Eats with Sinners

Early Scriptures preserves the ruins of a different kind of battle, communal and nonviolent, where love and purity were the weapons of choice against foreign power and moral deterioration. A sect, known as Christians, were immensely resisted and persecuted for their radical views they upheld. With Roman domination breathing down their necks and a Jewish religion that illustrated their hatred by their loyalty to Rome and dedication to exonerating the world of these blasphemers, the early Christians chose the weapon of love.

Jesus’ revolutionary ethics revolved around this four-letter word. Love shatters conventional wisdom and runs against the grain of our own intuition. The concept progresses beyond the boundaries of family and behavior. The early followers disarmed the enemy without firing a shot. The practice of love by the early disciples became so abusive and stirred such resentment that various Roman decrees sought to regulate the practice with threats of harsh punishment like flogging, reduced, rations, and pay.

In an age where prophets and preachers stand alike on a street corner screaming hatred remarks to the world, love is desolate. Love has been lost. Christ Jesus states, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Jesus’ instruction strikes at the heart of ancient notions of manliness and honor.

The texts say that love started an uprising, but we show the world hate. The world will know us by our judgment, mocking, inconsistent living, and hatred. I finish my thesis by telling a story by Philip Yancey:

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, naïve 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.” Where has love gone?

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