17. Love demonstrated…
Some years ago, I attended a stage performance which explored the life and music of the famous French singer Edith Piaf. This woman was brought up in a brothel and began singing on the streets at ten years old to earn money for food. She was discovered and became famous but always there was an insecurity in her, a longing for love, that led to many failed relationships with men, to drink and drug addiction. She suffered several car accidents which left her morphine dependant and died at the early age of 47 from liver disease caused by her lifestyle. The Church looked at her lifestyle and refused to bury her, to show compassion and love – her last rejection.
I was reminded of two stories of how Jesus demonstrated unconditional love for two women both considered immoral by the Jewish leaders, rejected for their sinful lives ( read John 8:1-11 and Luke 7:36-50).
The word love does not come into either story as recorded by John and Luke, but love is written all through the action of Jesus – he forgives, he saves, he restores, he loves these two women without thinking of whether they are acceptable in society or how terrible their sins are.
All through history and even today we read of churches who reject people on the basis of their past lives. Phillip Yancey tells a story told to him by a friend in his book “What’s so Amazing about Grace” (page 11):
A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter—two years old! —to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable—I’m required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.
At last, I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. “Church!” she cried. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”
What a terrible and heart-wrenching story. A woman in such dire need, at the end of her tether, desperate for help, but who believed that to go to a church for help was the last thing she would do. A “today story” that echoes the rejections that the two women felt by the church leaders. But Jesus showed them love, compassion, mercy, and he calls on us to follow his example, to love in word and action. To stand up for those who are rejected and speak out against injustice. Again and again in God’s Word we read words like these:
And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy.
Micah 6:8
Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others.
Matthew 7:1-5
Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.
1 John 3:18
Our call is to demonstrate God’s love to those around us all the days of our lives.
Prayer: Lord, forgives us when we have rejected others and renew the love of Christ in us for those who you would not condemn.
Amen
Action: Today, examine your response to those who have sinned and fallen short and remember that includes you (Romans 3:23) then go out and express love in action.
Journal your thoughts…
