Small acts of love

Jesus suggests that the way to be people of joy is to be people who have life giving power, the Spirit of God, flowing through us.

We tap into that source by “abiding”.  By connecting with God

We connect with God, this is the only way I can think about it, by focusing, radically, on God

By constantly turning our attention to God

Finding the presence of God.. everywhere

In every act

Every place

Every person…

That radical attention to the sacred in everything, to the loving, forgiving, accepting presence of God should, Jesus tells us, cause us to bear fruit.  In other words, the presence of sacred power in our lives should be expressed in the way we live.

Shane Claibourne says that as Christians we all need to be “ordinary radicals” and show the world “another way of life.”  Tony Campolo says that he believes that Jesus came not (as many Christians seem to believe) to prepare us to die, not to prepare us for the afterlife, as to teach us how to live in this life.

But what does this “other life” look like?

What does it look like, when we are abiding?

Jesus puts it this way.  “Love one another, as I have loved you!”

Ah, but there is the rub…. We have heard that, how many times

But what does that mean?   I mean really?

I would like to offer some words, which for me, express what I think this means, this God like love.

1.  The first word is Transparency.  I borrow this term from Brennan Manning.  We need to be people, who are so focused on the God, so open to God, so willing (as opposed to willful), that God’s Spirit just takes over our lives.  And having taken over our lives, shines through. 

There is a little joke about a young girl who gets totally confused in Sunday School by a conversation about the idea of Christ being “in us”.  On the way home from church she says to her mother.  Mom, was Jesus big?  The mother thinks for a while and then says, “well, yes, I suppose he was.  He was a carpenter, a working man, so I suppose he was big”  To which the little girls responds, well if Jesus is big, AND Jesus is in us, wouldn’t he “stick out”.

Pretty good theology actually.  George Montague writes “The imitation of Jesus Christ goes to the very assimilation of his interior attitudes, his way of thinking.”  Romano Guardini once stated that  Francis of Assisi allowed Jesus “to become transparent in his personality.”

To abide in Christ should mean then  --  to go back to the image of the vine  --  that the power, the love, the presence, the forgiveness of Christ flows through us, becoming part of the very fabric of our being… so that we begin to see as Christ would see.  Think about people the way Christ would think about them.  Respond to people in a way close to the way Christ would respond to them. 

I don’t know we ever really get to this place of transparency.  But I do think that when we abide, when we connect, we began to move that direction.  And there are people, Mother Theresa, Francis of Assisi, and others, who give us a glimpse of transparency. 

Before you think I am being a little crazy here think of Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 2… “We have the mind of Christ”.  In Galations 3 Paul says “You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

Kind of scary to think that Christ, and Christ’s love should somehow shine through my body, my attitude, my behaviors, because I know that they don’t shine through very clearly.  My stuff does a pretty good job of limiting transparency.  But I keep hoping …

What I want most of all… as a person abiding in Christ, is to have the spirit flow into my mind, and into my eyes, so that I see people and think about people the way Jesus did.  That for me is the key element in transparency.  That is where it starts.  In the wonderful book “To Kill a Mockingbird” Atticus Finch says “You’ll never understand a man ‘til you stand in his shoes and look at the world through is eyes.”  I want to be so focused on God, that I see the world through God’s eyes, through Christ’s eyes.  For me that is where loving like God begins.

What would it mean if I looked at people the way Christ does?  There are times I might be offended.  Offended by those who abuse power, for example.  But there are going to be many times when seeing the person with Christ eyes will produce other kinds of fruit.   Like Compassion.

2  That is another word I like –Compassion

Compassion is seeing with the eyes of love

It is understanding that behind the greed is emptiness…

That behind the addiction is pain

That behind the brashness is insecurity.

Manning says “to live and think as Jesus did is to discover the sincerity, goodness, and truth often hidden behind the cross, coarse exteriors of our fellow human beings.  It is to see the good in others that they don’t see in themselves. “

But Manning goes further… “It is not blind optimism that ignores the reality of evil

Jesus saw things the way they were.  He not only had compassionate eyes, he also had honest eyes, and he confronted the misuse of power.  He confronted greed and injustice, when he saw it.

3.  So, we have to have eyes of compassion, but we also have to have “honest eyes.

Seeing greed as greed and injustice as injustice, and abuse as abuse.  Compassionate eyes yes.  But also eyes that wisely see what can destroy life and compassion.  Because loving the way God loves also means confronting those things that hurt, and erode, and destroy any of his children.  The confrontation may be in the context of compassion, but sometimes it has to happen.

Now we get to key point… if we are transparent.  If we clothe ourselves with Christ, seek though the spirit to take on the persona, so to speak of Christ, the compassion of Christ, the challenging nature of Christ, when it comes to injustice, then ultimately we have to do one final thing. 

4.   We have to live active lives of love…

Mark Nepo has a wonderful poem titled “Accepting This”  He writes

We cannot eliminate hunger, but we can feed each other

We cannot eliminate loneliness, but we can hold each other

We cannot eliminate pain, but we can live a life of compassion.

Ultimately  we are small living things

Awakened in the stream,

Not gods who carve out rivers.

God’s love, lived out, is often not a matter of amazing, big things

But of many small things

Someone once reminded me that “A life is made of days”

We most often change the world, one small act at a time.

It is how we live out each day

It is those little things we do  -  the little things

To right a wrong

To fight injustice

To Light fires  of hope in our children,

And provide safe places for others

These are the work of Christ

Those little acts of love

When we listen

And care

Have coffee with a friend

Give food to the food bank

Stand up for a person who is being abused or bullied

Speak out against unfairness

Protect the vulnerable

These are the work of Christ

This is loving as God loves

Miller talks about the “imitation of Christ” and says it is not about rules

Or even morality

But a matter of clinging to Christ,  and imitating him, in how he saw and related to others

What Christ did, was truly see people

And what they needed

And then he did what he could to meet that need

Sometimes that looked like confrontation

Sometimes it looked like challenge, and call for change….

But even then the ultimate goal was redemption….

But most of the time…. He saw the hurts

The fears, the needs…. And he simply did what was needed to bring hope and healing

He made wine.  He healed, He listened, he cared, he helped

Wayne Muller in one of his books gives, what to me, is an amazing illustration of ;what happens when we are transparent… when we become people who, as we take on the mind of Christ and see with the eyes of Christ, love as Christ loved….

It is the story of a woman named Gina

Shortly after her husband had died, Gina had moved into an apartment building.  She was lonely, and sad, and, she admitted, feeling very sorry for herself.   What she wanted to do was isolate herself, and hide.  But then she met Marie.  Marie had cerebral palsy.

They began a friendship, and would often talk.  One night Gina simply asked Marie if there was something she could do. Marie was quiet at first, but finally answered.  “every night before I go to sleep, I have to take off my braces, and then my shoes, and then my socks.  If I do it by myself it takes me about an hour.  At night when I am tired I have to stop every 10 minutes or so to rest.  But I can’t sleep if I don’t take them off.  Marie paused, a little embarrassed.  Then she continued.  ‘I don’t like to ask, but if you wouldn’t mind taking off my braces for me I would get to sleep so much easier. 

Gina continues the story this way.  “Now it was my turn to feel awkward.  I didn’t know what to say.  It was such a simple thing, it had never occurred to me to ask about Maries legs.  Like most people, I am a little uncomfortable when people have a disability.  I don’t want to ask the wrong question or seem insensitive.  When I don’t know the right thing to say or ask, I usually say nothing at all.  Of course I agreed, and it took me only a few minutes to do what Marie had to do, every night, alone, for over an hour.  I took off each brace, and then each shoe and sock, and put them by the bed for Marie to put on the next morning.  Marie had tears in her eyes.  I think I did too.  “No one has helped me do this for a very long time,” she shared.  ‘Not since my husband passed away.  Now tonight, I can sleep.  Thank you so much.”  I put my hand on hers, I may have whispered a little prayer for her, maybe for both of us, and then I went home.  I realized suddenly that I felt so very grateful.  

A simple kindness.  Born out of transparency …eyes that saw… and a heart that was open…

A simple kindness, Christ becoming real

A simple kindness, loving as God loves….

That is what abiding in Christ looks like.