Stephen
Terry, Director
Practicing
Supreme Loyalty to Christ
Commentary
for the September 9, 2023, Sabbath School Lesson
"Do not go over your vineyard a second
time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the
foreigner. I am the Lord your God. When a foreigner resides among you in your
land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as
your native-born. Love them as yourself..." Leviticus 10:19, 33-34, NIV
Recently, I had opportunity to
travel for a holiday weekend to a larger city in western Canada. I was impressed
with the number of immigrants I found there. Compared to the United States,
Canada seems to have a more welcoming policy toward immigrants. Their welcoming
attitude is understandable, considering the size of the country and the need to
populate so much wilderness. It was interesting observing the different
cultures side-by-side. Our motel was owned and operated by Sikhs. They were always
kind and helpful during our stay. On Sunday morning, they welcomed an immigrant
Christian church, that held services in their main meeting room. My wife joined
them briefly for singing hymns, even though, as Seventh-day Adventists, we had
worshipped the day before.
In contrast, we discovered how many
white Canadians celebrated Sunday mornings. We needed to pick up some things
for a party later that day, so we stopped by Costco. The parking lot was full
to overflowing. My wife and I both noticed the almost monochromatic nature of
the shoppers, except for a very few, almost all were white Canadians. Most of
those few who were not white were there as employees of Costco. It seemed that
the Church of Costco was popular with the native, white Canadians. Muzak
provided the atmosphere of worship, and the cash registers were the altars of
offering.
I don't mean to lampoon the
Canadians for their kindness to immigrants is noteworthy. In the United States,
too many treat them evilly. Recently, the government of Texas erected a
murderous barricade in the Rio Grande River to indifferently slash and drown
those who would try to cross to the United States' side of the river. As we
have done with every wave of immigration that has hit our shores, we label all
as gangsters, murderers, rapists, and pedophiles. It is not hard to find
examples of such for this is the rot that exists everywhere that humans dwell.
But we find it easier to blame the immigrants for the disease that besets our
cities and towns than we do to examine ourselves. Their skin tone, their
apparel, their music, their accents, and their cultural affectations make them
easy to distinguish and sanction from being a part of our more "patriotic"
group.
Sadly, there are those who capitalize,
politically and financially, from stoking fear of those differences. We have heard
from those who exploit the differences many times before. "They will steal jobs
from good, loyal Americans!" "They will drain our economy by lazily living on public
assistance, robbing the public purse so it will not benefit the rest of us!" How
both statements can be true is beyond me. How does one steal jobs while
refusing to work? But logic has nothing to do with vilifying foreigners. It is
all about manipulating people with fear of the other. This is how the evil one
would have us behave. It is diametrically opposed to the way that Jesus and
those who seek to emulate his character would act.
We are told to love others. Some
professed followers of Christ might question whether that meant all others.
Shouldn't people prove they are worthy to receive that love? It is hard to
understand how that could happen if the Apostle Paul's statement that we all
are sinners is true.[i] It seems we would end up
loving no one, perhaps not even ourselves. But Jesus was aware of this all too
human propensity to set standards as to whom we would be willing to love, so he
removed any wiggle room. He told us we are to love our enemies.[ii] If
we do that, we will find no one excluded from our love. We will love both the
saint and the sinner, the citizen and the foreigner, and our own race as well
as all others. This does not mean the hypocrisy of claiming to be loving, and
then during the evening news having our anger rise as the evils of the very
people we are supposed to be loving are paraded before everyone as a ploy to
garner ratings that in turn bring advertising money and wealth to the media
moguls. If we are to love as Christ directed, it must be intentional and not a
superficial mouthing of what we pretend to be but do not actually feel in our
hearts. Too many who claim the name of Christ seek reasons not to love others
much as sluggards seek reasons not to work to support themselves.[iii] Christianity
without intentional love is a lazy Christianity.
The Apostle John takes this one
step further. He says that if we do not love, we do not know God.[iv]
That is a strong statement. How many unloving Christians have poisoned the
world with the idea that it is acceptable to be unloving toward those who are
not worthy of that love? It is challenging to love those who are deeply
offensive to us, but it is the hallmark of genuine Christianity. Recently, Muslims
accused Christians of blasphemy in Jandawala, Pakistan. They gathered in mobs
and desecrated churches and destroyed the homes of Christians. While several
better-educated Muslims pointed out the Quran forbids such behavior, the mobs
were not listening to that and rioted uncontrollably. The normal human tendency
would be to hate Muslims and retaliate for such ill treatment. But in doing so,
we ignore the words of Christ about loving those who treat us so. While those
Muslim rioters may find revenge an expected reaction, how would that differentiate
Christian from Muslim? It would not.
The early Christian church
understood this better than we do today. Rather than oppose evil with force,
they suffered torture and martyrdom at the hands of non-believers. Later when
Christianity became a state religion and abandoned the pacificism of their
forebears, those who continued to pursue a loving, pacifist course were made to
suffer torture and martyrdom at the hands of the nominal state church. This has
evolved to the degree that the practices of the early church are much reviled
today. We retaliate against evil, and we no longer distribute our wealth as the
early church did.[v] Many gather weekly to sing
hymns and pretend we are like those who went before even though we often gather
in denominations that hate the same people we do, politically,
denominationally, or ethnically. Even within denominations, we tend to seek out
congregations of our own flavor, whether conservative or progressive. We have replaced
intentional love with intentional fear. We then manipulate others by
reinforcing their fear as they reinforce ours until our select congregation becomes
a defensive fortress we construct, not to protect the faith, but to remind us
to be fearful.
We must understand that fear and
love cannot co-exist in the same heart. As love grows, it will drive out fear.
But if we choose the path of fear, it will drive out love.[vi]
This should tell us where fear-based manipulation originates. God, who is love,
has no desire to drive love from our hearts. Only the evil one has anything to
gain by doing that. Therefore, if anyone tries to manipulate us through fear,
even supposed fear of what God might do, it is not from God. It originates
elsewhere and is even behind the rebellion that saw Satan cast from heaven with
all his fallen angels.[vii]
It should come as no surprise that he would want to misrepresent the character
of God and would even infiltrate churches with his fear-based manipulation
schemes.[viii]
But we should remember that it makes no sense to offer up a counterfeit if
there is no genuine article. Thus, if a counterfeit, fear-based Christianity is
to be of any use in the schemes of the evil one, it is evidence that a genuine,
love-based faith also continues to exist.
We must realize that the real
dwelling place for fear or love is in our hearts. Fear would seek to deprive us
of choice. But love allows us the opportunity to choose what will dwell in our
hearts. Like churches, our hearts can become stony fortresses built by fear.
But if we seek a deepening relationship with God, who loves us,[ix] he
promises our hearts will be softened by being immersed in that love.[x]
One further thought - we do not
become as loving as Christ in an instant. As we walk with him, day by day, week
by week through the years, we more and more reflect his character but the evil
one will not cease his efforts to instill fear in our hearts, and as the Apostle
Paul points out, that fear-tainted corruption will continue to seek to eat at
us until the day of Christ's return when what remains of that will be removed.[xi]
But what happens in the meantime makes all the difference as we decide to walk
away from God to be ruled and hardened by fear, or toward God to be softened by
love. Fear says there is no choice. God says "Yes, there is."