What can love do today?

Jesus of Nazareth is many things to many people.  For each human being encountering this historical presence, Jesus is a figure with a very clear message. An encounter with Jesus created at the least a highly memorable, and in many cases teachable and life-changing experience, and he is a clear influence on the arc of human history.

The writers of the history of Jesus of Nazareth were many.  They wrote decades after the death of Jesus.  There is almost no, if any, firsthand contemporary account of the person.  Nevertheless, the writers constructed a history they believed to be true, at least wanted to be true, and they believed would help others to encounter the experience of Jesus and some of the core impressions, or teachings, that he left behind.  The writers and their work have been studied perhaps more than any other historical finding.  There is an absence of agreement about many things. 

There is agreement that Jesus had a very clear message that he may have spoken thus:  Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus transmitted this message in word, actions, and his death. 

I will leave alone so many other images and experiences of Jesus. They are so vast and conflicted that many, including this author, can find them at times more distracting than useful.

The message is love.  Not love in the media delivered version of the twenty-first century, but the love associated with virtue: put others first.  Those others include the Spirit that many name as God; it also includes the people one encounters – whether it is neighbor, the person at the desk next to you, your spouse, parents, children, and the stranger and the alien. 

The claim of legitimacy and importance of love of stranger and the alien comes straight from the context of the life of Jesus, his language, instructions, and his study of sacred texts.  It is a clear and undeniable message.  Love God (Spirit) above all, and love neighbor as self.

In the arc of human history, Jesus is used.  He is often used by people who have limited understanding of the figure and his teachings.  Users are typically people with strong ties to enormously powerful entities, say the church and all of its wealth and influence; in some cases it has been governmental leaders attempting to co-opt a message to achieve followers who would otherwise reject the leader.

Power relationships often seem to have been a means-end bargain struck – with a failure to live out the teaching.  Obfuscation occurs as the vast collection of words surrounding the life and teachings of Jesus are used, often out of context, to achieve a claimed good at the expense of a troubling, almost impermissible distortion.  But not to worry, followers come to believe, the intended good will outweigh the harm of the distortion.  This is a troubling problem – but of another subject. Let’s get back on message with the title of this piece: Disconnect – a very large one – prominently on display.  What is our response? What do you experience today? What is the response?

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