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Because They Exist
By: Tony Griffies
One night Rick showed up sort of beaten-looking. He had been to some sort of ministers' reception where a guy spoke about how the church has lost touch with people who didn't know about Jesus. Rick said he was really convicted about this and asked us if we thought we needed to repent and start loving people who were very different from us....Rick said he thought that meant we should live missional lives, that we should intentionally befriend people who are different from us....he was talking about loving people just because they exist... (from Blue Like Jazz , p. 135).
I like things that make me comfortable. You know what I mean? Dress clothes are nice and all, but when I get home, one of the first things I do is change into a pair of shorts and a favorite t-shirt. Why? Because they're comfortable. And I have a certain place on the couch I tend to sit, because it's comfortable. I love music, but only if the volume is at a (you guessed it) comfortable level. I don't know that I can identify any particular ěcomfort foodî for me, but I know that I like certain foods over other foods, so I suppose my favorite foods bring me a sense of comfort. I like things that make me comfortable. I enjoy hanging out with close friends, people I can be myself around -- it's comfortable. One of things I love about my wife is that we are very comfortable with each other. I would rather be comfortable than not. Wouldn't we all? I wonder how Jesus would respond to this.
He loved us simply because we exist. |
I suspect that Jesus was not really into comfort for himself. Scripture tells us that the Son of Man did not have anywhere to lay his head. In the context of this passage, Jesus seems to say that if we are going to follow him, we should not expect the journey to be one of personal comfort. I don't like hearing this, because (as I said) I like to be comfortable. I think I have the most comfortable bed in the known world (no kidding). If you don't believe me, just ask my wife. She says the same thing. I also thank God quite often for air conditioning. I know many of you do, as well. I don't believe Jesus is saying, ěHey! I never had the world's most comfortable bed, nor did I have air conditioning! You can't have those things either if you want to be my disciple.î What I do think Jesus is saying is that if my comfort supersedes my commitment to follow Jesus, I'm going to get left behind.
Another thing about Jesus was that he modeled the very thing that our friend Rick in the above story was talking about -- loving people simply because they exist. I see Jesus loving people everywhere he went. Jairus, the woman at the well, Zacchaeus, the woman who had been subject to bleeding, John, Peter, lepers, children, his mother, the demon-possessed -- Jesus loved all of these and so many more simply because they existed. I have trouble loving the way Jesus loved. It is one thing to love Susan, or to love my friends, or to love my parents, or to love people who I think are ěnormalî or who I think are ěsafe.î It is all together harder to love people who make me uncomfortable, though. I am talking about the person who dresses funny, or whose hair looks dirty, maybe he hasn't showered in a few days, or the person who tells me they like to get wasted on the weekends, or the girl who confesses that she is sleeping with her boyfriend, or the person who just...you know...is broken. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I spend too much time trying to find people who are easy, whose lives appear to be whole rather than broken.
The truth is that Jesus came for the broken, the weird, the dirty, the outcast, the demeaned, the "uncool," the poor; he came for all of us, and he loved us simply because we exist. I want to be like that, even if it makes me uncomfortable.
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