“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)
Now,
let’s start with the Greek. The word for love is transliterated agape.
It’s not philos, which is brotherly love or friendship. In other words, we’re
not called to like one another. We’re called to love one another – to look
out for what is in the best interest of, and to be committed to maintain a
relationship with the other person. This command given by Jesus doesn’t involve
our loving those who aren’t Christians. That’s elsewhere. This is tough because
Christians are humans and humans can be world-class jerks. This is what some
folks don’t seem to get – it’s not the Christians, the Atheists, the Whites, the
Blacks, the educated, the uneducated, the right, or the poor that are jerks. It’s
people.
But one
of the two major functions of any religion is really to teach people how to deal
with one another. One of the goals of religion is to teach people not to be
jerks. It’s the same with philosophy. In the wrong hands, the purpose tends to
shift to justifying the jerk-hood of those who follow the religion or philosophy.
As one world-class
jerk to another, I find that my jerkiness tends to be activated when I have to
interact with people. I would much rather do something for someone – especially
something I enjoy doing – than to spend time with the person. This is
especially true if it involves listening to the person. I claim my “love
language” is acts of service. If there are love languages, are there not also
hate languages?
If I may
paraphrase Dallas Willard, attack and withdrawal are hate languages, but I suspect
that there are dialects and that they are distortions of our love languages:
acts of service, words of affirmation, touch, gifts, and quality time. So, my
hatred might be expressed through my not helping someone, by doing something
designed to harm or humiliate the person, or by doing for something they can
and should do for themselves.
This is
just a theory on my part, but it makes sense. Do you know what your love
language(s) is(are)? What would using those words, that time, that touch, those
acts of service, or those gifts to harm look like? What would withdrawing them
be like?
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