For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
A question that was asked to me last night as I was spending one of my final nights at a bar in Chiang Mai.
Truth is, what’s fun about loving the people who don’t love you? Or better yet what’s fun in loving people who don’t deserve it?
This month we have spent many nights at a bar building a relationship with a beautiful woman I call Beauty. Beauty’s heart is gold. She is a ladyboy and has taught me so much about the genuineness of a human heart. One of the first nights with her she told me. “Men have hearts, women have hearts and ladyboys have hearts too.” She went on to explain that because she is a lady boy she is rejected by men who come to buy sex from her bar. She is looked up and down and scoffed at by men when they see that she is a lady boy and that deep down inside she just wants to be loved and happy. That’s some deep stuff on first meeting and I can tell you that our hearts were intertwined with hers shortly after that. She needed to know that she was valued, loved and cherished. It’s been easy to love such a genuine soul.
I’ve always done quite well with loving the misfits, rebels, the minorities the oppressed. Ever since I found what pure love is, loving deeply has been my forte. Often times I get accused of having too much love for people. But I also get told that I have a lot of passion and that I love people very well. And honestly I owe that all to God. It’s a gift that he alone has given to me because I haven’t always had it.
But I am here to tell you that the Johns at the bar really “phunk with my heart”. I say “phunk” because last night as I watched two men a little older than me make out with the beautiful women at the bar that song was playing and it described what I was feeling. I was feeling messed with. You see, we are not just to choose to love the women caught up in the sex industry but also everyone else involved. The johns, the bar owners, the bar moms. The perpetrators, the one who make it happen, the ones who encourage it.
I was conflicted with whether I show them the same love I’ve shown the girls at the bar or if maybe just my smile here and there would suffice. I realized though that I had missed it. When Jesus tells us to love he doesn’t just say love those who love you. He says love your neighbor as you love yourself. Unfortunately some of our neighbors are just horrible.
Over the last few years I have gotten legitimately upset with the church and how they are horrible at loving God’s people. I don’t mean other Christians. I mean every human being that is made in the image of God. There are so many issues in the world that could benefit greatly if the church stepped up and starting loving the way Jesus loved. If they just sat with people in their mess, in their sin and loved anyway without limitations.
As I looked as those men I realized that I was part of the problem. Here I am being proud of my relationship and the love that I allowed to shine through me at the bar this last month, yet I missed the opportunity to love the oppressor.
It’s so easy to love the people who in the world eyes have done nothing wrong in the situation. Whatever that looks like for you. But this love that I believe in does not live by the world standards. It sits with the sinners, the criminals, the murders, the oppressors.
This love is scandalous.
Forgive them Father for they know not what they do is what Jesus said as he was being crucified by the oppressors. As I walked out of the bar my prayer was just that for those men. My heart was choosing who receives this Love when Jesus’ love through me is given to everyone.
When all of our focus is on the people who do good in our eyes we are missing what the gospel is for. The gospel didn’t come for the do gooders, the righteous, the noble people of the world. The gospel came for the sick, the twisted, the wretched, the criminals. The gospel came to redeem what was broken in the world to its original form. We have a lot of work to do when we just show love to the people we think deserve it. Because if we are truly following the gospel none of us deserve this love. If we truly follow the gospel we can start to see the oppressed and the oppressors in the eyes that Jesus sees them and that is through lens of redemption, grace, mercy.
So let this love phunk with your heart. Let it make you uncomfortable. Let it make people think you are crazy. Let this love transform the way you see others. And let that lead you to the way Jesus would love. A love of scandal, forgiveness, & mercy.
