Dear Friends,
In a much-talked-about news interview last week, J. D. Vance said, “There’s this old school - and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way - that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” Vance goes on to say, “A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.” The reality is that the very sensible and traditional hierarchy of loves that Vance describes was inverted not by American leftists but by Jesus.
I don’t want to focus on Vance in particular, because I don’t think what he has said here is unusual. It certainly isn’t unique to members of the Trump administration or to the political right. Rather, I think this is simply what happens when an entire culture attempts to domesticate Jesus and use him to support the status quo by creating a sort of Christianity-lite that is easy to stomach without messing up anyone’s self-focused life. Christianity-lite was not invented by American politicians (though it is widely embraced by right and left alike) but dates back to the earliest days of the church. A number of prominent, historical theologians have articulated perspectives very much like the perspective espoused by Vance. So it makes sense that Vance thinks this is a Christian idea. It all depends on whether “Christian” is defined according to the life and teaching of Jesus or according to the mainstream of the human tradition calling itself “Christian.” I have often wondered if those attempting to follow Jesus should jettison the word “Christian,” to avoid this confusion.
The teachings of Jesus on this subject are deliberately provocative and unsettling. Jesus commands us to love first God and then our neighbor. “Family” is not mentioned, let alone inserted before “neighbor.” This is very uncomfortable. Jesus reinforces this omission by downplaying family relationships on a number of occasions. Also, though we might be tempted to assume our neighbor is someone like us, a member of our own ethnic, religious, or national group, Jesus tells a story that makes it clear that our neighbor is anyone and everyone with whom we may have the opportunity to interact.
In the story, a man is robbed, beaten, and abandoned by the roadside to die. Two members of the Jewish religious establishment cross to the other side of the road in order to pretend not to see him, much as we might do upon seeing a homeless person asking for help. But a Samaritan, someone who would have been seen by many of Jesus’ hearers as an undesirable ethnic, religious, and national other, stopped to help him. The Samaritan not only cares for the man’s wounds, but he takes him to an inn and pays for the man to stay there for a number of days and receive further medical care. And he promises to return to check on him and pay any other incurred expenses. After telling the story, Jesus asks, “Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?” (Luke 10:36 CEB). Jesus concludes by encouraging his hearers to be like the Samaritan in the story.
Jesus has made two provocative claims in this story. One is that the person we might be tempted to see as an undesirable and religiously suspect foreigner might be the most caring and godly person we know, much more caring and godly than the religious people around us. We should seek to learn from such a person rather than to marginalize or avoid them. The second is that we should care for those in need as we encounter them regardless of who they are. Not only might the person in need look different from ourselves, have different religious beliefs than our own, and have different national ties than ours, but the person in need might even be someone who hates us. After all, the man in need of help was presumably Jewish, making him a member of a people group who tended to look down on Samaritans.
The call to love and care for even those who hate us is reinforced in another of Jesus’ teachings in which he says,
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
Luke 6:32-35 (NIV)
In sum, love even your enemies because then you will be living as children of the God who loves his enemies.
To be a Christian (as it was originally understood) is to be someone who recognizes that they, themselves, were once God’s enemies and who embraces the preposterous claim that, because of God’s utterly irrational love for them, Jesus, the son of God, gave his life so that they could live. In joy and gratitude, Christians then set out to imitate Jesus, loving like God as well as we can and as we are empowered by God’s Spirit that lives within us. This is not a lifestyle that seems at all sane by any human standard. It doesn’t line up with traditional values. It doesn’t line up with most of what has historically been taught by those claiming to represent Christianity. It’s hard and confusing because Jesus has inverted a lot of traditional values. It’s hard and confusing because it isn’t always obvious what to prioritize when we are faced with many needs at once. But this is the Christian way of life that we, as members of Coast Vineyard, have made a decision to pursue. Let’s pursue it together in all of its absurdity and all of its beauty. And let’s support each other in the questions and confusion that arise along the way.
A prayer for today:
Jesus, following you is hard and confusing. Sometimes I’m not sure what your priorities should look like in action or exactly what you want me to do. Politicians on the right and on the left all claim to be doing things your way. Don’t let me be fooled or sucked into human agendas. Keep my eyes on you and my feet on the path that you’ve walked ahead of me, that you’ve illuminated with your teaching, and that you continue to walk together with me by your Spirit. Amen.
Love in Christ,
Michelle
