Loving Opposition
On Wednesday, two weeks prior to the election, our church began two weeks of prayer and fasting. For a template we are using a list of 10 commitments that Dr. King’s movement used in the non-violent movement in Birmingham. Each weekday we’re reflecting on one of the commitments, sometimes with slight updates, and a corresponding scripture passage.
Yesterday we looked at the third commitment: “Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.” The scripture came from John 13:34-35: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” For being so simple and direct, both of these caused me some dissonance.
One of the reasons we called the fast was a sense that the days before and after the election will call for American Christians to demonstrate a particular kind of faithfulness and courage. The possibility of deception, chaos, and even violence is not hard to imagine given what we’ve seen in recent months and how so many influential voices are willing to stoke those destructive instincts.
What makes the third commitment feel particularly difficult to me in this moment is the way so many of my fellow-Christians have themselves aligned with or been animated by these dangerous leaders. What does it look like to believe that these sisters and brothers are so thoroughly wrong - and wrong in a manner that threatens lives - and still love them?
Of course, any struggle of mine to love is small when compared with what the participants of the non-violent demonstrations faced. In that case, the adherents pf Christ’s command to love were daily faced by those who made of themselves violent enemies. And yet, I’ve heard the testimonies of those who chose to love their enemies even as their bodies were bruised and beaten.
I find that what the philosopher and theologian Jacques Ellul wrote about prayer helps me imagine a non-violent expression of love. He wrote, Prayer is never other than a sequel, a consequence, a response, to the word of invitation If it is not God who is speaking, then there is nothing. The relationship is begun before the idea of praying occurs to us. I never have the initiative. Otherwise, prayer would in fact be a discourse, a monologue.
Prayer, for Ellul, is a response to the word of God which has already been spoken. It does not create something but acknowledges what has already been created and revealed in Jesus Christ.
I hear a similar expression in Jesus’ command to love. We love as a response to the love that God has expressed in Jesus: “As I have loved you.” We do not create the circumstances which allow us to love others. That possibility has already been accomplished in God’s love for us.
King and those who committed to the way of non-violence, were opposed in their freedom struggle by mobs who claimed to share the same Christian faith. It was necessary and right for the leaders of the movement to state plainly their disagreement with these fellow-Christians and to tell the truth about the many ways the segregationists and racists were doing terrible damage to people and their communities. And still, they refused to enter this spiritual battle armed with anything less than love, “for God is love.”
This, I’m convinced, is what is necessary in the days to come. We need Christians of every race, ethnicity, and culture to obey Christ’s command to love one another. And the witness of the non-violent movement reveals that this command is best understood and expressed not from the comfort of a church pew but from wherever those who fashion themselves as our enemies present themselves. We can love these men and women because we stand on the objective foundation of God’s love for us. It’s the same reason we can place our bodies in peace-making opposition to those same people when they align with violence and deception.
The command to love one another is not at odds with our obligation to seek justice. They are, in fact, sustained by the One who calls us to both.