This post is similar to a prior one about loving someone you resent. I suppose you can resent someone you never met nor had any dealings with, and I am sure you can dislike, even hate, someone you have never personally met. Will Rogers allegedly said ‘he never met a man he didn’t like.’ I assume he never met Hitler, Stalin, and the like.
In the novel [and later the movie] Love Story appears and is heard this line: ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry.’ This type of romanticized view of love may create warm feelings for moviegoers, but the real world of human relationships is far and away. Seeking and granting forgiveness is a major component of all healthy relationships.
I suggest that part of our struggle in understanding and applying the teachings of Jesus is that they seem impossible [e.g. ‘love your enemies’] or so out of reach for most of us, that they get assigned to the ‘ideal’ or ‘mere aspirations’ category, i.e. not something expected to be applied literally. But what if Jesus intended for us to put them into actual practice?
A lawyer, in reference to the issue of loving one’s neighbor, asked Jesus ‘who is my neighbor?’ [Luke 10:25-37]. Jesus responded with the story of the good Samaritan [normally a Samaritan was a very disliked sort of person from the perspective of the Jews]. The lawyer did not ask Jesus what is love? Or what does it mean to love your neighbor?
Western culture has distorted the word ‘love’ to emphasize the romantic component to it, when, in reality that is only one form of love-eros, from which we get the word erotic. Romantic love normally contains a significant component of positive emotions experienced by the person who is expressing or ‘feeling’ love. The seemingly only ‘emotion’ experienced by the good Samaritan appears to be ‘compassion’ [vs.33]-translating the Greek word meaning “be moved within our inward being for the sorrowful condition of another”. “The one who showed [the wounded man] mercy” replied the lawyer when asked by Jesus which person was a neighbor to the wounded man. [vs.37] Neither of the Greek words translated ‘compassion’ or ‘mercy’ is a word used for love, such as phileo, [brotherly love] or agape [God’s sacrificial love].
What if ‘love’ [exclusive of eros] for another person had primarily to do with how we treated them rather than how we felt emotionally towards them? What if biblical love could be defined as ‘doing for others, that which, from God’s perspective is in their best interest’? Could it be that our enslavement to the Westernized meaning of love, requiring us to always have genuine positive feelings toward others including those we dislike, has hindered, even blocked us from fulfilling Jesus’ command to love our enemies? Would it not be much less difficult to simply ‘do good’ deeds for others without attempting to require of ourselves that we have ‘loving feelings’ towards them? When Jesus said to ‘love your enemies, He immediately followed that statement with: ‘do good to those who hate you’ [Luke 6:27]. C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity, in the chapter on ‘charity’ [love] says: “The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”
Love is the intentional act of willing and doing the good of another. Having warm feelings of affection is not required. Admittedly, having those kinds of feelings would make the task of loving someone you dislike much easier, nevertheless, such feelings can be and often are lacking, and are, I suggest, not even required of us.
Compassion
As mentioned above, feeling for someone in need or distress, and doing something about it [actions of the good Samaritan] reveals Jesus’ description of what it might mean to love someone you don’t naturally like. It is not about feeling affection for them, but being at least somewhat compassionate toward that person’s condition of need and contributing what one can to assist in relieving their distress. Is compassion something ‘naturally’ occurring within the human heart? Is it something that needs to be cultivated? Can we be under personal or cultural restraints, biases and/or fears that hinder us from showing compassion/kindness to others in need? Surely this is true of us. If compassion is a positive Christian virtue, then discerning within ourselves any restraints towards its expression need to be exposed and rooted out. In all events it also seems that compassion needs to be guided by wisdom. Giving a hungry man a fish will certainly feed him for today, but taking the time to teach him how to fish will possibly enable him to feed himself for his lifetime. [the origin of that quote is unknown to me].
Softening a Hard Heart
Jesus was grieved and angry with those religious leaders who were lacking compassion toward the weak and who opposed Jesus healing on the sabbath a man with the withered hand. [Mark 3:1-6]. How do you soften a hardened heart? I suggest we Ask and Do. Ask God to soften it- “it meaning our heart or that of another. Also use some ‘meat tenderizer’- take steps to expose yourself to those in need. Do it over and over, and get involved in some way of helping them so that the needs of others are frequently before you to observe, pray for, and participate in some way of assisting them. The point is, for most of us, to get as physically and emotionally close to those in need as you can [safely and wisely] do. Jesus did exactly that, though He was not concerned for His own safety. Thankfully, His compassion for us was not self-restrained. Nor did he submit to the hard-nosed and hard-hearted culture makers of His day-the scribes and Pharisees who condemned and opposed His compassion for the weak and sinners. Practicing doing good for others, even those we don’t especially like, seems to me more likely to fulfill the call to ‘love our enemies’. Doing so will be like meat tenderizer, helping make more tender something [our heart] otherwise rather tough.
“And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices, God is pleased” -Heb 13:16
“So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith”-Galatians 6:9
“But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?”-I John3:17
CJS
Love is an action word. Saying “I love you” has no depth without actions to animate the words. Feelings may flow from the actions, but they are not required. The Samaritan most likely had few feelings of love toward the wounded Jew. He had never met him previously. However, he did show love and compassion in his actions, and feelings may have resulted as he ministered to the needs of this injured man.
Thank you for a thought-provoking article.
Your Ezekiel 36:26 heart continues to pour out in a Luke 6:45 way & I’m so thankful to have been edified deeply & continually by your grace-energized voice for 20 years now, Curt. Wow. God is so good to me, the worst sinner I’ve ever known.