For a child raised on Florida’s Space Coast during the Cold
War era, superpower global tension colored everything. There was probably
nothing on earth that better typified the Cold War than the space race, and
everyone in East Central Florida was intimately involved.
For us, the lines were very clear—you were either on one
side or the other. Being in the heart of
a nation with a powerful enemy made every position easy, and the whole world
seemed to understand. If you were for
America, you were against the Soviet Union. Foreign relations were simple; every nation
either lined up with the US or with the USSR.
There was no middle ground. You
couldn’t be for the USSR without being against America. It was a cold war but a war nonetheless, and
in war you either choose sides or risk being the enemy of both.
When the Berlin Wall came down, after a brief feeling of
satisfaction at being on the winning team, I remember thinking, now what? You see, the Cold War not only gave us
something to be for, but it gave us something to be against. For capitalism! Against communism; For freedom! Against communism; For God!
against communism. You're probably
detecting a pattern. It seems that there
is nothing quite so unifying as a good enemy.
When our great enemy fell, it seemed to stagger us nearly as
much as it did them. Without a clear
enemy to be against, it was suddenly much more difficult to understand what we
were for. Like a house of cards where every
card is held up by another card leaning in the opposite direction, our enemy’s
demise placed us in danger of losing our balance as well.
That Cold War-thinking seems to work pretty well in other
areas also: As Christians, we are too often defined by the things we’re against
as much as by the things we’re for. “God
hates fags!” ”God sent Katrina to New
Orleans as punishment.” “ If you're going to take prayer out of schools, you
can expect more Newtowns.” And how
quickly we put it into “us and them” language: For marriage, against
homosexuality; For families, against abortion; For prayer, against
secularism. This kind of overly skewed
thinking, no doubt puts us in a comfortable place, a place with a good enemy, a
place where we assume we know what side we’re on.
While speaking to my pastor and friend Andy a few weeks ago,
I asked him for some advice. The
question: How to be a better spiritual leader?
His grand advice? “Be for something!”
Really? Be for something? That's it?
The point, he explained, is to focus on the thing you’re for and just
don’t engage in the against part. When I
began to understand, it felt a little like the Berlin Wall. How can we maintain
our balance without being propped up by the things we’re against? Won’t we fall
over? Won’t we lose our way? Won’t we be capitulating to the perceived enemy?
Won’t we lose our identity?
As I read the stories of Jesus and the New Testament, this
notion of focusing on what we’re for seems to have a lot of merit. I also realized that most of the “being
against” that we witness in our culture is, or at least looks like, being
against people. As it turns out, we’re
not that good at “loving the sinner and hating the sin.” While Jesus certainly understood right from
wrong and was no pushover, he was always for people. Jesus loved people completely,
unconditionally and eternally, and he instructed all of us to do the same.
Luke 9:49
"Master," said John, "we saw someone driving
out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of
us." "Do not stop him,"
Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you.”
John 13:34
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another:
just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
1 John 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and
whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world...”
So what if we try being wholeheartedly for the things that
are dearest to us without spending any energy being against? It might feel a little unsteady, a little
clumsy, like standing on one leg, but it might show the love and kindness and
forbearance that we receive from Jesus to a world that desperately needs it.
John Monday
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