Alternative or Adversary?
Around the world, tension seems to be at a boil. The globe suffers from pandemic blues, armed conflicts, a mountain of injustices, poverty, and the terrible discoveries of innocent lives lost. Whether understood or not there is a damaged and changing environment, forest fires, and destroyed towns, homes, and lives. The list is seemingly endless and each item is acquired and politicized by this or that group, seeing in the suffering and anger of humanity opportunity to advance what is mostly selfish power interests. The Church has been drawn into this adversarial battlefield time and again much to her detriment. And it makes me sad.
It grieves my heart to see the name of Christ used to justify opinion and political platforms. To see the words ‘kingdom of heaven’ reduced to a meaningless label used to bolster nothing more than earthly powers that care nothing about the heart of God or his vision of a redeemed human race living in the wholeness of Shalom and peace with one another, nature, and Himself. I am realizing there is a principle we have lost sight of: When the Church positions herself as an adversary instead of as an alternative, her voice is compromised because the Church only carries the authority of the kingdom of heaven when she positions herself in the Way of Christ: the Way of co-suffering Love. She is called to be an alternative community offering something only she can hold: the mercy-love of God.
When we love others, doing all we can to genuinely—without reservation—suffer alongside them because the Holy Spirit has filled our hearts with compassion and love that refuses to withhold mercy or grace, we become mirrors reflecting the light of Christ to all people. When a Christian follows Jesus they must embrace his alternative vision of how to be in relation to reality. In all circumstances, they pause to ask: what is the Way of Christ here? Now—in this moment? Which is to say: How do I show the Gospel love of Jesus here? How do I love as he loves? Now—in this moment?
What is that love? What can we say about it? We listen to Jesus who says that his command is to love...that the greatest act of love is to lay down one’s own life for others. We listen to the beloved disciple John when he tells us that God is Love. We hear Jesus sum up all of the Law and the Prophets when he says, “Love God with all of your being and love your neighbour as yourself.” We hear Paul saying not to live selfishly and to humble ourselves, putting the interests and needs of others ahead of our own. Just as Jesus poured out his own life for the sake of others we pour out our lives for the sake of others. This is true freedom for we are liberated from thinking we are the centre of everything and that we are all that is important—one of the oldest of lies.
This is how we love as he loves. He showed us the way of humility, which always puts the people around us first. This is the radical, alternative vision of the kingdom of heaven: It is not my life that is paramount but the life of the other, my neighbor, and even the life of my enemies. Here the Way of Christ refuses to compromise and all are offended and challenged beyond their abilities—yet Jesus is clear: following him is not comfortable and the Way of Love leads to a spiritual reality beyond human rationality.
This is a reality that can only be lived by walking in the Spirit with the humblest of hearts and the willingness to love as Christ loves. Here we ascend to the apex of Christ’s teaching and Way: Love your enemies. You no longer follow the way of the world exchanging an eye for an eye, meeting hostility with hostility—no: we give them the other cheek; we give up our own comfort, the shirt off our back. We walk for more miles after the forced mile is done…we are followers of Jesus, taking up the cross and walking in the alternative reality of the kingdom of heaven. In the kingdom there is one command: Love the one in front of you as though they are Christ. And the honest heart groans in prayer, for this is neither simple nor easy.
But isn’t this the point? Isn’t this why we follow Jesus? To become like him? To be transformed into new creations that are abandoning a broken humanity that chooses enmity and alienation over love? It has to be, for this is why God became Emmanuel and dwelt among us: to free the human heart so that it can become like Jesus so that we can know our Heavenly Abba. This is true freedom. We give all we have to this Way where the action we take to care for the weakest, the most fragile around us is done as though they are Jesus—and in a mysterious way, Jesus tells us they are him. Here we discover the joy that is transcending cultures and the passions of this present world. In short, we enter the presence of God when we follow Christ’s co-suffering Way of the Cross.
If we dare to take up that journey we must realize that we are a people of invitation, not domination. We are a people of mercy, not judgment. We are a people who will choose love in the face of hostility, not arm ourselves with weapons of retaliation, whether physical or spiritual. We are a people who bless and do not curse. We choose the wellbeing of others over our own wellbeing, considering all selfishness as a trap preventing us from knowing Christ who is always giving of himself for the sake of the entire world. We are a people bound to the Law of Love because we are loved by God and we love him. When we are caught up in the alternative reality of the kingdom of heaven, filled with the mercy-love of God, we cannot help but appear foolish to those who prefer to become the adversary setting themselves against others instead of looking for the Way to love as Christ loves.
Being the adversary is to choose hostility and anger--pride that places ourselves as first and foremost above others. We may love our friends but our enemies? No, we will take them on and we will grind them into dust. When we choose to be the adversary we grasp at power and attempt to wield it against others in order to obtain what we want, what we think we deserve. We allow ourselves to believe in the philosophy of emperors that we should impose our codes and rules on our neighbours instead of loving them and then foolishly believe they will thank us for it. Power and authority are not the same thing.
When the Church acts as an adversary she may wield power but it is the power of dominance, acting as the wolf instead of the lamb. In our adversarial position, we forget that in the kingdom of heaven the first will be last and the last will be first. We walk in authority when we humbly serve others, for that is where kingdom authority lives and abides...in unselfish love, never refusing mercy or kindness to anyone. When we choose a path of seeking power over others, we have no authority in the kingdom of heaven and thus our connection to Jesus becomes distorted and eventually lost. We lose sight of the one who has served us all and we no longer look like him. We no longer sound like him. We no longer reflect the light of his presence or reveal the message of the Gospel in this world.
The face of power lacks love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These fruits of the Spirit are found in the humble heart that chooses to love as Christ loves. The Church must choose again and again who she wants to be. What position does she want to stand in? The Body of Christ that acknowledges the Way of Christ or a System using the name of Christ in order to wield a worldly power that seeks to control and dominate others?
Jesus never sought control over others. He never attempted to dominate people. He always invited them to follow him. He invited them into an encounter with God that they couldn’t quite comprehend because it was so filled with love and compassion and a vision of God no one had fully seen before. Jesus invited the human heart into the alternative reality of the kingdom of heaven where not only is love the law but transformation and a new reality are taking place. Christians cannot be both disciples of Christ devoted to his Way and be driven by an adversarial spirit. In every circumstance, the Church has an incredible freedom to choose how she will respond to her place in the world. Will she be an alternative community inviting people to encounter the living God of Love or set herself up as an adversarial community seeking earthly power instead of the kingdom of heaven?
In the Way of Christ—of co-suffering love—the Church’s voice is filled with the authority of the kingdom, empowered by the grace of Holy Spirit. When the Church chooses the way of the adversary, her voice becomes a gong...a clanging cymbal...mere noise amidst all the noises with nothing distinct to say and thus loses her meaning, her identity, as the sacred bearer of the message of Christ:
Love, for you are loved by God. Now, remember to always put others before yourself and you will stay true to the Way of Christ. Love is your compass. Be ready with a kind word. Be ready with a compassionate embrace. Invite the broken to the table of mercy and grace. Pray for everyone and welcome all with loving-kindness just as your Father has always welcomed you.
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