The People Hardest to Love cont'd
Part 2 (click here to read the first part)
Another reason why the people closest to us are the hardest to love is that these close relationships force us to be authentic. When your boss spills his drink on your new sofa, you can give him a fake smile and tell him to forget about it. You may hate him with everything that is in you, but nobody’s going to know. For the carefully engineered distance required in business relationships is seldom violated. Now if your child spills his drink, you can bet he’s not getting the fake smile. Relationship forces authenticity in our love or in the failure to love.
The replacement of relationships with institutions has had far-reaching consequences in the ways we educate, work, and congregate in the modern world. As one seminary professor of pastoral theology told his young pastors-in-training, “If you want a friend, get a dog.” In a relationship-starved culture, pastors are not friends, but they know how to speak to crowds. Counselors are professional and they get paid by the hour. And educators are mere academicians and they avoid relationships, discipleship, and character training at all costs. But Jesus broke the paradigm when he called the disciples his “friends.” Then they abandoned him in his trial. So He went and died for such unfriendly treachery and sin. That is friendship.
Unfortunately, most charity in the modern world is distributed without relationship and the end results are devastating. Billions of dollars are transferred to the poor through complex bureaucratic channels in both private and public means of disposal. There is little accountability between the giver and the receiver, and much of it is redistributed wealth in the Marxist model. In contrast, Biblical charity is almost always distributed by personal involvement including “visiting” the orphan (James 1:27) and direct hospitality for the widow and orphan (Deuteronomy 16:11).
We have come to live in a world largely void of relationship because our institutions and our educational institutions in particular have trained us to live that way. Plainly, this life we live has been structured around the worldview of men like Rousseau who didn’t agree with Jesus. A world of institutions without relationship is a world designed to function without love, and that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, who sacrificed his life for us, so that we might sacrifice our lives for others. As we begin to rediscover a Biblical worldview, this will drive a realignment of our life view: the way we live, the way we love, and the way we relate to others.
There is no better place to begin working on the restoration of relationships than in the family, and there is no better time to start than when children are young. While homeschooling may not be the only way to restore relationships to education and life in the modern age, it is one giant step in that direction. I know of no other social change happening anywhere in the world that promises to undo Rousseau’s model and renew relationships. But be forewarned. Relationships can be frightening. As I leave the institutional world of engineered distances behind, I find relationship to be challenging, warm, unpredictable, wonderfully rewarding, always changing, humbling, risky, demanding, sanctifying, and requiring much faith and wisdom. In my life, I have built many things – mechanical, electrical, institutional, and political. But as I build relationships, I think I’m beginning to understand what is of essence in life. I am beginning to understand who I am in relation to the One who made me. I know a little more about what God meant when he said, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
Copyright Kevin Swanson. 720-842-4852 www.chec.org www.kevinswanson.com
Another reason why the people closest to us are the hardest to love is that these close relationships force us to be authentic. When your boss spills his drink on your new sofa, you can give him a fake smile and tell him to forget about it. You may hate him with everything that is in you, but nobody’s going to know. For the carefully engineered distance required in business relationships is seldom violated. Now if your child spills his drink, you can bet he’s not getting the fake smile. Relationship forces authenticity in our love or in the failure to love.
The replacement of relationships with institutions has had far-reaching consequences in the ways we educate, work, and congregate in the modern world. As one seminary professor of pastoral theology told his young pastors-in-training, “If you want a friend, get a dog.” In a relationship-starved culture, pastors are not friends, but they know how to speak to crowds. Counselors are professional and they get paid by the hour. And educators are mere academicians and they avoid relationships, discipleship, and character training at all costs. But Jesus broke the paradigm when he called the disciples his “friends.” Then they abandoned him in his trial. So He went and died for such unfriendly treachery and sin. That is friendship.
Unfortunately, most charity in the modern world is distributed without relationship and the end results are devastating. Billions of dollars are transferred to the poor through complex bureaucratic channels in both private and public means of disposal. There is little accountability between the giver and the receiver, and much of it is redistributed wealth in the Marxist model. In contrast, Biblical charity is almost always distributed by personal involvement including “visiting” the orphan (James 1:27) and direct hospitality for the widow and orphan (Deuteronomy 16:11).
We have come to live in a world largely void of relationship because our institutions and our educational institutions in particular have trained us to live that way. Plainly, this life we live has been structured around the worldview of men like Rousseau who didn’t agree with Jesus. A world of institutions without relationship is a world designed to function without love, and that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, who sacrificed his life for us, so that we might sacrifice our lives for others. As we begin to rediscover a Biblical worldview, this will drive a realignment of our life view: the way we live, the way we love, and the way we relate to others.
There is no better place to begin working on the restoration of relationships than in the family, and there is no better time to start than when children are young. While homeschooling may not be the only way to restore relationships to education and life in the modern age, it is one giant step in that direction. I know of no other social change happening anywhere in the world that promises to undo Rousseau’s model and renew relationships. But be forewarned. Relationships can be frightening. As I leave the institutional world of engineered distances behind, I find relationship to be challenging, warm, unpredictable, wonderfully rewarding, always changing, humbling, risky, demanding, sanctifying, and requiring much faith and wisdom. In my life, I have built many things – mechanical, electrical, institutional, and political. But as I build relationships, I think I’m beginning to understand what is of essence in life. I am beginning to understand who I am in relation to the One who made me. I know a little more about what God meant when he said, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
Copyright Kevin Swanson. 720-842-4852 www.chec.org www.kevinswanson.com
posted by Seth @ 1:27 PM
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