I Love You Despite Ourselves

          Earlier this week, I received an email from a former colleague lamenting the state of her relationship with her brother. What began as a disagreement last summer has grown into a full blown argument, one so intense my friend and her brother can not even be civil to one another at family gatherings. How, my friend wondered, could she and her brother be so far apart sociologically and politically? How could she ever forgive him for some of the things he had said and implied? Why would he/could he want to forgive her for the things she had said in anger?

          As I thought about that email, I remembered the reading from Luke 12:49-56 in which Jesus said He had come to bring fire and division rather than peace to the earth. Jesus' anger in that passage is all but palpable. The image of Jesus in that passage is not the peaceful, lovingly tending-His-sheep Jesus we generally envision Him to be. Rather, He is full of anger and frustration, tired of people being so dense and hypocritical. He is fed up with people not being able to see the forest for the trees. I get the impression He is angry at me, but I am not even sure why.

          Yet, I am reassured. I know Jesus loves me like a sister, as one of His bumbling stumbling flock, who would be lost were it not for Him. I know Jesus loves me like the beloved child of God that I am. He loves me in spite of myself, in spite of my foibles and my occasional hard-headedness. (Truth be told, my frequent bouts of hard-headedness.) He loves me when I have trouble loving my neighbor. Jesus even loves me when I am having a difficult time loving myself.

          I have not yet replied to my friend's email, but I think I know what I am going to say. when the smoke up the upcoming election clears and life is measured in more meaningful ways than measured sound bites, allegations and accusations, it will be long past time to look beyond politics and heated discourse. It will be long past time to practice what Jesus has commanded us to do: to love one another even as we love ourselves. I believe with all my heart that if God forgives us and still loves us, despite all our faults and differences, then we can surely forgive one another as well. I believe my friend and her brother love one another regardless. They need to remember the reasons they love one another rather than focus on the reasons that divide them.  Amen.