Is it possible to care for someone without having designs for him or her? Is it possible to love someone without having an agenda, no matter how glorious or noble? Is it possible to respect someone without having dreams or wishes for that person? These are very real questions that I ask. They are not hypothetical either, but real and urgent and necessary.
Jesus got angry with the teachers because they were laying burdens upon the people, burdens no doubt birthed from the teachers’ well-informed and studied dreams, desires, wishes, agendas and plans for the people. I don’t think for a second that their intentions were evil, but good and admirable. Could they love and teach the people without burdening them at all? Could they teach them without their teaching being pregnant with expectations? Could they love them with their desires as a community completely detached?
This is the problem: not that we need to purify our wishes for others, but to crucify them; not that we must make lovelier strings to attach to our love, but to cut them off altogether; not that we must baptize our agendas, but to lay them down once and for all; not that we must passionately make our visions more heavenly, but to forsake them now. What destroys true community is the layers of expectation, agenda, vision and wishes that are pressed upon it. This is why love is very much like death… because in both we must learn to let go. And this is why, my friends, we refuse to love… because it is too much like death… death to ourselves and all our desires.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
Thanks. I love having to think about real stuff every few days!! Seriously, it is a very true and relevant point. I am trying to grapple with it as a parent of a teenager, aswell as working in the church and community work. Much of our love for others and for God is often about us and our expectations. Maybe our journey is about God showing us ourselves a bit at a time and giving the grace for repentance and change and renewal a bit at a time. Thank you for the honesty, it helps me.
Is it possible to love without an agenda? I fear it is not. However much we seek to cut off our own desires they will resurface, for they shape every thought and motive we have. I think the best I can hope for is an awareness of my own agenda which enables me to place it in its proper context. I think it is OK to have needs, to require something from the other; that is what relationships are. And doesn’t even God have an agenda in loving us? Doesn’t he desire our redemption, even though he holds back from forcing it on us?
David,
You asked the questions: Is it possible to care for someone without having designs for him or her? Is it possible to love someone without having an agenda, no matter how glorious or noble? Is it possible to respect someone without having dreams or wishes for that person? These are very real questions that I ask. They are not hypothetical either, but real and urgent and necessary.
——-To your first question, I think it depends on what you mean by “care.”
——-To your second questions, I don’t think the Bible teaches you can love someone with and agenda. God certainly had an agenda for Adam and Eve–”Don’t eat….” If God hadn’t had an agenda for angels, I suppose Satan would not have been cast down to earth. And finally, Jesus tells us, “IF [caps mine] you love me, you will obey my commands.” Certainly an agenda there.
You asked: “Is it possible to respect someone without having dreams or wishes for that person?”
——As a pastor, in reference to my/God’s flock, I say no. For my dream and wish is that everyone in my flock will become everything that God wants them to become. Now I don’t know what God wants them to become, individually, but I know He has more them Christians than they become. It is my responsibility to encourage them to seek the answer[s] from God, but I certainly have never been given the ability to know and tell them to do this, become that.
You: “Could they love and teach the people without burdening them at all? Could they teach them without their teaching being pregnant with expectations? Could they love them with their desires as a community completely detached?”
——Jesus’ teachings didn’t come with detatchments. Again, “IF you love me….” The apostle Paul surely didn’t teach with a detached expectation.
You: “What destroys true community is the layers of expectation, agenda, vision and wishes that are pressed upon it.”
——Yes, there can be those in authority that can press so hard that they destroy community. However, the real killer of the Christian community [local] is a congregation that does NOT move towards any of the expectations, agenda, vision, and even wishes of the Shepherds–if the teachings are based solely on the Bible. I believe a good example is the 7 Churches of Revelation. Jesus, in his encouragement and rebukes of them clearly lays out: expectation, agenda, vision, and wishes.
Seems I am always disagreeing with you. I do believe after this post I will take a break and save my comments. To some of your faithful responders and friends, I must seem like a devisive man, always on the attack. I probably would be considered even one of those you are all striving not to be.
David, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, give up.
fishon
If we know how horrible it feels to have someone want us to be someone we’re not, to feel that they don’t accept us as we are…then we won’t do that to someone else.
You can want your friend to grow, to go as God wants them to be led – but you must remember they are God’s first, yours second. His path for them is perfect, yours can never be.
Fishon, you don’t seem divisive to me at all, just coming from a different place.
Blessings,
Sas x
fishon: i can’t address all your questions or comments, but I will address the one about being silent after this. i encourage dissent, disagreement, dialogue, discourse. i think it is fruitful to ask the question and investigate. i respect your voice and like to hear it. i think the truth will come clear to us as we explore it together. so, i say unto you as you say unto me: don’t give up!
Thank you for saying things I’ve been thinking. I am going to link this post on my blog.
Very…um…Buddhist.
Love binds. I am bound to my wife in love. I desire her. I desire the best for her (not that I necessarily know what that means all the time).
You can’t have both love and detachment.
Buddha is detachment.
God is love.
hmmmm…good points. I think about this in terms of a person who used to be a friend (I thought a good one) until some other people told some outright lies about some stuff involving that person and myself. So, now my friend (former friend I guess) totally ignores me, even though that person knows the others were lying (lied about them too)….
I keep thinking that to be “loving” means to reach out to my friend and try to re-establish a relationship even though we are both hurt by what happened.
But, that’s my agenda…their agenda is to act like I don’t exisit. So…truly, it’s more loving to “not exisit” in their orbit, but just walk off and leave them alone even though it hurts me to think of that because I respected and valued their friendship….
Tried to be cryptic….hope it doesn’t sound pathetic. LOL!
Loving is to have the other person’s agenda at the forefront is what I think I’m trying to say.
Anyway, thanks for the thought provoking post…
To label something, such as “buddhist”, is often a means to dismiss the concept rather than deal with it. Is it possible that the buddhists have some truth?
Yes, it’s possible that Buddhists have some truth. But in terms of love and complete detachment, Buddhism are diametrically opposed. God created us. He created desire. He desires us. He desires us to desire him. He didn’t create us for detachment, but for Attachment.
Fred the issue comes to me in this way. If we are teaching that whoever should follow God where ever he leads, but then we tell them where to go all the time who is really leading. For someone to come unto the fullness of God’s plan for them, they have to be left alone by others to follow that path without human meddling.
the power of that hit’s me right between the eyes…
“What destroys true community is the layers of expectation, agenda, vision and wishes that are pressed upon it.”
reminds me of bonhoeffer: if you love community, you will kill it; if you love the brethren you will foster community
but more than that, the next piece of of love and death taking us to the same place…
i need to take up my cross more…
Nate Peres:
“Fred the issue comes to me in this way. If we are teaching that whoever should follow God where ever he leads, but then we tell them where to go all the time who is really leading. For someone to come unto the fullness of God’s plan for them, they have to be left alone by others to follow that path without human meddling.”
Agreed. I’m kind of wondering how what I said may have led you to understand that that’s what I might have meant…
I mean not what I meant…
Boy, I hate not being able to edit my own comments…
This blog is a faint reminder of a book I just finished reading, The Shack. (I think you can find more about it at theshackbook.com ) It’s messing me up! The way I think about/meet/love Him and others is changing…
Fishon, I value your thoughts on np’s posts and hope you will continue to share them.
I can relate to this topic so much. I also have three teens/young adults, as well as a sister-in-law who is suffering from mental illness. I have very strong ideas about what I want for all of them, but I do realize it may not be what God wants for them, or in His time. I do try to pray that it is God’s will that be done for them, not mine. (But it sure is nice when those two things happen to be the same!)
Hey Jack, I just read that book too.
What do you mean by “messing you up”
Would love to hear more!
Peace during your Journey Jack.
Sarah x
Honey chile:
Ya know God is Love, and God is Life. Jus think, jus for a minute. Nope, death ain’t nothin like Adonai-Jehovah. Jus cain’t be so. Ya know perfect love cast out fear. Ya know perfect love, is growed-up, mature love, an grown up mature love, does not want anything. It’s complete. Jus think now, who is the originator of love. And jus wonder on bout, what luv is you talkin bout, Agape, eros, storgia or philio ? son, we suppose to love the Lord our God with all our might, all our soul, and with everythin we got. Our eye is to be as a doves eye, that focuses on only one thing. The Great I AM. Ya see, i recollect, that it really is not by might, nor by power, but by the Holy Spirit. an i suppose, that the love that is shed abroad in our hearts, will be by the Holy Spirit. an i suppose, that’s really the only way to really love, is by His Spirit. Yep, we are sposed to be, vessels, for Him to use, as He pleases. Ya know He is Wisdom. The designer of all genius the world has ever known. Ya know it says i can do all things through Christ. That’s the only way to really love, ya know, i figer, that it a Spiritual thing, cain’t be a flesh act, ya know. How else can ya pray fer yer enemies. ain’t no good thing in the flesh, or act’s from a carnal head.
don wanna say to much.
Be blessed baby, n Jesus Name. The Lover of My Soul.
do it by the Spirit. compare Spiritual things, with Spiritual things.
Yawl be blessed, an run on after God.
Doesn’t love itself mandate us to have ‘designs’ on those that we care for?
“I feel a divine jealousy for you…I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be lead astray from a sincere devotion to Christ” wrote Paul.
This especially relates to the area of Christian teaching, where notions can so easily be introduced which effectively dislocate us from the Gospel.
The teachers Christ denounced were not merely providing well-informed or good-intentioned instruction – they had added and subtracted from God’s promises and were judged for doing so (how I wish we heard more about Christ’s passion week denounciation of such, as recorded in Matthew 23 – anyone who shuts people off from God’s Kingdom are seriously dangerous).
Finally, is Christianity about my working to purify desires or wishes, or is it a recognition that in my flesh dwells no good thing, and that redemption is trusting in the finished work of God in Christ, which then empowers a wretch like me to live life in a fashion where His righteousness, grace and life enfold and become my sufficiency?
“I am a Jealous God.” That is the issue for me. When we have designs for a person, and bring them to fruition, that person is no longer God’s. Then we have betrayed God.
Very interesting post. I just stumbled on your blog through my google rss recommendation.
I like it.