Both English and the vernaculars of my earthly home (Africa’s
Great Lakes) don’t adequately communicate the depth of possibilities and
meaning for what in English we call “Love.”
Maybe, even our linguistic shortcoming is actually an indictment of the
failings of our humanity. We many
times say “I love ____” when our real meaning is “I want ___,” “I need ____,” and “I desire _____.” This is the toddler view of love. In the toddler view love is a means of
acquisition for selfish gain.
A few
years ago, my older children were quarreling over “fault.” According to each one’s perspective the
problem of the day was not “their fault,” but “the fault of the competing
sibling.” My youngest at the time was
a toddler beginning his language acquisition.
When he heard an argument over possession he ran to the middle of the
argument pushed his siblings aside, and proclaimed, “No. It is my fault.” His toddler view of love required him to
acquire all he could. Siblings get out
of the way.
We
giggle at toddler view of love as acquisition.
Yet, maturity only brings sophistication in love as acquisition.
I’ve
spent most of my adult life pastoring.
Much of that has been in places of the world with less financial resources
than the United States. I’ve seen many
moments of both heart break and triumph.
All stir our emotions. When our
emotions stir we use the language of love to convey what is happening. In these moments we often settle for
incomplete love. Our incomplete love sees
humans as tools for acquisition. Humanity
becomes photo opportunities, blogs, marketing material, and laborers in an acquisition
race for more resources and influence.
Sovereign
God created language. Humanity is
always recreating. At certain moments
in time we get it right. During the
season that Jesus walked the earth one word to describe love was the Greek word
“phileo,” the love of brothers and friends.
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| Ballet Rwanda December 2011 |
We can’t
survive without the love of siblings and friends. Little girls on the playground become
friends and share their feelings. Little
boys quickly find playmates for the games and competitions of life. As time goes on we thrive in a community of
camaraderie no matter our age. We know
it is the glue of life. It creates a
community that plays and laughs together.
Our experiences are shared. Even
the painful experiences become internal jokes in phileo. High success teams are high phileo
teams.
Yet phileo is an incomplete
love. It is a love of inclusion based
upon common joy in pursuit. What
happens when our community must include another who does not share the common
past? What happens when jokes aren’t funny? What happens when another’s fashion is awkward? Even what happens when someone on the team
smells bad? If our love is only phileo
it is incomplete. This is particularly
true for those of us called to shepherd.
Maybe it is even more so for those of us shepherding far from our shared
joy in pursuit?
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| CCR's Covenant Handover of Gabriel Mugisha Jacobs |
Before
Jesus began walking the earth his Hebrew predecessors used the word, “hessed”
to describe love. English has no single
word to describe this love. Many
translate it as “steadfast loving kindness.”
When our colleague doesn’t share our past, tells bad jokes, wears
awkward fashion, and smells bad; we must make a choice. We choose to practice hessed. We remember we live in covenant. We’ve made a commitment to this relationship
and this endeavor. The commitment is
one we cannot leave. In fact, the Old
Testament uses hessed to describe this hessed love of God in its fullness. God keeps His covenants even when we humans
abandon ours. He is always there for
us. Also, His care is the gentle
nurture of kindness. Hessed makes our
love more complete. Typically, we see
it in matters like enduring marriages and business partnerships. Local churches thrive when they have a
consistent pastoral presence. Hessed
is seen when you watch couples at 50 year anniversaries giggling and flirting
with one another. It also is seen when
business partners retire as friends.
Pastors who practice hessed answer late night phone calls. They come to be with their people when the
easiest thing to do is to hide behind professionalism. Hessed is one of the reasons I am such an
advocate for marriage when a society is recovering from internal turmoil. Hessed brings unity. It broadens and strengthens extended
families. Over generations hessed
builds national unity. Yet, hessed is
an incomplete love.
Hessed
is about kindness in covenant. What
happens when covenants are not formed?
What happens when our covenant community has conflict with another covenant
community? Feuds and civil wars come
with such fury because our internal hessed desire has gone astray. In fact, humanity’s greatest tragedies of
depravity were ones when covenant became exclusive. What united was the destruction of another
community. Hessed can be an incomplete
love.
One of
the pitfalls of hessed is that we do not “feel” with all other humanity. In conflict we tend to dehumanize our
opponents. We strip them of humanity
and portray them as demons. Conversely,
we tend to make our leaders such human demi-gods that we forget God is the hero
of humanity’s stories.
I am an
American evangelical who has lived most of my adult life in Africa’s Great
Lakes. My hessed community is a very
broad and at times a contradictory one.
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| Kampala Kids League Simba Team |
One of my favorite memories from
our Uganda season was volunteering with Kampala Kid’s League (KKL.) It once pushed my hessed to the very edge
of my humanity. I was once assigned to
coach the Libyan ambassador’s daughter.
My American evangelical clan would have wanted for me to consider this
child an enemy. During our first practice
she called me, “Sir.” She was a good
athlete. She was a born leader. She cheered for all the other kids on our
team. She won me over rapidly. For her, race, nationality, and religion
were irrelevant to both our humanity and our shared team goals. I found myself deeply regretting the hatred
my American evangelical clan had taught me towards Libya. I never met her dad. The bodyguards quickly ushered her away from
practices and games. Yet, she was one
of those young people that as time matured I hoped would no longer call me, “Coach
and Sir,” but “friend.”
The Arab Spring struck a small
terror in my heart. I had not seen this
delightful young woman in years. I
guessed her family could be in danger.
I searched for her on Facebook.
I asked old coaches if they knew how she was doing. I even asked friends in media and
government who may have known the family’s whereabouts. The ones who may have known giggled. Only a pastor could ask these questions and
be taken serious. If they knew the
answer they had to be quiet.
I know many in our Great Lakes
of Africa region have Libyan friends. I
chose to pray for this girl publicly at Christ’s Church in Rwanda. I watched heads nod among my African
brothers and sisters when I said, “I have Libyan friends. I don’t know if they are safe. I don’t care that much about the politics,
but I do care about my friends. Can you
pray with me?” CCR is a multi-national
church. An American Embassy employee
told me he felt the same way. Yet,
another couple of Americans were offended and left.
As my concern increased, and I
could find no news through relationship networks I turned to Google. I created a bunch of different
searches. I found my old friend. She was safe. She had signed a petition about the
environment at a university function.
My guess is her family had decided to keep her almost untraceable, and I
stumbled upon her last voice. It was
classic for her. She was rallying
others to a cause that was good. In the
Google search I also came across a list of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi mistresses. One suspected
mistress was the grandmother of my friend.
The internet is a strange source of news and information. It thrives on rumors. Sometimes it whispers what we all
intuitively know is true, but cannot say or document. Sometimes it just spreads untruthful mythology. Was my friend, Gaddafi’s granddaughter? I do not know, but the story has elements of
consistency with what I know of her body guards, connections, and inherited athleticism
and charisma.
When
much of the world cheered at Gaddafi’s death I grieved. I remembered a little girl who called me, “Sir,”
and brought out the best in our team.
Phileo and hessed had taken me to a new place of love called compassion. The thought of a little girl as a young
woman crying over the loss of her grandfather caused me to cry in pain.
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| After weeping with Mary and Martha Jesus brought Lazarus to life |
The Greek language of Jesus’ day
used the word splaxna to describe this love of compassion. Splaxna is the word from which English
creates spleen. Jesus’ compassion was
the love that causes us to literally have “shaky guts” for others. It is humanity in our created glory. When one in our community is in trouble we
feel their pain. Our bodies and spirits
feel inconsolable pain with another. The
shortest verse in the Bible is, “Jesus wept (John 11:35.)” We memorize it as children. As adults we remember it when we cry for joy
at weddings and weep with grief at funerals.
Compassion is the point where our human dignity in the flesh meets the
divine. We feel the emotions that God
himself feels. These emotions are
passionate. They strengthen all the
parts of our incomplete loves of phileo and hessed. Compassion makes us both better friends and
better covenant keepers. Compassion
reminds the old married couple of who was holding their hand when they woke up
from surgery. Compassion causes middle
class families to adopt orphans and give them full legal and relationship
rights. Compassion causes us to
sacrifice for another with joy. Compassion
requires for us to move beyond feelings to action.
Yet, compassion is an incomplete
love. Compassion requires for us to be
present. It is neither a distant love
nor a fantasy world. The Aid industry
thrives on incomplete compassion. In
fact, during December as year-end gifts are sought pseudo compassion becomes a
thriving marketing tool. The west is
bombarded by images of poor children in developing nations. A
missionary friend of mine called this marketing tool, “vicarious grief.” The emotion is truly felt. Yet presence is not given. Vicarious grief makes it easy to “like” on
Facebook and re-tweet on Twitter.
Vicarious grief makes it easy to stop for a moment in channel
surfing. Vicarious grief allows one to
feel they are a participant when they are not. It actually leads to a dulling of
humanity. It strips the suffering of
their dignity. It creates an emotion,
but it is not an authentic emotion of presence.
Vicarious grief becomes an addictive cycle of seeking a more shocking
photo or story to stir emotions and raise resources. It is no wonder why so many thought leaders
outside of the United States emotions quickly turn to anger at marketing that
promotes vicarious grief.
Phileo, hessed, and splaxna are
love. They are real. They are part of being human. They bring us to a place of behaving like
God. Yet, each in a certain way is a
love with a reward. Phileo creates
friendship. Hessed creates trust. Splaxna creates passion. Life requires all.
Yet, these loves are completed
in another word in which both English and Great Lakes’ vernaculars cannot
express in a single word. The Greeks
called this word agape. This is the
love of relinquishment. It is the love
of sacrifice. It is the love where
there is no personal return. It is the
love that endures over time. It is
supremely seen in Jesus, the Son of God giving up all the glories of heaven to
dwell with men. He laughed with
us. He made water to wine to keep the
party going. He called us friends. He covenanted and promised to always dwell
with us. When he saw our pain he
wept. He used his full authority to
remove our pain. Yet, his authority
could not remove the eternal pain of suffering our sin created. Thus in the love of agape sacrifice he laid
down his life. His surrender was
brutal. His agape bought our freedom.
Today, agape completes our
incomplete love. We rarely truly see
agape, because it is the love of relinquishment. It brings little glory. It returns little in the immediate. Yet, it is the love that endures. Maybe, we see agape best when one after a
long struggle relinquishes all the rewards of the struggle? Maybe, we see it best when a leader steps aside
in his prime of leadership so that another generation can lead? Maybe, we see it best when a leader chooses
to make his institution stronger than his charisma?
Agape completes our hopes of
human love. It takes us beyond the love
of toddlers for acquisition. Our words
can barely express this sacrificial love of relinquishment. May we instead live it.
