Thoughts On Loving Like Christ

This Is Copied From Our Discipliship Blog at church. It might make more sense in the context of the message it was a reply to. I wanted to post it here, because I believe it is vital that I remember the kind of Love Christ calls us to:

Who do I want to keep? How far do I want to love? Do I want to love the crack whore on lower Whacker as much as I want to love Bob who goes to my church? Do I want to love the 11 year boy in the Ivory Coast who is beaten regularly if he does not pick his daily quota of cocoa? Do I want to love the gay AIDS patient in East Grenwich?

Jesus separated his disciple and set them apart from the rest of the world, by the measure of their love. The measure was not for their love of the fellow church goers. The measure was the love of the dark places of the world.

Friar Thomas writes the following:

He told them another parable: 'The kingdom of God is like yeast which a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.' (Matthew 13:33)

Jesus says the kingdom of God is like leaven. In the ancient Mediterranean world as we saw, leaven had very negative associations. It was the archetype of uncleanness and corruption. Leaven was made by putting a piece of bread in a dark, damp place until it molded and stank. Both leaven and the process of leavening were symbols of corruption... In this parable Jesus addresses the popular idea that the kingdom of God is holy, good, and triumphant. The kingdom turns out to be active in the marginalized and the poor, both of whom regarded in Jesus' day as objects of God's abandonment. The state of poverty was regarded as the result of sin and hence was a symbol of corruption. Natural calamities"

Jesus' call to his disciples for "Love One Another" is best understood when we understand that this kind of love for tha marginalized is the yeast and that the dough is the Kingdom of God.

Any religous body will work to love each other. A group of Christians seeking to be a part of the disciples of the Kingdom of God will work to love the unloveable. That too who we need to keep!