What's your symbol?

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13.34-35 ESV

The cross is the most recognizable symbol of Christianity. No, it doesn't always represent Jesus, but if it wasn't for Jesus it wouldn't be much of a symbol. It has adorned steeples, shields, hospitals, emergency response organizations, vampire-hunters, necks...

...and at one time, my chest.

Yes, one of those crazy things I did working with youth in my younger days was shaving a cross in my chest-hair. The first time I did it was at Kanakuk in 1987, when I shaved out a cross. Then a few years later I shaved everything BUT a cross. That was really cool.

And yes, I have a picture. I suppose I could post it if you really wanted...

Nearly everyone in world recognizes the cross as a symbol of Christianity. And it's a fitting symbol, what with the sacrifice Jesus made on it on our behalf and everything. He called us to pick one up (symbolically? figuratively? literally?) and follow him.

But if the cross is the greatest symbol of Jesus, then there's a close second. One that I've never seen sold in James Avery, never seen anyone put in their family crest. It's not on the steeples of any church. But it should be.

That symbol? The towel.

In the story I quoted above, Jesus has just washed the disciples' feet. And told them that if he's really their Master then they will do the same (Jn 13.14). And just before they walk out the door and head to the garden, he tells them once more: Listen, I'm about to be gone. We've been together for a couple of years now, and let me just tell you plainly. I've got a new command. Love each other. Love each other with a "wrap a towel around your waist and get your hands dirty" kind of love. Forget status, forget success. Forget position, except to be on your knees washing each others' feet. That kind of love.

If I could just follow that one command...

So when you pick up a towel, think about Jesus. Then think about who you need to love. Who is your "other"? Who has dirty feet around you?

Let's make a towel a symbol of our love.

Showing love

The Chick-Fil-A day on Wednesday, followed by the kiss-in yesterday--whew, boy, I'm glad both sides were able to effectively show their love for chicken! Dan Cathy answered a question accurately and well, then many who disagree with what he said (or thought he said) overreacted, then many who agreed with what he said (or thought he said) overreacted in response to the first overreaction.

It's been fun, challenging and disheartening to read all of the flapping about this plucky issue. (Sorry, couldn't resist...) All in all I'm still not sure what I believe about it, other than both (or multiple?) sides in this issue got many things wrong. But this post isn't really about CFA, it's about something I read as I perused the news. One blog I read (www.matthewpaulturner.net) got a response from someone at Biola, and there was a quote the responder said that I couldn't resist giving a little bit of a rant about.

In response to Turner's statement that a bunch of Christians heading to CFA last Wednesday may say a lot of things, but it doesn't say "I love you" to someone in the gay community, the responder disagreed, hinting that it might have been "tough love", and suggested, as his first alternative way of showing love to homosexuals, to "warmly invite them to church..."

I know a lot of people who love Jesus and love his community of saints, but still wouldn't see a warm invitation to church as the first way they think of to show love to people they disagree with. I know solid believers that wouldn't necessarily feel loved if THEY got invited to someone's church, warmly or not.

How about warmly invite them to dinner?

Warmly invite them to a round of golf?

To coffee?

To your kids' birthday party?

Surely there could have been a better way to show love than invite to church. Or to have headed to Chick-Fil-A.

San Pedro Sula Day 3

Today was long. And still full of worship and awe.

We went to 2 orphanages today, both about a 90 minute bus ride north of San Pedro Sula, on the northern coast of the country. The trip was beautiful as we went along the mountains, then saw the Atlantic ocean come into view.

The first orphanage was a girls home run by an evangelical organization and church. There were 25 or so young ladies in the home, and they were an incredible group. Excited to see us, they were grateful for the shoes and the play. Less rambuctious than the kids the day before (I guess that's a testimony to leaving testosterone somewhere else), they nonetheless pursued us with gusto in the games and stories and bad Spanish. We had lunch with them (the traditional Honduran meal from...wait for it...Wendy's) and then were on the road for 20 minutes to the boys home.

The boys home (Hogar San Ramon) was run by a nun and several volunteers, and had another 20 or 25 boys in it. They too pursued us with passion--and testosterone--and for another 3 hours we played and loved. It was tough to leave. My new friend Jair began to cry after our goodbyes started, and he cried as I held him in my arms and told him God loves him and I do too. I told him we were friends. Jair's mom is a prostitute in the city there, and comes to visit him once a month. I cannot imagine his life (he's 4 right now--I'll have a great picture up soon of the 2 of us standing beside each other) but I pray that it is full of grace, and that the love of God overcomes the evil he's experienced.

The most amazing thing about these 2 places is the sense of contentment we found there. The volunteers and staff in both places do a great job loving these kids, and it was obvious. They knew grace, they knew love. We were not giving them something they weren't getting, even if they weren't getting it from their birth parents. That won't be the case tomorrow as we visit a couple of government-run orphanages, with 4 and 5 times the number of kids.

But the privates homes we visited today were as good as you can imagine an orphanage being. In fact, I often wonder if those Honduran saints that serve these children don't pull them in before we arrive and say, "now you know those needy Americans are about to be here. Their culture is a little funny, and they don't exactly know about love and grace the way we do, so we're going to show it to them. You love those American real hard."

And they did.

From this morning's reading of Merton...

"Our ability to be sincere with ourselves, with God, and with other men is really proportionate to our capacity for sincere love. And the sincerity of our love depends in large measure upon our capacity to believe ourselves loved. Most of the moral and mental and even religious complexities of our time go back to our desperate fear that we are not and can never be really loved by anyone...

"The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them. But their despair is, perhaps, more respectable than the insincerity of those who think they can trick God into loving them for something they are not. This kind of duplicity is, after all, fairly common among so-called 'believers,' who consciously cling to the hope that God Himself, placated by prayer, will support their egotism and their insincerity, and help them to achieve their own selfish ends. Their worship is of little value to themselves and does no honor to God. They not only consider Him a potential rival (and, therefore, place themselves on a basis of equality with Him), but they think He is base enough to make a deal with them, and this is a great blasphemy."

Thomas Merton, "No Man is an Island"

Love as Acts of Service

One of my good friends asked me recently, his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, why I was calling homosexuals "the enemy." I've tried really hard to figure out how to write this post without doing that. I don't believe that the gay community is my enemy, or the enemy of the church or of morality or whatever. As we discussed last time, it's not that simple. There are enemies of good in every community, inside and outside the organized church and the organized homosexual community. Evil is real. "Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you..." said God to Cain in Genesis 4.7 (NIV). Evil is in the world. And wherever it is, it can only be overcome with good.

We have been saying that love involves at least 3 things: relationship, service, and sacrifice. Today I want to write a little about service. Let's start back with the words of Jesus that originally launched this discussion:

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6.27-31 (NIV)

Our culture demands getting even. But Jesus radically says that getting even cannot be the Way of the Jesus-follower. The Way involves serving even those who mistreat you. When someone hits you, physically or emotionally or whatever, don't hit back and get even. Offer another opportunity to display the radical love of Christ. [I'm not here talking about relationships of abuse--that's not what Jesus was talking about either. He's talking about those who are treated poorly because they do good.]

So, those who follow the Way of Jesus need to figure out how they can serve the homosexual community in the name of Christ. And it should be radical. It will be criticized by those who believe the stance of morality is to try and use every means possible to stamp out or marginalize sin. Evil can only be overcome with radical good, which means acts of service.

How do we do this? Well, it starts again with relationship. We need to be with gay and lesbian people and build relationships with them and love them. What kinds of acts of service should we do? First, we should do the things we do for anyone we have a relationship with. Invite them over for dinner, give them gifts on their birthday, include them to family activities. Don't shun, don't ostracize, don't ignore. If you get called names, respond with love and service, not anger and hatred.

Second, as a community of followers of the Way of Jesus, we need to serve the gay community when it is mistreated. If a person is beaten up or mistreated because they are gay, it should be Christ-followers who are first to point out this evil. We should be involved in promoting laws that protect all those among us, regardless of what we think about their lifestyles. We should carefully consider how we can promote the liberty of all, not excusing evil in any form.

Only good will overcome evil. Only service to others displays true love. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

May my life be a river of service to the world.