Limited-love people limit their love to people who love them. They draw a boundary around their own kind. The boundary typically contains people of similar race, socioeconomics, or culture. The line drawn around their love spawns a spirit of superiority over those outside the line.
The white landlord who rents only to people born with his same hue breaks God’s heart, not to mention a few laws. Why? Because those otherwise hued are the “neighbors” Jesus told us to love. He might not want them as neighbors, but what he doesn’t realize is that, by token of our universally shared humanity, they already are!
Jesus knew that his fellow Jews loved their own kind over all non-Jews and had verses and traditions to support their prejudices. Mostly they hated their occupying Roman oppressors. Some might say for good reason. Reasons notwithstanding, he refused to let his brethren off the hook even if the soldiers treated them like slaves––slapping them around, suing them for their pennies, and forcing them to carry their loads. It’s one thing to succumb to oppression and another to love your oppressors. Jesus demands the latter––love without limits.
If they were required to love beyond all that, what does that say about us?
This is an excerpt from a book I hope to publish in the near future on the Sermon on the Mount called: What In The World? Some Moral, Social, and Politically Disruptive Implications of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
barney wiget 