Contested issues like politics, the refugee crisis, sexuality, racial and economic justice and more should be approached and discussed in a way that builds relational bridges instead of burning them. Inviting others to belong and journey with us even before they believe with us or agree with us is a deeply Christian thing.
So is breaking bread with people and welcoming them into relationship, whether or not they ever end up agreeing with us. Do we understand this?
In this, Jesus shows us the way.
When the rich ruler dismissed Jesus’ invitation to come follow Him, Jesus looked at the man as he walked away in unbelief, and loved him. And as the man walked away from Jesus, the man was sad. Not angry or hostile or feeling judged … but sad.
Consider this thought from my second book, Befriend: Create Belonging in an Age of Judgment, Isolation and Fear:
“Wherever love dominates the environment, it’s no condemnation first and ethics after that. With Jesus, love establishes the environment for the morality conversation. It is not our repentance that leads to God’s kindness, but God’s kindness that leads to our repentance.
After eighteen years of pastoral ministry, I have never met a person who fell in love with Jesus because a Christian scolded them about their ethics. Have you?”
Gandhi, who claimed that his humanitarian ethic was almost one hundred percent inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus, chose Hinduism over Christianity. Why? Because of how poorly he was treated, and how much he felt judged, by the (deeply misguided) Christians that he knew. Chillingly and famously, Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” In a climate of hostility and “us against them,” let’s start working for a different narrative, shall we?
In contrast to the above, over the years I have met hundreds, if not thousands of people who fell in love with Jesus because a Christian or community of Christians loved, served, lifted a burden, and befriended them. When Jesus said to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven, he envisioned something more like this. He envisioned people being drawn irresistibly to him, not in spite of Christians, but because of Christians.
One example is this, written by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times:
“Unfairly, the pompous hypocrites get the headlines and often shape public attitudes about religion, but there’s more to the picture. Remember that on average religious Americans donate far more to charity and volunteer more than secular Americans do.”
It would be something else, would it not, if more secular thinkers like Nicholas Kristof began saying that the pompous, hypocritical caricatures of Christians are unfair, and that believers were actually doing more for the life of the world than anybody else. It would be something else if more secular thinkers started to take note of good works done in the world and for the world in Jesus’ name. Let’s give the world some more lovely, life-giving things to talk about, shall we? Let’s let more of the light of Christ shine through us, more love and good deeds, more service and less self–so that, as Paul the Apostle wrote–the world will not be able to find anything bad to say about us…or, most especially, about our Jesus (Titus 2:8).
There is perhaps no better way to finish this thought than with these words from Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water:
“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”
Let’s roll up our sleeves and love somebody, shall we?
This article originally appeared here.
