most everything turns to ****... rejoice

Daily the violent acts of humanity are funneled into our homes. The media has coated such heavy pills with slick title cards and high quality graphics making them easier to swallow. The corporate office plans how to exploit newly birthed fear in order to increase ratings and generate revenue. Meanwhile, in the college dorms in Virginia, or on the streets of Iraq, or in the secret meetings hidden from the Iranian government, real people suffer the harsh reality of events that are out of their control. Most of us in middle class America have been spared. And, though sometimes these realities can hit disturbingly close to home, we find ways to shield our fragile worldviews from them. Sure we may pray, or find ourselves saddened by the state of the world, but everyday the steady diet of the chaos that surrounds us finds us a little less surprised and a little more detached.

I believe that there is only one solution to the mess of the present state of the world. Stating this solution WILL sound like an oversimplification by a young idealist, but hear the fullness of my statement before dismissing my argument. This simple answer is summed up in one word: Love. Of course this is Love in the deepest and fullest sense of the word. Not love equivalent to the "love" of pizza or of a particular fashion trend. C.S. Lewis categorizes the love of which I speak as "Gift-Love" and, more specifically, "charity". This kind of love has no basis in the merit of its object, but rather the intrinsic value that the lover finds in the object. If this kind of Love is possible, then it is the single most powerful force that could swallow up terrorism, nuclear war, domestic abuse, exploitation, and on the list goes. Despite the dreams and ambitions of the Enlightenment, reason has proven it cannot turn madmen sane. However, Love never fails.

Please understand that, though the term "love" conjures up all sorts of ideas within our Western world, the Love that I speak of is not a feeling in the pit of the stomach. It is not something that is always delightful. It is a decision. It is an action. Love lives for the interest of the loved object. Philosophically, if all of humanity sought Love for one another as the highest good, this world would be a very different place. However, we know that the complexity of the cosmos and, more powerfully, the selfishness that permeates you and I (though we would probably deny it if asked) makes that a distant fading dream if not an impossibility. Still we understand how drastic the change would be if Love were to somehow be enacted within all humanity (not to mention, the entire living world).

Now comes the tension that the community of Christ is called to live in. Paul makes it abundantly clear that we are no longer in Adam. Rather, we are the new creation in Messiah Jesus. When all of humanity screams at us that love will never work, we enact Love in the present world and face whatever that may bring us. This action can be earth shattering, and may make absolutely no sense to those who seek self preservation and live only for "Need-Love". To the Ayn Rand Objectivist, it is nonsensical and evil. To Sam Harris it is irrational and pseudo-intellectual. To Freud it is an evolutionary byproduct. To those that are in Christ, it is the power of God unto salvation. It is the living out of the Gospel. We live the kingdom, in a world that has not yet been turned over to the King. Our allegiance is not to governments who seek power at any price but to the Messiah Jesus, who eats with the tax collector, the religious leader, the drunk, and the prostitute. Our love goes from the children being ravaged by war and disease in Africa, to the business man who prays over the idol of the almighty dollar every day in his high rise apartment.

As we look at a world being destroyed by hatred, I challenge everyone (including myself) to live the love that is called for by Messiah Jesus. Let the Holy Spirit begin to use us as vehicles of the healing power of the Kingdom of Almighty God! Where hatred and greed destroys, the church must begin to live Love that heals. Where people are starving, the church must begin to live Love that gives all. Where greed is god, the church must reveal through Love the destructiveness of a god who requires the sacrifice of Love and life itself to feed its nature. Our God is Love. He is Love displayed in the man Jesus Christ who gave His life for His creation and three days later rose in victory over death. Ultimately, the love of God will be entwined fully and completely into creation when God's "kingdom comes, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." Until then, the church is the new creation in the present and has been given the ministry of reconciliation to the world. Now we must enact that Love decisively and fully as we go into a world full of suffering.