I can't love God

Samir Selmanovic: It’s really all about God

My deadpan honest and brilliant New York City friend Norm once raised his hand during the worship service discussion time and blurted out, “I can’t love God.” What flashed through my mind is that Norm would rarely, if ever, say, “I love God.” It was just not something you could hear coming from him. He was one of those people who are usually absent from discussions of theology because they are impatient with words and are busy embodying them.

Every gathering has people who for some reason do not fit in the group because they are not up to par in some way. They look like they don’t have a clue, or taste, or a shower. Norm could always be found talking with these people, lavishing on them genuine curiosity and an open heart.

So when he said, “I can’t love God,” we all gave him space to explain himself, perhaps to confess that this whole God thing has been overrated. He continued, “I have so many people I am committed to love, but my time and resources are finite. If I add God to the list, I will only be able to give God a small part. But,” Norm paused to try to find the right words to explain his silly sacrilegious confession and then continued tentatively, as it asking for permission, “If I can love God through loving people and the world, then I can love God with all of my love.”

At that moment, I came to understand how sweet and real Norm’s love for God really was. Norm isn’t about God because God isn’t about God. Or alternatively, Norm is all about God because to be all about God is to be all about all of us.

What does loving your neighbor really mean?

I followed my friend the weary pilgrim to a blog called Hugh’s Views.

Here are Hugh’s notes from a presentation he made at Big Tent Christianity. To whet your appetite, here are a few excerpts, but you definitely need to read the whole thing for the full benefit.

According to Jesus, loving your neighbor is half of the greatest commandment. Pretty much everyone agrees that, if taken seriously, it’s a radical idea that could change the world. And yet it seems nearly impossible for American Christians, liberal or conservative, to agree on what it looks like.

Loving your neighbor presupposes a relationship. It means knowing your neighbor is going through a divorce, that the lady who cleans your office has a mother that is dying, that the man at the end of the street holding a cardboard sign has been outside for three years now, and his name is Brian. In the story we call the Good Samaritan, it meant getting in the ditch to bind the man’s wounds yourself.

When the average person in the pews can tell you the names of all the Judges on American Idol, or can name all the Glee cast members, but does not know a soul that makes 1/4th their income, I think it is fair to say we have lost our sense of mission as co-creators of the Kingdom of God.

Here in Wake County, the official statistics say there are approximately 1200 homeless people. And many hundreds of Christian congregations. You cannot tell me that out of the many thousands of Christian homes represented by those churches, there are not 1200 empty beds somewhere. Of course there are. But we save those beds for people we actually know.

Jesus expects us to storm down those gates [Matthew 16:18] and invade Hell itself. Jesus is telling us to go to Hell to be with the drug addict and the alcoholic. Go to Hell to be with the victims of abuse, and with the abusers. Go to hell and liberate the adulterer, the homeless man, the pornographer. In hell is where we will find the single mother and the embezzler, the pimps and the pimped, the hungry, the broken, the forgotten. We, you and I together, should be wading into hell itself and proclaiming that there is a new way to live and a new way to love, and that new way is bringing about the justice of God.

Read his full notes here. Thanks to the weary pilgrim, and especially to Hugh for a pretty straight-forward understanding of a pretty obvious principle—that most of us totally ignore.

Awesome words of grace

From the pen of my good friend the weary pilgrim.

Someone else's musings

“We cannot say what we believe. We only do what we believe.” (emphasis mine)  Todd Littleton, commenting on Peter Rollins' post where he says:

“Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.”

(I found this while surfing Jon @ who follows Daniel who posted this. Are you lost yet?)

I don't think any commentary is necessary.