"Do You Pray for Everyone?"
May. 16th, 2013 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dogriverIt's a little store attached to our apartment building, specializing in East Indian fare. Its previous owner was a friendly gentleman with a wild sense of humor. Before I met Caroline, he was always on the lookout to get me a girlfriend, to the point where he once even asked the young lady standing behind me at the counter if she wanted to go out with me. A bit embarrassing, but you had to like the guy, and I did.
One Sunday, my roommate and I were coming home from church. We stopped at the store to pick up something ... I don't know, maybe some milk, a bag of chips something like that. The store owner asked where we'd been, and I told him we'd been in church.
"How was it?" he asked. I said it had been great. Then he asked the question that has stuck with me ever since: "At your church, do you pray for everyone?"
This was such a good question, and it caused me to do a bit of a double take. I realized that the answer had better be yes, or else I really needed to question the church I was attending. Thankfully, I could say "yes" with a clear conscience.
One of the hardest commands, I think, for some people is Christ's command to "love your neighbor as yourself." Instinctively, we want to add qualifiers to that. Love this neighbor or that neighbor, or you don't really have to love the person if they've hurt you, just hurt them back, or we're bombing you in love, honest we are.
Christians are no better and no worse at the whole loving your neighbor business than anyone else. But because we're under direct orders, as it were, to do this, we're under more scrutiny. Many nonChristians take considerable delight in disclosing any infractions. I don't agree with taking delight in the wrong of others: if you delight in someone else's misfortunes, you're hardly showing a lot of love yourself. But it's true that Christians have a hard time with this.
What does it mean to love our neighbor? Some people think they can love with their wallet. If we give these people lots of money, they'll shut up and we've done our part. Other people think it's about a public show of kindness: Hey everyone, look what I did for those undeserving misfits!
Still other people think that the best way to love your neighbor is to make sure you only have the kind of neighbors you want to love. Make sure that "undesirables" don't move into our neighborhood in the first place. Keep out the detritus of society, detritus being defined as anyone who isn't "one of us".
I can't speak for non-Christians. You have your principles and your reasons for following them. But as a Christian, it's incumbent on me to love everyone. I don't have to like everyone, but I do have to love them. When Christ gives us His commands: love your neighbor as yourself; do unto others as you would have them do unto (not as they have done unto you, mind you); and so many others, one thing He does not do is qualify His statements. He doesn't say, "You don't have to love this group or that group"; he doesn't say, "Those people are undesirables, so the golden rule doesn't apply"; and He doesn't say "Pretend to love your neighbor as yourself."Christ's commandments to us are much more powerful, largely because of what He doesn't say. We would do well, I think, to remember this. IF someone asks me, "Do you pray for everyone?", my answer had darned well better be yes.
One Sunday, my roommate and I were coming home from church. We stopped at the store to pick up something ... I don't know, maybe some milk, a bag of chips something like that. The store owner asked where we'd been, and I told him we'd been in church.
"How was it?" he asked. I said it had been great. Then he asked the question that has stuck with me ever since: "At your church, do you pray for everyone?"
This was such a good question, and it caused me to do a bit of a double take. I realized that the answer had better be yes, or else I really needed to question the church I was attending. Thankfully, I could say "yes" with a clear conscience.
One of the hardest commands, I think, for some people is Christ's command to "love your neighbor as yourself." Instinctively, we want to add qualifiers to that. Love this neighbor or that neighbor, or you don't really have to love the person if they've hurt you, just hurt them back, or we're bombing you in love, honest we are.
Christians are no better and no worse at the whole loving your neighbor business than anyone else. But because we're under direct orders, as it were, to do this, we're under more scrutiny. Many nonChristians take considerable delight in disclosing any infractions. I don't agree with taking delight in the wrong of others: if you delight in someone else's misfortunes, you're hardly showing a lot of love yourself. But it's true that Christians have a hard time with this.
What does it mean to love our neighbor? Some people think they can love with their wallet. If we give these people lots of money, they'll shut up and we've done our part. Other people think it's about a public show of kindness: Hey everyone, look what I did for those undeserving misfits!
Still other people think that the best way to love your neighbor is to make sure you only have the kind of neighbors you want to love. Make sure that "undesirables" don't move into our neighborhood in the first place. Keep out the detritus of society, detritus being defined as anyone who isn't "one of us".
I can't speak for non-Christians. You have your principles and your reasons for following them. But as a Christian, it's incumbent on me to love everyone. I don't have to like everyone, but I do have to love them. When Christ gives us His commands: love your neighbor as yourself; do unto others as you would have them do unto (not as they have done unto you, mind you); and so many others, one thing He does not do is qualify His statements. He doesn't say, "You don't have to love this group or that group"; he doesn't say, "Those people are undesirables, so the golden rule doesn't apply"; and He doesn't say "Pretend to love your neighbor as yourself."Christ's commandments to us are much more powerful, largely because of what He doesn't say. We would do well, I think, to remember this. IF someone asks me, "Do you pray for everyone?", my answer had darned well better be yes.
