J4P – Love over Surefire Results

Guest Blogger: Ryan Ellis

A Real Security Plan

First reading this section, the strongest idea that I see is stated rather clearly: that our lifestyles drenched with materialism and independence make it harder for us to follow Jesus, to love others. We have to change the way we behave economically if we want to change the way we behave socially. We simply can’t live the status quo with our wealth and still follow Jesus and love others. It’s a charge that demands action on the financial level, so I did a little research.

Turns out, this Jesus fellow once told some decently affluent chap to sell all his stuff and give it to the poor or something like that. Frankly, following Jesus economically doesn’t sound like its going to be easy. So anyway, what do I need to do? I have to do something, that’s clear enough. Should I be selling everything I own? Should I be putting my car on craigslist right now? Since it’s for the poor, should I try to get the best price for my laptop on ebay, or should I just take what I can get? Would Jesus leave his songs on his iPod when he pawned it off? Difficult questions, to be sure.

Anyway, other things have brought up this debate before. What do we do economically? Should I be poor? Is that what is asked of me? Well, though I really really want to, I haven’t run out and sold everything. First off, my wife, not a big fan of poverty. Secondly, its hard for poor folks to write blog posts. So what do I do? I feel the message. I want to follow Jesus economically. I want to do something that feels radical like selling everything, just without selling everything. The ideas that materialism and individualism and having loads of stuff, as far as I can see, do make it harder to follow Christ, but what do I do? I’m ready, but I can’t seem to answer the question: what do I do?

Which is why I like the next sections. The first of which is…

The Third Way of Jesus

…which does not answer the question at all. It does, however, with a mix of a stolen power tool, Les Mis, and school bullies, remind me that love is not easy. Whatever it is that I need to do, it’s going to be hard. Going forth in love will require a lot of effort. I know this. I’m ready. I’m a bit scared, but I’m enthusiastic. So what do I do?

Bustin’ Out a Can of Grace

This section doesn’t answer the question either. In fact, none of them did for me. I don’t think that will surprise anyone though. Rather I found here a little encouragement for wrestling with the question. Shane finds himself in a blatant WWJD situation, and he comes up with a bit of a blank. He doesn’t know what to do. Granted the situation in which the question “What do I do?” arose for him did require a bit more urgency than does mine (perhaps we could all use a little threatening of mob violence now and again), but he does something a bit inspiring. When he doesn’t know how to answer the question, he just does something. He tries. He tries to be creative, to do something unexpected. Something imperfect, something difficult. A bit of trying would be a step forward for myself most of the time. Possibly even more important than just trying is the fact that the normal thing to do in the situation would have been fine. It would have gotten him out of the immediate trouble. But he tries to do something better, even if he doesn’t know what. He fights the instinct, the common sense, the normal behavior, the tried and true, and he opts to go for something difficult, with no guarantee that anything amazing would happen. He has no assurance that he will get results for his effort, but he tries to show love, even if he doesn’t know exactly what to do.

Sure, he got a kid hit in the face with a broomstick, but love is hard.

We need to try to love, even when, and especially perhaps, when the normal, the accepted behavior might have worked out alright. So what does that look like on a daily basis? I’m worried that I’m not creative enough to know what to do…

Like King David

For example, giving your stolen horse a haircut, top and tails style, and then leaving it tied to a tree? I would have never thought of that one.

Lydia

We believe in love. Ideally, we don’t want our materialism, and we’d say that we’re willing to give up our independence, but we’re still working on what to do. What does it look like?

Four out of these five sections, including this one, deal with theft or robbery. It is interesting to see all these stories of problems which arise from people who have need, yet the most explicitly stated difficulty in following Jesus in all five sections is having stuff and being independent. It makes one want to imagine a situation that rectifies this imbalance. We’ve pegged independence as a villain, and we see an uneven distribution of wealth as a cause for social instability. I’ll be honest and say I haven’t read the rest of this book, but I’m guessing that it holds high the idea of community. Somehow we need to be dependent. We need to depend on each other, on our neighbors, on the poor. We need them to depend on us.

I still don’t know what it looks like exactly, but it’s nice to see these stories of people trying to love in creative ways, not simply heralding a quick solution or some get-poor-quick scheme. I often feel like I need to know that if I try to do something creative, something difficult, something unexpected in the name of love, that I’ll get results, which usually means I don’t do anything unexpected. I have a fear of giving up things I want to give up, like some of my materialism and independence; because I want to be sure in giving them up I’ll get results. I like to read these stories where people seem to have chosen love over surefire results. I’ve still got a lot to learn as far as any of this goes, and knowing that love isn’t easy, I appreciate this last section about the woman name Lydia as she demonstrates a bit of courage.

Ryan Ellis is simply one of my best friends for helping me to see things in new and fresh ways. He is newly married and is currently living in Virgina in between stays in South Korea, England and possibly Thailand.