Love On John's Terms (part 1)

I give you a new commandment---to love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples---if you have love for one another. – John 13:34-35  (NET)

Most certainly, these words represent a very familiar saying that is attributed to Jesus.  Some might insist that this statement represents the cornerstone of what it means to live as a Christian, and it would be difficult to disagree with that assertion.  Surely, those that lay claim to a confession of Jesus as Lord would and should have a desire to live out the prescription of these words, thereby showing themselves to be functionaries within the community that has oriented their lives around Jesus and His pronouncement of the kingdom of His God. 

These words are reported to have fallen from the lips of Jesus at what is generally referred to as the “Last Supper,” and the statement is immediately bracketed by Judas’ departure for what is revealed to be the purpose of executing his plan to betray Jesus to the Temple authorities, and Jesus’ insistence that Peter is going to be shortly offering his own betrayal in the form of a three-fold denial of his Lord.

So what is meant by these words?  What is implied?  What will it look like when Jesus’ disciples are loving one another?  Quite rightly, each person comes to this text and these words with ideas concerning what it indeed it means to love.  Due to the fact that humans are relational creatures, formed in community with other relational creatures, love generally comes to be defined in relational terms---love of and for other people.  For the most part, for good or for ill, humans formulate their conceptions about love primarily according to that which is received from parents and family (regardless of who or what plays those roles). 

The love of fathers and mothers (or lack thereof from whomever plays those roles) readily serves to shape and define the parameters that are placed around the concept of love.  The love of a father or a mother is generally considered to be the strongest type of love.  It is this type of love, which is largely and ideally of the completely unconditional variety, that is simply presumed upon and taken to be an unalterable matter-of-fact.  It is this ideal of love that most people desire to cultivate in their relationships, regardless of the type of relationship. 

The model of love that is associated with mothers and fathers, whether it is a good model to which should be aspired or a faulty model which might possibly need to be avoided, lies behind the age-old adage (within societies that do not participate in arranged marriages) that insists that women most often marry men that are like their father, whereas men desire to marry women that remind them of their mothers (think of the song lyrics “I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad”). 

For better or for worse, humans are programmed to seek out love based on the terms of love that have been presented to them from the time of their birth.  Unsurprisingly then, it is this type of love (painting with an overly broad brush), that people desire to offer up as part of the experience of their relationship with the Creator God.  Conversely, it comes to be believed that such is the type of love that the Creator God desires to share with them---defining the God of love based upon (generally) parentally constructed concepts of love.  Of course, this does not hold true one hundred percent of the time. 

Deceit & Judgment (part 2 of 2)

With this somewhat clear presentation of idolatry as the reason for judgment to fall upon Israel, one can then go on to make sense of reading about children that “are always thinking about their altars and their sacred poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, set up beside green tress on the high hills and on the mountains and in the fields” (Jeremiah 17:2-3a).  Following that, the God of Israel says, “I will give your wealth and all your treasures away as plunder” (17:3b).  So here an explicit connection is made between idolatry and the material wealth of the people.  Before that point is reached here in chapter seventeen however, the reader will have stumbled across some words that should help to properly shape the conception of the true problem of idolatry that was being presented here by the people of Judah. 

In the sixteenth chapter, when the Creator God gives Jeremiah an answer to give to the people that might find themselves questioning the reason for the judgment and disaster that was going to befall them, He says to tell them, “It is because your ancestors rejected Me and paid allegiance to other gods.  They have served them and worshiped them.  But they have rejected Me and not obeyed My law” (16:11).  That sounds pretty bad, but it does not end there.  The covenant God continues His answer with “And you have acted even more wickedly than your ancestors!  Each one of you have followed the stubborn inclinations of your own wicked heart and not obeyed Me” (16:12). 

What is to be found in that statement?  Effectively, it is self-idolatry---the same old sin from the time of the garden---which always seems to get a far harsher reaction and treatment from the Creator God than the simple worshiping of wood and stone.  It is with this conception of self-idolatry that one can then move back to the Creator God’s statements about the human mind and its deceit and incurable “badness.”  Following that statement then, one finds “I, the Lord, probe into people’s minds.  I examine people’s hearts.  I deal with each person according to how he has behaved.  I give them what they deserve based on what they have done” (17:10). 

What does this have to do with idolatry or self-idolatry?  Well, connecting the thoughts concerning idolatry and wealth and treasures found just a few verses before, the reader goes on to learn in the next verse about “The person who gathers wealth by unjust means” (17:11a).  This is what follows talk of the human mind being more deceitful than anything else and incurably bad.  It could be said that the person who gathers wealth by unjust means is guilty of self-idolatry, especially in light of the statement in Deuteronomy that the Lord “is the One Who gives ability to get wealth” (8:18b). 

Surely, it can be said that a Creator God-granted ability to get wealth will see wealth accumulated by just means, and will therefore result in proper worship of the God that gave the ability, and Who therefore gave the wealth.  Wealth gained by unjust means will result in worship of what provided for the accumulation of wealth, which is the marred and falling-short-of-the-divine-image heart and mind that is said to have come about because of the desire on the part of the first humans to be like their God.  Because of this, it can be surmised that not only was idolatry, along with its companion of self-idolatry, the reason for the judgment that came upon the people of the covenant God, but one can also now understand that the gathering of wealth by unjust means, which will generally be connected with idolatry and with the extension of suffering and oppression, was a reason for that God’s judgment as well.