The Roadblock of Apathy
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There are a lot of words that have been watered down in our time: literally, talking, forever… love.
We’ve lost the meaning, or at least the weightiness, of the word love. Which is unfortunate! because Jesus puts it at the very center of what it means to follow God:
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him: “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
This was not really anything new, because the whole aim of the law was whole-life love of God and other humans!
But it could not be done. The book of Hosea is a reflection on the sorrow, pain, and even jealous anger that God felt when his people would not reciprocate his love. Through Hosea, God said things like:
What am I going to do with you, Ephraim? What am I going to do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist and like the early dew that vanishes.
This is why I have used the prophets to cut them down; I have killed them with the words from my mouth. My judgment strikes like lightning.
For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Humanity is bent on turning from God - we have not loved him with our whole hearts or our neighbors as ourselves.
We may think, “Well, I haven’t done that. I don’t hate anyone, and I certainly don’t hate God! How can you say that?”
Well, I’m glad you asked. Just because we don’t hate God, and just because we may not hate (at least all the time), doesn’t mean that we are fulfilling the “law of love.”
It’s tempting to assume that the opposite of love is hate, but an Austrian psychologist in the early 20th century had something to say about that:
“The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference; the opposite of feeling can only be the absence of feeling.” - Wilhelm Stekel
Hatred certainly can get in the Way, but apathy - indifference - can be a deeper, more camouflaged roadblock.
Apathy gets in the way of our discipleship because Jesus embodied perfect love!
An earlier story from Matthew’s gospel might help us better understand. An encounter between Jesus and a rich young man gives us an illustration:
Just then someone came up and asked him, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” he said to him. “There is only one who is good. If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
“Which ones?” he asked him. Jesus answered: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness;
honor your father and your mother; and love your neighbor as yourself.
“I have kept all these,” the young man told him. “What do I still lack?”
“If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said to him, “go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard that, he went away grieving, because he had many possessions.
By this, the young man showed that he missed the whole point: all he had done had not led him to the target - he loved wealth more than God and neighbor.
He had kept the commands, but he had not kept the law.
At this point, we may be thinking exactly what the disciples asked: “Then who can be saved?”
But Jesus is always good news, and Jesus came to fulfill perfect love for God and for humanity!
Jesus came to live in perfect, loving obedience to his Father in heaven. Jesus came to live in compassionate service to a world that needed a Savior. He came to give his life as a ransom for humanity and a demonstration of great love.
He revealed as much to his disciples in the last conversation he would have with them before the cross, in
“As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love.
If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus demonstrated a love that broke through apathy and indifference, and then commanded the same to those who would follow him.
John would put it another way in
We love because he first loved us.
How do we do this? How do we get beyond the roadblock of apathy toward God, neighbor, and self and live our lives in perfect love?
We love by obeying the commands given in Jesus, and by trusting that he will empower us with his own life and love.
We love God with our whole life by becoming serious about the things he has told us to do - not through Moses but through Jesus. Things like “love one another,” and “forgive your enemies,” and “pray to your Father in heaven,” and “bear one another’s burdens.”
And then we love our neighbor compassionately by becoming serious about the way that we treat them, which is easier when we love God and live as he has called us to!