Mar 30
Jesus Was No Sucker
Over the past 3 days, I have been all over downtown Portland, Oregon, and had all kinds of fun jammin’ with my sister at the Hawthorne theater, but tonight I really need to vent on another topic that’s sort of keeping me from sleeping.
I’ve really tried to treat all the people I love by the somewhat misused 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. I’ll break it down just in case you are an atheist, or don’t care enough to look it up.
Love Is:
-Patient
-Kind
Love Does Not:
-Envy
-Boast
Love Is Not:
-Proud
-Rude
-Self-Seeking
-Easily Angered
Love Always:
-Protects
-Trusts
-Hopes
-Perseveres
Finally:
Love keeps no record of wrong
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in truth
To put it in context, the author, Paul puts love as the only thing that makes us humans worth anything.
“…if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
I’ve known plenty of Christians who can recite this verse on a whim at a wedding, because it sounds nice, and it’s appropriate, but fall short of practicing it on more than one of the criteria.
This passage is important because unlike a good portion of the Bible, it lays out precisely the answer to a popular 80’s dance hit. It explains “What is Love”, in straightforward, no-nonsense *language of your choice*.
Here is an essay where an important life question is answered in the form of a laundry list, and yet people beat their wives, fight their way out of relationships and sever ties with their parents. If this list is attended to by one side of a relationship, the only way it can fail is if the other side flakes out, so in this way, love is both a risk and a sacrifice, but one that never makes you angry. When you love someone, their happiness is your priority.
The way Jesus in presented in the New Testament shows that he acted based on this list to the whole of humanity. I can only remember one instance where his temper got the best of him, and that was when the merchants of Jerusalem were allowed to set up shop in the temple and peddle their chickens or slaves, or who-knows what else. He lost his temper because he was protecting his family. His father’s house was being turned into the equivalent of a Turkish whore-house for the Jewish shopping community and Jesus was pissed. “Love always protects.” He was protecting someone he loved more than anyone else.
^That blurb was just to establish JC’s street cred.
With that, I arrive at what I like to call “The point of this article”. I have very little trouble following the list. I have developed a patience and kindness for the people I love, I can trust and hope, but the “slow to anger”, and “self-seeking” part tend to get the best of me when it comes to my significant other.
I saw this new relationship as a way to practice all of these things with real-life challenged and hurdles. Little did I know, how many hurdles I would have to clear. This girl loves to play the game, she loves to have a challenge for my affection, and it seems a lot like the more I support her, and try to lift her up, the more distant she gets. It’s like I am on a street corner with a sign that says “Hey you, free love, it’s all yours.” And she is the diesel 4×4 with naked lady mudflaps, covering me with the street crud while the driver yells “Get a job you @#Y$* hobo!!”.
She is afraid of the commitment, she is afraid of losing her rugged independence, and with her past, a family of drug-addicts and drunks, I don’t blame her. I know where her coldness comes from, but it’s still a challenge. I continue on because I love her, but its tough when she seems to care less about me than yesterdays trash. I know its not true, but I don’t get any kind words, or compliments, (or actions sometimes) to prove otherwise. I never get to hear about her feelings, or what she thinks of me. Each time I bring up a concern that I have, she responds with “You’re a whiner.” She hasn’t always been like this, a year ago she was a different, more openly caring person, but I like the dynamic, and I like who she is now and was then. I am rambling now, but this is important stuff. To summarize, she is not boring.
This has all led to an interesting side effect of love: humility. The more I love and care, the more my love is taken for granted. Not to compare myself to Jesus, although that is what I’m about to do, there are similarities between my situation and his.
He was nearly the definition of love, and people had a great time spitting on him, and criticizing him. The only people that truly appreciated him were the people who “deserved” love the least. The sleeze-bags (for the most part) that Jesus encountered as part of his travels: tax-collectors, thieves, and general scum threw down everything they had for the smoothness Jesus presented them with. Like a fine Columbian blend, Jesus was enjoyed by his new-found disciples every morning. They didn’t need friction in their lives to be happy or entertained. They loved the feeling of real relaxed joy, it was new to them, exciting.
When we follow these examples in modern times, the question arises “Where do I stop loving and start being a sucker?” That is, where is the difference between “loving someone” and “being used by someone”. The truth is, if you love someone, you have to be willing to be used at times. Jesus was used so much as a “Magic Heal Robot” or “Create-wine-o-tron 2000″ that he probably started to feel like a piece of crap long before he was beaten and dragged through the streets. He did things with a willing heart, but he openly appreciated some form of gratitude, which he seldom got. He loved it when someone loved him back (see Mary Magdalene washing his nasty feet) but he never expected it.
The moral of this story is: If you continue to love regardless of the rewards, you will die happy, and satisfied, even if you die a horrendously violent death by the hands of Mel Gibson. In my case, If I push onward in my relationship, and continue to offer my support and caring words, I will never have any regrets, and she will know that she is worth something, even after I’m long gone from her life, and that is the ultimate goal for any of my friends.
Jesus was no sucker, even though he gave everything he had his whole life (and ultimately his life) for a bunch of S.O.B.’s who didn’t deserve it, or appreciate it.
The End
1 commentFeb 11
Public Nudity
I have been working on Electrical Engineering homework and study all night. When I say this, it’s implied that I stopped for a while to watch the “Travel Channel” (my new distraction of choice). When I flipped the TV on, I was surprised and excited to see a new show I have been looking forward to. It was just getting started, so I couldn’t possibly keep doing homework. It was called “Living With the Mek: The Adventures of Marc and Olly”.
Two British Fellas are on an epic 3 month expedition into uncharted Mek Tribe territory in Papua. It’s interesting, because the Mek are about as untainted as humans get, they are said to have existed in almost the same state of living for over 9000 years (I don’t mean to offend you young earth creationists). Until this point, this particular tribe had never seen Westerners. When Marc and Olly and their posse of luggage carriers and cameramen arrived, the Mek chief start yelling and beating an axe into the ground, apparently telling the white devils to leave (how cliche’) . After saying the Mek word for “Hello”, “Thank You”, and “Greetings” apparently all the same word, Marc handed the chief a pouch of tobacco.
The chief, named Markus, took the tobacco and smiled, shaking the Brits’ hands, and gladly invited them back to the village, as they approached he hollered “White devils are coming into the camp, I couldn’t get them to leave”.
This is where things started to bother me. Every woman in the tribe was almost fully nude, their leathery humid-worn skin bared for all to galk at, and all the men were nude except for certain bones and a big slim gourd over their genitals — at least part of their genitals. I know this all sounds rather boring, because we’ve all grown up reading “National Geographic” and nude natives are no surprise to most of western civilization. If a black person has bones stuck in their nose, we almost expect them to be naked, but take a second to consider the Bible.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they were ashamed, and “realized they were naked”. They took to the nearest plant to scavenge some leafy garb (I like to think they were skinny jeans). Later, God showed them who was boss, and made them wear the remains of their now meatier dinner over their once pure bodies. What seems so bizarre is that the Mek have no shame, in fact many of these tropical tribes have no shame, trading in their pride for a more comfortable existence in the damp, sweaty rain forest.
My question is not with the book of Genesis, but with the people themselves. Do you think that deep down, they are embarrassed when people outside of their tribe see their worn bodies? It sure didn’t seem like it when a heap of the Travel Channel’s finest waltzed into the camp. Perhaps this comes from years of conditioning and becoming used to being naked, or maybe, the need to be clothed was something that Adam and Eve needed to survive in the harsh conditions outside the Garden. Their skin was probably soft and spoiled from being lavished with the finest foods and no harmful sun rays, or thorny bushes.
God was doing them a favor before he kicked them out on their butts. It’s like he was saying “Yeah, um, you’re gonna go spend a lifetime working and bleeding, and spawn children that will do the same, but until you either adapt to the outside world, or invent sunscreen, you better put these pants on.”
Perhaps now, wearing clothes is still a matter of necessity more than shame, I mean, I live in Oregon, and I definitely appreciate pants and my Columbia Coat, but dark people in Mexico have no excuse! They should be able to eat their tasty burritos in the buff whenever they want to on the tropical shores of Cabo.
Sure in Modern civilization its considered rude to flash your big white buns at people, but who knows, maybe someday this bizarre ritual will disappear and we can learn to live free of odd social dynamics and greedy shopping habits like the Mek people.
Feb 8
Dreamgineering.
It’s always bizarre for me to come home on the weekends, after busting my butt at school for 5 days. It’s always rather disorienting and I say really dumb things to people at Edward Jones like, “Oh yeah, I’m sure you have to test regularly, you wouldn’t want to give financial advice from the 40’s.”
Of course, this could be do to the fact that my brain is filled with more important things than witty banter, but it is most likely because I stayed up until 3 a.m. working on this blog and then got up at 8:30 to rush back to Prineville to take Jessie out for her lunch break (a goal that wasn’t completed).
Aside: I just saw an interview on t.v. with Zac Effron. There is going to be a High School Musical 3, and he is going to be in it. That means there is a good chance that Vanessa will be in it too. This is a good day indeed.
Tonight, if you can’t tell, I am procrastinating a little, because I have a bunch of Electrical Engineering homework, but the rest of my weekend definitely won’t be so lame-sounding. Ashlyn (my sister) gets home from her basketball game tonight at midnight, and hopefully she will want to shoot zombies with me. Tomorrow I am hanging out with my family, and apparently counting pop-cans for a school fundraiser. And then at 5 o’clock, I am supposedly going to a movie with Jessie. Stay tuned to see if his happens, her track record for finding last minute obligations is impeccable.
It must be said that I am pretty down because I don’t get to watch “Carousel” with Shelia, but she totally owes me next weekend. I’m sure she wishes the that she were watching Rodger’s and Hammerstein right now too, because she is stuck in a tent in downtown Bend surrounded by hippies (Winterfest).
My next post might be technical, so be very afraid. I’m on a mission to discover the true name of God…
