Love them anyway

The last Sunday of Pentecost, what we call Christ the King Sunday, always seems like a juxtaposition because it is the Sunday before we begin the Church’s new year, the holy preparatory season of Advent, and yet, depending on the year, the Gospel reading is about Jesus hanging on the cross or preparing for that.  The bottom line is that the cross would not be possible without the incarnation and the incarnation would have been pointless (or nearly so), if not for the cross.  Both - the incarnation and the cross - are momentous signs of God’s immeasurable redemptive love for God’s creation.

As we read in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  And continuing in the third chapter of John’s Gospel: God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that all who believe in him should not perish but have ever lasting life.  Despite the fickleness of humanity toward God and God’s creation, despite all that they did to Jesus, through it all, God loved (and loves) us anyway.

As we continue through this blessed season of our Lord’s nativity, contemplating the things of this world that necessitate Jesus’ sacrifice and our own fears and complicities and insults we endure, it may be helpful to be reminded of the Paradoxical Commandments by Kent Keith (often attributed to Mother Teresa):

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Be successful anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People need help but may attack you if you help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you've got anyway.

Any way you look at it, the bottom line is the same: Whatever people may do, love them anyway.

- Marc Vance