Family, friends, the unfamiliar and enemies.
It’s a typical scene. A large room with a number of people in it. Music is being played as the set up for the people to sing. The people duly sing and some are standing. They’re standing and their faces are etched with emotion – the pained look as though they’re struggling with bowel movement, is actually their way of conveying just how much they really, really mean what they are singing. And they are singing about how much they love God. They’re singing it, they really mean it in the moment and there are even tears and loud shouts that express that as well. They really mean it. And I really mean it as well.
Of course, the music stops. The meeting ends. The people leave the large room. We go to our various homes and it’s almost as though we agree to never talk about this again until we meet up again next week to do the same thing.
Yet the God that we’re singing to has made abundantly clear that the great command is to love Him and love our neighbour. This is a fundamental Kingdom Command that in response gets us to make that Kingdom Commitment to love the other. To make it even clearer He lets us know who it is He expects us to love.
Family – this area is so important that among the Ten Commandments He addresses how valuable the family dynamic is in forbidding adultery and stating that we should honour our father and mother as well. The Bible is real about dysfunctional families. From the beginning tensions between man and woman and between siblings as well as between parent and child is prevalent. As a loving Father, God desires harmonious families, fully functioning families, flourishing families. The key to that is love. The love of the Father. The love of the Father that sends the Son who loves His Father and obeys Him to the point of the Cross.
That kind of faithful love should be the hallmark of the marriage. The dynamic between husband and wife should reflect the love that Jesus shows for His Bride. It’s crucial. It’s an area in which the proclamation of loving God can be expressed. It’s a great area in which that love is expressed. It’s the foundation for the children to observe what that love looks like and themselves be shown this love and how it should operate in their family interactions.
The family dynamic is not just about blood relatives and those who share the surname. This is about the family that God has created where there are sons and daughters who are filled with life and now people from different ethnic backgrounds who would never otherwise have a reason to connect are joined together. Faith in Jesus makes them brothers and sisters in Him. There is real family that is set to last through eternity. That family is marked by this incredible love of God.
Friends – the qualities and values experienced in the first intimate setting then influences how they engage beyond that setting. After the family there is a circle of friends developed. Friends engage with each other to varying degrees. The idea about the friends, though, is that there is an affinity that connects. Whether that’s found through shared experiences or common goals, the kinship sometimes felt at the family level can be transferred to engagements with others. The quality of the love god gives should be apparent in those friendships too.
A great friendship highlighted in the Bible is that between David and Jonathan. The bond was so strong that David’s outpouring of grief at Jonathan’s death highlighted how deep the love was between them. They were not the only close friendships seen in scripture. What it highlights is that the friendship marked by the love of God sees each in the relationship take delight in enriching the other. It is not self-centred, it is ever giving and delighted in the development and progress of the friend.
The Unfamiliar – We are geared to familiarity. We like it. The unfamiliar? Maybe some curiosity emerges. Probably questioning takes place. Often there is a reluctance to accept and embrace the unfamiliar. That is certainly evident in how strangers in a community are treated. They look different, they have different practices, their customs are different. It can appear unsettling.
God’s people knew what it was like to be mistreated in the land of another. They knew what it was like for fear of the unfamiliar to drive a country to treat them harshly. God was clear that He wanted His people to learn from that experience and have a different attitude to the stranger.
It wasn’t about embracing everything that a stranger came up with. It was about showing strangers His love for them. Love that seeks to understand and to support. Love that seeks to ensure that the stranger does not feel diminished because they are strangers. It’s that kind of approach which allows those who today appear as the strange eventually become a friend.
Enemy – where the love of God really makes a difference in loving the other is when it comes to the one who actively resists and opposes you. It is perfectly understandable to take an antagonistic approach to your enemy. They did you wrong – that cannot be overlooked. They hurt you – how can you not react to that? They clearly dislike you, disrespect you and want to see your downfall – that’s not something you can just shrug your shoulders and easily dismiss.
There are episodes in scripture of enemies being treated with love. The enemy surrounded the prophet of God with the intent to do harm to him. He turned the opportunity around to take them somewhere to be fed and looked after and then sent back to their home when they could have been dealt a significant blow.
Those that God created to be with Him, turned in rebellion to oppose Him and defy Him. They were His enemies and His response was Jesus. Expressing mercy, offering forgiveness, extending reconciliation, proposing restoration and now those who were His enemies were adopted to His family. That amazing expression of loving the enemy was not just present in Jesus – it was present in the creator of the universe providing food and drink, sun and rain and another opportunity to live to all humanity even though their inclination was not towards Him. That’s clearly evident in a world that lacks His love.
Yet His love is present when those who sing those songs about loving Him, truly receive His love, acknowledge His love and realise that this love is to be given. Give to who?
Family, freinds, the unfamiliar and the enemy.
(Photo by Oscar Ivan Esquivel Arteaga on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 
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