A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.  -John 13: 34,35

I have written before about how we allow the world around us to define what love is for the Church today.  But, I think there is also a misunderstanding about this verse and the object of our love.  The world likes to throw out the ‘love’ card from time to time.  They hold us hostage to their ideas and if we don’t follow along they accuse us of being unloving.  But we shouldn’t be surprised if the world hates us they first hated Christ, to the point of crucifixion John 15:18.  Matthew 10:34 tells us that we may have to hate our very family in following Jesus.  We are called to bring peace, shalom to the world not by doing whatever they want but by reconciling them to God with the Gospel.  Getting along with the world is not up to us, but getting along with each other is, which is what this verse is about.

Jesus is here giving his final command to the disciples before his death.  He basically says, the world will know you and your new group of Christians by your love for one another.  This became true the early church got a reputation for it’s love within the body.  Wealthy people sold their goods to care for the poor Acts 2:45. Widows were taken in and cared for Acts 6.  Women were welcomed as equals into the church Acts 5.  We take these things for granted today because the Christian principles have gone so deep into our culture that we can’t imagine it any other way.  That is just further proof of the deep success of these ideas.  (We do the same thing with the cup of water verse from Matthew 10:42.  It’s not about any cup of water for anyone. It is a cup of water for a disciple, because he is a disciple, under peril of being associated with Jesus.)

Hebrew ‘shalom’. Yes it is unfortunate that the meaning of the rainbow has been stolen by Satan. We shouldn’t have let it happen.

But the sad reality is that this is not how the Church is known today.  Granted the world is more Christianized than it has ever been and they hold us to a higher standard.  But the reality is that much of this is our own fault.  There are are so many denominations these days Christians can’t even keep them straight, much less would we expect the world to do so.  As a result they are free to proclaim that everyone just believes whatever they want, that the Bible is open to interpretation.  Sadly this is what the Church by and large believes.  We are so busy distinguishing ourselves from other denominations that we forgot to distinguish ourselves from the world with our unity, or doctrine for that matter.

It’s tragic but true that we almost have more in common with the World than any given other denomination.  Our economics are directed by Karl Marx.  Our view of humans is directed by Sigmund Freud.  Our view of human origins is directed by Darwin.  Our view of history and literature directed by secular post-Biblical academia.  Scripture speaks on each of these issues very profoundly, yet we take the world’s position, we sign up with the principalities and powers that we are called to fight.  We bicker and ridicule other churches for taking the unity of the Catholic church too far.  We bash the Charismatics for overzealous emphasis of the Holy Spirit.  Meanwhile we believe 90% of what the world does.  We have misunderstood these verses, our goal is not to make the world like us, but to make the like us. Our goal is not to make the world accept us but to make the world conform to Jesus.

Now I am not saying that doctrine is not important.  But rather than doing the hard thing and debating out the doctrine with our fellow Christians we just leave and start our own movement.  Most of my pastors have even encouraged me to go find another Chruch.  We don’t appreciate the power of paradox, old vs. young, mature vs. immature, male vs. female, wise vs. wile eyed, slow vs. fast.  These tensions make the body stronger.  They make marriage work and they makes the Church work despite it not making sense to our worldly scientific minds.  Rather than prostrating ourselves before the cross humbly with our ideas, rather than giving up whatever pet issue to get along, rather than listening to the words of a brother with a differing viewpoint and considering that we might be wrong, we hold onto our own doctrine and form exclusive clubs.  There is one on every corner in Bozeman, they have little interaction between them.  There are pieces of Jesus’ body drawn and quartered hanging from the gates of our fair city. Then we sue the world for peace.  No wonder we are not effective.

I was just introduced to a new way of looking at these verses recently:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Just like Israel in the Old Testament, we are blessed by God as a priestly people, so that we may minister to the world.  It’s not about saving our own butts from fire, it’s about sanctifying the world.  Salt is a preservative, light is a guide.  We have the truth, we are supposed to implement this wisdom in the world so that we may preserve all that we can.  They have no clue what they are doing, they think marriage and gender are choices, they don’t even know that a defenseless baby is a human.  Why would we expect them to make laws or understand humanity or history or science correctly?  We are the salt.  We are the light.  Without us the world falls into darkness and rots.  And that is not far off from the situation these days.  As Romans 1 points out:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them