EDITORS NOTE: When I say "we" I generally mean "I", it just makes it easier when I can lump you into it with me...and BTW this is a big ramble towards the end, I'm still processing how to put many of these thoughts and ideas into words, but that's the fun part isn't it?
Belief in God AND service to others that one views as equal to or greater than self is vital for communities to prosper. This is true because people are completely self serving. There are no completely self-less acts. Even a man who "lays down his life for another" is doing so out of a sense of meaning either derived from belief in a higher being that rewards or is pleased by such activity, and/or a belief that serving others or service to the group to which a person belongs is a more meaningful expression of life that is the simple perpetuation one's own existence. I'll go out on a limb here and say that even Christ in that "while we were still sinners Christ died for us", and even while he was acting not out of his own will but that of God's, was ultimately seeking that which would bring himself the most glory (and thereby enabling for us the most satisfaction in the participation in that glory). Read John 17 and you'll see what I mean. Overall this service to self is nothing new, it's a complete rip off of John Piper who by his own admission is ripping off the Westminster Catechism, which was ripping off other stuff all the way back to what the Bible itself teaches on the subject. Piper calls it "Christian Hedonism" which is great, but I think that it only addresses half the issue.
Christian Hedonism accomplishes the goal of a). fulfilling our purpose to bringing God glory and b). doing so while still ultimately satisfying the self in the only way the self was ultimately meant to be satisfied. So in summing up the Law, Christian Hedonism perfectly addresses "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength", however it does not (directly anyway) address the second commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself". I think this is important because we can basically see the results of this omission from the rifts that exist in the church based on basically minor theological or doctrinal issues, and in the churches irrelevance and impotence in addressing the needs of our communities.
The problem is, that in service of our selfish desires to be satisfied by God we tend to get too wrapped up in the study of Theology. This is good and bad. It's good because much of the time it helps us to understand and relate to God better and thereby increasing our satisfaction in Him. It's bad because it tends to cause us to forget about the rest of the world. The study of Theology is very good because it is what enables us to be "of God" and not "of the world", however we must still be "in the world". Theology helps us to love God, but we still have to love our neighbors. It easy when we are with our fellow believers sitting around talking about Theology and exploring the wonders of God together, however what about non believers? How about people who don't like the church, or don't believe the Bible, or believe it differently than we do? Is there room to love others when we've figured out how to derive all our meaning from God?
So should we just grit our teeth and obediently start loving our neighbors?
- Can you truly love someone out of obedience alone?
- Is it really loving your neighbor when your acts of service are born out of a love for God and not out of a love for the person?
- Is God pleased when we serve a person we despise in order only to be obedient?
It's easier to obediently reach out to "the least of these", especially when I see them as lower than myself. This is proof for me that my motivations in helping people have often been misplaced. I don't love the people I'm serving...I love God and I love to prove it to Him by lording my own greatness over all of the "least of these" in my obedient acts of self indulgence. I'm pretty sure it pisses God off. And it probably doesn't make me a very good neighbor either.
I keep mentioning "the least of these". It comes from the parable of the sheep and the goats. The most striking thing to me about this parable is that the sheep didn't know when it was that they were serving Him, they asked him "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?". They weren't really aware of their own good deeds, they just did them. I'm acutely aware and proud of my own good deeds...there is definitely a work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer that enables this kind of behavior. I pray that my good deeds would become less and less evident to me as they become more and more a natural expression of my true self in Christ.
Christ said that we have to make ourselves last to be first, that in order to be the greatest we have to be the least. I think I get it. I'm still not abandoning my premise that there are no self-less acts. If I can see everyone else as greater than myself, then I can derive great satisfaction by serving them...very selfish. Maybe others would see me as greater than themselves, and derive great satisfaction by serving me...still very selfish, but I could see how this could make for a great community...maybe Jesus was on to something there...
still rolling this around, more later...
0 comments:
Post a Comment