radical loving

Again, I know I've blogged about this before. This is my space, along with the conversations I have with people, where I get to refine my thoughts and so get a clearer perspective on how I want to live my life. So it's kind of old ground, but important for me to keep working on it :) Feel free to skip on to some cute cats elsewhere on the interweb if you prefer :)

There's a parable that has never sat easily with me but at the same time inspires and challenges me. I may have got the conventional theology of it wrong, but this is how I read it (and that's one of the things about theology, we have our own agendas to begin with and find stuff that confirms it. So you may have an entirely different reading, but this is how it speaks to me. Comments below always welcome!!)

Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16)

In this story, the workers get paid just as much even if they've only worked the last hour as those who started at daybreak. I think God's love/grace is like that, She loves us all loads and equally - those that go to church daily and those that say an odd prayer. Those that do The Right Thing all the time, and those that are permanently mucking it up and maybe (shock, horror) not even noticing! I think it's a real toughy cos we're definitely in a culture of feeling some are more deserving than others. Now, of course, I'm not God, but I do want to try to love people like I think God would. This can be quite a radical concept, and is what I admire about what I read about Jesus. So the challenge I'm given is to love equally passionately the person who made me a tray of chocolate brownies and the person who damaged my car wing mirror. That the love I have for others isn't something earned by people being nice to me, or time served, but is as unconditional as I can humanly make it. I don't claim to always manage it but I think aiming to do this is ace ;) And I know some people imprint way more deeply than others, it's not like I'd miss some folk as much as I miss others, but can you imagine what the world would be like if this was the normal, rather than radical, way of loving people?

Since I'm not God, I don't have infinite time so I do make my choices as to who I pay attention to, as I've said before. I try to make sure that this is as many people I come across as possible, and not just those I've already chosen because they seem easy to love :) I'd be deluded if I actually thought I loved the unknown child scrambling over my wall on a shortcut home from school, as much as I loved a child I'd pushed out from my own body. But I think it's a great principle, what if that kid WAS one of my own, how would I react, is it possible to show as much love and concern to them as I would my own offspring? If we don't love one another that well, it can go wrong. When we start to think that we should love or relate to some folk more than others, that's where preferential treatment can set in. When there's the view we don't have to care so much about one person or group of people, cos they're not the same family/nationality/skin colour/educational background/size, (you name an identity it could be slotted here) because somehow in our minds we've figured they're not quite as deserving as "people like me."

And so, far fetched as it may sound, loving everyone is how I want to live. If, as I believe, love is a decision we make and constantly remake, it's possible to keep trying to love people. The people who get up our noses, the people we feel at our most comfortable with, AND the people who we've just met (and so convention says we've no reason to love). Does that mean I love my family or oldest friends any less, cos I'm loving other people too? I don't think so, I don't hold to a finite view of love. My experience is the more I love, the more love I have. How fabulous is that :D 

I'm not on my own. Just seen this. Stick with it :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itvnQ2QB4yc