at recognizing that it is not adherence to a set of rules that makes us Christians, but a relationship with God.  The most important rule doesn't even appear on our list: and that is to love God.  I am getting better at understanding that this one rule is more important than anything on my list, and that I often fail to love God because I am too concerned with my list.  It is a process, but I am getting better.

But what about the second-greatest commandment?  Honestly, it's not only not on the list, but many of the list items contradict it.  So often we are focused on getting minutia of doctrine, belief, and respectability right that we forget about others.  Worse, we often decide that nailing these things is so over-ridingly important that people who fail (or are not quite as good as we are) are unworthy of our love or sympathy.  But if we're honest, the things on the list are all pretty stupid.  One person lambastes another because he doesn't have the exact same understanding of predestination--even though the exact points they disagree on aren't even in Scripture, it apparently matters much more to God than what God did put in Scripture.  One churchgoer snubs his neighbor because his haircut is too messy--since God looks on the outward appearance, apparently (or is it the other way around? 1 Samuel 16:7).  Two Christians tear each other up for using the "wrong" translation of the Bible--because apparently reading exactly the right English words is much more important than obeying them yourself.  One member of a church refuses even to acknowledge another, let alone work out a past conflict, but is highly praised because of her involvement in church activities--which are obviously more important than brotherly love, seeing as how the activities aren't even mentioned in the Bible but brotherly love is mandated at practically every page.  Do we really think this is how it's supposed to be?  Honestly, sometimes we would fit in so much better with the Pharisees whom Christ decried than with the penitent sinners with whom he spent his time.

The things on our list are generally extremely petty, and usually they aren't even remotely based on the Bible.  The list the Bible gives is shorter and much more pointed: love God with all you are, and love each other.  Particular emphasis is placed on this last commandment throughout the New Testament.  It is the only command Christ gives his disciples the night he is betrayed--so important to him, in fact, that he repeats it three times in his last address before the Cross (John 13:34; 15:12 & 17).  He goes on to say that it is this commandment and no other that will distinguish the true disciples of Christ to the world (John 13:35).  No other commandment gets such a mention.  Christ does not tell us that people will know we're really his because we dress in a certain style, understand theology in a certain way, use the right translation, attend the right church, or participate in the right outreach activities: what will distinguish us is our love for each other.

So I have to ask, are we really distinguishable at all?

Moving on, Paul says that if you follow this commandment, no other is necessary because you have fullfilled the law (Romans 13:8).  That takes a step further from saying love one another should be the first item that on the list and says that, actually it should be the list!  Elsewhere he says our love for each other is something taught to us by God (1 Thessalonians 4:9).  I remember many times praying that God would teach me to understand this or that doctrine, but it appears what I should have been praying was that He would teach me how to love.  Peter says our love is an outworking of the purifying of our souls (1 Peter 1:22).

So if we do not love one another, how can we hold ourselves to have purified souls regarding the other commandments?  If we have failed in love, we have failed entirely!

John, in his first epistle, spends most of his time rehashing this commandment.  He has a lot to say.  He tells us love is a commandment both new and old, a mystery revealed and a message heard from the very beginning.  He tells us that if we love one another, we know God and are born of Him, that He dwells in us and His love is perfected in us, and that we can therefore have confidence before the Judgement Seat of God...but he does not stop there.  He more ominously tells us that if we do not love each other, we do not know God (1 John 4:8), and that anyone who claims to love God while he does not love his brother is actually a liar and cannot actually know God at all (1 John 4:8).

This really gives me pause.  So many times I've heard non-Christians classify Christians as hateful people, and too often they are right: we put our petty doctrinal points, traditions, and "good" works ahead of actually having the love Christ commanded.  In doing so, we prove that we are not Christians, and that we do not know God.  This is bad enough.  Worse is when we praise other "Christians" for keeping the minutia of our man-made laws while they neglect this all-important commandment, instead of calling them out on it.

May Christ teach us to love, so that we may know Him and actually bear His image, rather than defaming it!

Some Good Fight Songs

These are some songs I've been singing recently.  They're good fighting songs for an underdog about to break loose.  They're good songs for me now dealing with my current enemy, and also some of them apply to the stories I'm writing...and also two of them are from RWBY, of which I am a fan!


This one is from Katie Perry, whom I don't usually listen to, but it applies very well to my current plight.  I am not a particular fan of the official music video, or the official lyric video, but all the fan-made versions keep getting taken down, so here are the lyrics:

I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath,
Afraid to rock the boat and make a mess.
So I sit quietly,
Agree politely.
I guess that I forgot I had a choice.
I let you push me past the breaking point.
I stood for nothing,
So I fell for everything.

Chorus
You held me down, but I got up,
Already brushin' off the dust.
You hear my voice, you hear that sound,
Like thunder gonna shake your ground.
You held me down, but I got up.
Get ready 'cause I've had enough.
I see it all, I see it now,
I've got the eye of the tiger,
The fire, dancin' through the fire,
'Cause I am a champion,
And you're gonna hear me roar!

Now I'm floatin' like a butterfly,
Stingin' like a bee, I earned my stripes.
I went from zero,
To my own hero.
(chorus)

Always before when I was in conflict with this person I would act passively, hoping to bring about peace this way and, in many cases, wrongly believing that everything was actually somehow my fault.  I was scared to rock the boat and make a mess, so I would sit quietly and agree politely even to proposals of hers and others allied with her that I knew at the time were dead wrong.  My reward for trying so hard to be the nice guy?  She pushed me past the breaking point and held me down...but I got up.  And, in fact, I've had enough.  I am back now, stronger than ever, and I see it all much cleared than before...and she's gonna hear me roar.



Unfortunately for this one I wasn't able to find lyrics with the video, but here they are:
Come at me and you'll see
I'm more than meets the eye.
You think that you'll break me:
You're gonna find in time
You're standin' too close
To a flame that's burnin'
Hotter than the sun in the middle of July.
Sendin' out your army but you still can't win.
Listen up, silly boy, 'cause I'm gonna tell you why.
*Reprise*
I burn!
Can't hold me now,
And you got nothin' that can.
I burn!
Swing all you want.
Like a fever I'll take you down!

I have long expected that my enemy would make the first hostile move in turning our cold war into a more heated fight.  She has always, given my previous attempts at being overly nice, underestimated me and expected to break me, but she hasn't and if she comes at me this time, she'll see I'm more than meets the eye and that I am, in fact, prepared to take her down, if necessary.



This song, well, it's just epic!  It ought to be, really, since it's the theme from RWBY.  Did I mention I was a fan?

Here, too, you have the theme of being underestimated, a warrior who's about to surprise everyone by breaking loose in a revolution and not looking for absolution for standing up for what's right.  While I can't deny that I want a romantic life, a fairy tale that's full of charm (provided we define romantic and fairy tale in classically broad terms and not just flowers and roses and pink hearts), I understand I live in a world at war, a world in the way of harm where the light is fading and the dark returns.  In it, I hope to stand up as a defender of what is good and right, by the power of Christ, the great defender.

WWJD with an Enemy?

That a question I've found myself asking recently, as my move to Fort Collins approaches.  I am not the kind of guy who has a lot of enemies.  I keep short accounts.  I avoid conflict wherever I can.  I am a nice guy.  It is, in fact, my weakness.  Often I am too nice.  Often I bend over backwards to keep everything clear and calm for others to the point of putting too much strain on myself.  It's a common curse--the plight of the perfectionist/pleaser first-born personality--, one I'm slowly learning to deal with, learning point by point how to be good rather than nice.

So I never thought I would have an enemy, never thought I would need to consider the question before me now.  I didn't think Christians were supposed to have enemies, not considering Christ to have enemies either, not really.  What Bible was I reading, anyway?  The one I'm looking at now says that the world is going to hate me if I belong to Christ, that it persecuted Him and that I can expect similar treatment (John 15:19-21).

I never expected the enemy I have.  I never expected my enemy would be another Christian, a person of good report that I knew well.  I never expected the conflict that divided us would be completely illusory: the imaginatively-feared acting out of desires I do not, in fact, possess.  I never expected that all my attempts to make peace by any means on any terms would not only go unanswered but actually be called part of the problem--did you know trying to have any form of communication with someone who has said she is your friend (much less proposing ways to resolve a conflict she has announced is bothering her) qualifies as harassment?  I didn't.  I still don't know what dictionary that definition comes from, since legally that's nowhere near the definition.  But to my enemy that doesn't seem to matter: though I have given every opportunity for peace (in more than one sense: not only have I exhausted my every option to resolve this conflict civilly now, but in the past every time there has been conflict in the relationship, I have always been the one to make the first move toward peace--which makes me wonder why I put up with this person for so long or why she has so pristine a reputation), she desires war.  I still desire peace, but with all other options exhausted, I think the old Latin maxim applies: Si vis pacem, para bellum--If you desire peace, prepare for war.

I have an enemy and I have a war, whether I desire one or not.  It is not, blessedly, a shooting war, not yet, but a cold war is no less dangerous and savage a conflict in reality.  In history, the Cold War between the USA and the USSR gave birth to several shooting wars and brought our species (by many accounts) to the very brink of nuclear self-annihilation.  For lack of gunfire, it was no less fierce.

I could fight this war with no rules or, as my enemy has apparently chosen to do, make up rules as I go along so I may declare my actions "good" in every respect.  Given the enormous disparity in power between the two of us (something my enemy seems totally unaware of), my options for waging this war successfully are very broad indeed.

But I do not want to just win this war.  I have more important concerns.  My chiefest concern is my relationship with God, my love and obedience to Him.  So it is not enough to fight to win, I must fight good and right--win, lose, or draw.

Thus the question: what would Jesus do with an enemy?

To start with, Jesus had enemies, mainly the Pharisees and other religious elite.  I am not in sin just because someone has picked a fight with me.  Second, Jesus loved His enemies and admonishes us to love ours.  He was always ready to make peace with them and show love for them.  He was willing to meet with Nicodemus in the middle of the night and answer the questions of an honest seeker.  I also am and must continue to be always open for peace.  If I cease to be, then my enemy has succeeded in what appears to be her primary objective--to generate hatred in the place of the love that ought to be between all Christians--and has therefore won, whatever becomes of her thereafter.

Third, Jesus was not afraid to fire the first shot in a cold war.  He spoke out against his enemies.  He saw that what they were doing in the name of good was, in fact, evil, and He did not hesitate to say so.  He did not pull any punches either.  He used biting sarcastic wit, He called names, He publicly derided His enemies, and did not hesitate to show the world what they really looked like under their finely decorated robes.  The only thing I can think of that He didn't do was He didn't specifically name names and acts, though--being God's Son--He very well could have.

I must also speak out.  What my enemy has done is wrong.  It is un-Christian.  In point of fact, it is one of the only things repeatedly named in the Bible as un-Christian, as an explicit mark of someone who does not know God, someone who is a liar if they say they do know God (1 John 4:20).  It is this: an absolute failure to love a fellow Christian, and an insistence on hating him.  But this person walks about with the finely decorated robes of a respected Christian and attempts to pull them over this as well, repeatedly declaring their failures to even be civil acts of righteousness.  How can I stand idly by and let this become the accepted standard?  Is it not well said that all that is necessary for evil to win in our world is for good men to do nothing?  I will not do nothing: I will speak out--and while I see no need to name this person publicly, I will not pull my punches either.

Finally, Jesus was not afraid of taking direct action, where necessary.  On at least one occasion when it came time to clear the temple, Christ even committed acts of deliberate, premeditated violence: carefully braiding a whip from cords and then using it to drive crooked businessmen from the temple courts, where they were robbing worshipers.  Yet even in this He showed restraint.  He could have called twelve legions of angels to destroy the world at that very moment, or at the very least kill all the moneychangers out of hand--He fightened them away instead with a mere leather whip.  I don't expect to be braiding any whips, but I should be prepared to take action as if necessary.  There exists the possibility that my enemy will decide that Fort Collins or Summitview is not big enough for both of us.  If that gauntlet is thrown down, I must and will be prepared to force her to back down, but do so with restraint.  There was a time when she, in conjunction with others, misused church discipline on a small scale against me.  Remembering that power imbalance I mentioned earlier, I now have the connections, the evidence, and the strength of will to correctly use it on a large scale against her, and even an unsuccessful attempt to do so could cause untold damage to the network on which she is heavily dependent (a network which, thanks in part to her previous attacks, I have grown to be independent of).  But remembering restraint, I must only apply the amount of force necessary to convince her to back down--a delicate balance to be sure, one that, if it becomes necessary, will require a lot of prayer on my part.  I'll cross that bridge when or if I reach it.  For now, I will speak out.