I've often been puzzled by the command to “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Why is the “love yourself” part included? I've heard several speakers suggest that it means we should think of others the way we think of ourselves, appealing to the fact that we are all fallen and are often selfish, wanting only the best for ourselves. So, they say, we should want the best for others. They then go on to point out how self-love is then the first step toward loving others. If you don't love yourself then you can't love others.
That's never really made too much sense to me. I mean, if our journey with Christ is about surrender, and sacrifice why would something based on selfishness be the foundation of one of our central commandments? And then I realized that maybe Jesus means that commandment exactly the other way around. Maybe he means that the grace we show to others should also be the grace by which we view ourselves. For a long time I struggled with accepting God's forgiveness for my sins. I was able to forgive others but I always felt guilty, always felt like I was somehow worse. I think what Jesus is saying is that we need to recognize that we live under the same grace that we extend to others. That means that we come to the exact opposite conclusion: loving others is the first step toward accepting ourselves. If we don't love others we can't love ourselves.

I've frequently heard a proverb that goes something like this:
“Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.”
It's often used to illustrate the need to want the right things. The illustration of drug addicts is often used to reinforce this point, these people want the wrong thing and it ends up killing them. The emphasis is therefore on the first word, “Sometimes what we want will end up killing us.” Therefore if we want the right things we'll live a long and happy life. I've started to think this statement is completely misleading. I've started to think that maybe we need to remove the “sometimes” from that saying.
“The things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.”
I think that if we want the right things in life, they also will be the things that kill us. As Christians, we are called to follow Jesus and that means taking up a cross, and that means dying. Following Jesus will kill us. Want the right things and we may end up living the opposite of a long and happy life.
All of us, in one way or another, are laying down our lives for something. It's just a question of what we're dying for.

I detest the movie “The Passion of Christ.” It grieves me; it makes me feel sick. I would not suggest that anybody, Christian or non-Christian, should go and see it.
As far as movies go I think it's comparable to “Irreversible” a French film that came out about a year ago. “Irreversible” is a movie about rape. It contains a graphic rape scene that goes on for nine minutes and ends with the attacker kicking the woman's face in. The director defended his film saying that all the details of the event had to be displayed in order for the audience to realize the horror of rape. He argues that we have been so desensitized that we need something to jolt us back to reality. I say that he's a liar. It just shows how apathetic our culture is. A friend once said to me,
“It's one thing to know that there are monsters out there who commit such acts, it's another thing to realize that all sorts of people are going to the theatre and paying money to watch those acts performed in front of their eyes.”
If we really cared, we wouldn't watch such movies. After all wasn't the proliferation of violent sex in the entertainment world one of the causes of desensitization? It doesn't make much sense to then use that exact media to try and do the opposite, “let's make it MORE violent so people will start carying”… while charging people money to view the result. If we really cared we would realize the impact that even whispering the word “rape” has; viewing a movie that exposes all the details would be preposterous. But we don't care.
And all this leads me back to “The Passion.” All these Christians that are going to watch Jesus be brutalized, all these Christians coming out of the theatres weeping, “Oh, I didn't realize it was so hard.” For some it's the whipping that really did them in, especially all the parts in slow-motion. It's like some sort of Christian snuff film – all these Christians getting off on the suffering of the one who speaks of himself as their Lover. We just love violence, we love gory details. We love the horror they arouse in us, we love to discuss them over coffee afterwards. Maybe they make us feel like better Christians, “Oh, look at the way I wept over Jesus' death.” Little do we realize that by paying to see such things we are actually doing the opposite. Going to see “The Passion” is tantamount to joining the crowd in yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
So I won't go and watch “Irreversible” to try and understand what it was like for my friends who were raped (oh, and we all have friends who have been raped – look at the stats. We just don't know because they've never felt like they could trust us… probably because we continually betray them by watching things like “Irreversible”…). What I will do is enter into relationship with them as best I can, I will learn from them, laugh with them, and cry with them.
And I won't go and watch “The Passion” to try and understand what it was like for Jesus on the day that he died. What I will do is enter into relationship with Jesus, I will learn from him, laugh with him and cry with him. And I will enter into relationship with those who are being crucified today, with those who are broken, those who are abused, those who are betrayed. I will journey with those people and there I will meet my Lord and my Lover. There I will discover my complicity in their crucifixion. There I will learn true empathy.
You want to get a feel for what Jesus went through? Stop watching Christian porn and start following him.

There are ghosts from my past that own more of my soul,
Than I thought I had given away.
They linger in closets and under my bed
And in pictures once proudly displayed – Jennifer Knapp.
Sometimes I feel like Russel Crowe's character from “A Beautiful Mind.” Only instead of seeing fictional characters I am stuck in a city full of ghosts. Ghosts of a relationship. Everywhere I go is full of memories of her, memories of us, things that used to be but are no longer. We were here once, we sat in this place, we passed through here, I once traveled this way knowing you were my destination. And I feel like I'm taking a step back to come out and admit that. I feel like I'm losing the battle by even acknowledging their presence. So I stumble through, try my best not to make eye contact, try my best not to remember, not to let old emotions flood back into me. I mean, how long has it been? Shouldn't all these things have dissipated long ago?
This weekend at camp was a lot harder for me than I thought it would be. I didn't expect everything to hit me so powerfully. Here is her house, here we sat and talked, here we first walked beside each other, here we kissed and she rested her body against me… the memories fly passed my eyes as I lower my head and try to feel like I'm free.
It's funny that I once prided myself on being a good lover. I really thought I was good at all that, at sacrificing, giving, devoting myself to another. I did all those things eagerly. I thought it was one of my greatest strengths. It's only after I've moved into trying to know God as Lover that I've begun to question myself in that regard. It's only now I've begun to realize how much I need to grow in that area. When I met my second girlfriend all thoughts of the previous one disappeared. There was no longing, no wondering, no wishful thinking. I was so passionately in love that such thoughts were completely foreign to me. So what kind of lover am I to God when I am so suddenly moved by a chance encounter with the ghost of a memory? How is it that so much rushes back on me and I'm left feeling this longing?
I've got to be honest. As long as I refuse to face these ghosts they will gain a substance they do not truly have. Once I look squarely at them I may notice that I can pass right through them. In the midst of it all I feel like I've only just begun a journey. It's as if God gave me hints in Paris so that I would have the strength to push through the rough beginning, so that I would have strength to truly get to that place I glimpsed. Like a honeymoon – a beautiful moment of sharing, of passion of intimacy, the memory of which can go a long way to get you through the first year(s) of marriage. I will not always be unfaithful.

It’s funny how I can find out little things that seem to add a whole new sense of coherence, depth – and even urgency – to my understanding of some of the things the New Testament says.
One of the most famous lines from the Bible, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Well, I’ve always thought, “Okay, that’s really pretty obvious. You know, I should be careful about loving money cause then I might become greedy, I might become proud, I might become self-absorbed.” As if the entire range of evil spoken of here refers simply to the range of personal vices. But now I’ve begun to think that “all evil” here refers to ALL evil – that is, it is addressing not so much personal vices (although these are certainly included) but rather systemic evil. Read a book like “No Logo” (Naomi Klein) and you start to realize that not only does the love of money produce greedy self-absorbed egos, it is also responsible for genocide, the destruction of ecosystems, slavery, child labor, and pretty much every form of oppression and exploitation whether of people, animals or the natural environment. Suddenly there are concrete social, political and corporate references that make this verse hit home with a magnitude I’ve never really considered before.
The other (famous)passage I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the verse that speaks of Jesus looking out and the crowd and seeing them as sheep without a shepherd. I’ve tended to interpret that as meaning that the people were sort of lost, sort of confused, sort of helpless (you know, in a cutesy kind of way). Then (and here I am indebted to N.T. Wright’s “Jesus and the Victory of God”) I realized that that passage is actually a quotation from a prophet in the book of “Kings.” Looking at that passage I realized that “sheep without a shepherd” refers not to people who are sort of lost and confused but to people who are being slaughtered, absolutely massacred. In it makes so much sense in light of my experience. I talk with so many kids at the drop-in, so many adults at the shelter and they’re trapped in a life-style that is killing them – and they don’t need us to tell them it’s killing them, they know, they feel the effects in their heart, mind and body. What they don’t know is how to escape, how to do anything different. Like sheep without a shepherd. Getting slaughtered. Then last winter when I was doing my sign campaign at Union Station I realized that the Bay Street crowd, the big shots in corporate business in downtown Toronto are in a similar situation. One day I held a sign that said, “Are you free?” and so many people stopped and talked to me about how they didn’t think they were. “Maybe I was once upon a time… You know the ball’s rolling and I can’t stop it now…” And they also know they’re trapped, but they don’t know how to do anything different so they keep doing the same thing day in and day out just living for those moments when they escape. Just like the street kids. Sheep without a shepherd. Getting slaughtered. It breaks my heart. Where are the shepherds?
Somewhere along the way the church has gotten off track. It’s become intimately involved with a culture that loves money, it has become just as guilty as anybody else out there, and as a result it can’t prevent the slaughter that ensues. And sometimes it makes me furious but mostly it makes me want to break down and cry.

I think I’ve finally got a glimpse of what Jonah was going through. I never could understand his reaction… sure I knew that he was going to a people that he perceived to be corrupt, even personal enemies but wouldn’t that be all the more reason to rejoice after the entire city of 120,000+ people repented and turned to the Lord?
But then I look at Toronto and all I can see is corruption, selfishness, oppression and heart-break. Surely, I say to myself, we are living in exile. Not only is the city defined by these things, but those who claim to be the people of God are equally guilty and equally involved in a culture of violence and greed. At the same time I make these observations I talk with friends who tell me that “God is doing great things in this city… the Spirit is moving in new and exciting ways.” And that’s what made me think of Jonah. Perhaps he was so focused on the corruption that he was absolutely unable to understand how God could so quickly act compassionately. How could such a city be the place God chooses to show his grace? It makes me wonder: am I like Jonah? Am I unable to see that, in his grace, God has already begun to break into this city? But, at least in Ninevah there were signs of repentance. The city fasted and prayed, it humbled itself and (most importantly for this is what lies at the heart of repentance)they changed the ways in which they were living their lives.
So perhaps the parallel is closer to Jeremiah. I’ve always thought, from a pragmatic Western perspective, that Jeremiah must have been one of history’s biggest losers. Here was a fellow deeply in love with his people, his city, his nation and his God. He was broken hearted by the state of affairs in which he found himself and devastated by the consequences he knew would inevitably result. So he does everything he can to bring home his message – change the way you live your life or we will go into exile. And he really does try everything. Running around naked proclaiming, “this is how you will go into exile!” Building models of Jerusalem with tiny siege engines, “This is how our city will fall!” At the end of it all what does he have to show for it? Nothing. The people he loves are killed, raped and led away, the city he loves is destroyed by fire, the nation he loves no longer exists, and the God he loves turned them over to the consequences of their actions. Jeremiah dedicated himself to showing the people of God how they had fatally compromised themselves with the culture around them and in the end he accomplished nothing. And so I am left wondering, “Is this situation more like Jeremiah’s?” Is it that the people around me, even the people I love and respect, haven’t recognized the true depth of our complicity with our culture? Boy, that’s a scary thought. It sort of adds a whole different human element to the rejection Jeremiah faced. After all (to quote Isaiah this time), “my people go into exile for their lack of knowledge.” A prophet, it seems, faces an amazingly lonely road. Maybe I’m just beginning to realize how lonely that road is.
All the more reason to focus on God as Lover.
At the same time I can’t help but wonder if these reflections are founded upon a pride I have been unable to root out. I could have a serious Messiah-complex. Who am I to compare myself to Jonah, let alone Jeremiah?