Some Choices Matter
Commentary
Elizabeth Achtemeier said that one of the greatest errors of young preachers is their desire to tell people that it is very easy to know the will of God. It is so easy, she said, to preach in black and white, to declare either this or that, with no shades of gray in between.
But life is not like that, she said. We know that too. We wrestle every day of our existence. What job should we be looking for? Who should be our life partner? Where will we send our children to school? How do we care for the sinner while condemning the sin? Do we walk out of the grocery store with paper bags that destroy trees, with plastic bags that use up oil, or with cloth bags that pollute the water when we wash them? How do we watch the starving children of the world on television and then turn back to our rich and excessive meals, throwing the scraps away as garbage?
The answers are rarely easy. Our lives reflect the struggles of choices made and often choices regretted. Think of Corrie ten Boom, who tells her story in The Hiding Place. During World War II, her family hid some Jews to keep them from the gas chambers. She and her father needed to find a safe place for one Jewish mother and her very young child.
One day a local clergyman stepped into their watch shop. They decided to ask him if he would take these two frightened ones into his home. He refused, however. Corrie couldn’t believe it at the time, so she impulsively ran to the mother and grabbed the little baby from her arms. She brought the child to the pastor and tried to thrust him into the pastor’s hands.
Again he refused. “No!” he said. “Definitely not! We could lose our lives for that Jewish child.”
Who could blame him? How could he help others, if he himself were dragged away to the concentration camps? That was his decision as he wrestled with himself in the gray area of his circumstances.
Father ten Boom gathered the little one in his arm and said to the pastor, “You say we could lose our lives for this child. I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family.” Another self. Another choice. You and I wrestle with such choices every day of our lives.
Think of the things we say:
“I don’t really feel like myself today.”
“I’m so ashamed of myself!”
“For a moment there I forgot myself.”
“I just hate myself!”
What are we saying? What is really happening to us? A father had abused his daughter, time and time again, for years on end. Eventually he got out of jail on parole. The first time he got together with his daughter, he said, “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I don’t know what to say. I wish I wasn’t myself.”
We think we are making our way in life. We think we know the self that is best for us. We think we can find a way to swim outside of the ocean, a way to fly without looking up to the heavens or to grow without digging deep. But we can’t, can we? We cannot, till Love wrestles us in the night and gives us a new name. For in the end, God must wrestle with us as he did with Jacob many generations before. God must wrestle with us, or the choices of our hearts will lead us astray.
Amos 8:1-12
As the epochs of Israel’s political fortunes unfolded, the message of the prophets became increasingly apocalyptic. There was a growing sense that because things had not gone the way they should have, producing heartfelt and ongoing national repentance and covenant restoration, Yahweh will have to intervene directly again, in a manner similar to that during the time of Moses. When Yahweh interrupts human history the next time, however, along with judgments on the wickedness of the nations of the world, Israel will also fall heavily under divine punishment. But because Yahweh is on a mission to restore the fallen world, this next major divine intervention will be paired with a focus on establishing a new world order as well, even while the old is falling away under the conflagration. In this coming messianic age, everything in both society and the natural realm will finally function in the manner the Creator had intended in the beginning. Furthermore, because Yahweh is faithful to promises made, Israel will not be forgotten, and a remnant of God’s servant-nation will be at the center of all this renewal, restoration, and great joy.
Things appear to have changed significantly for prophets in the eighth century. While Isaiah was expressing the passion and purposes of Yahweh with lyric eloquence in the south, prophecy took on a decidedly angry character in the north. The powerful team of Elijah and Elisha railed against the royal pair of Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 17–2 Kings 9) for their anti-Yahweh religious stance and their anti–Sinai Covenant betrayal of people like Naboth (1 Kings 21). Micaiah joined their entourage for one brief incident (1 Kings 22), lending credence to their pronouncements of judgment, even while having direct access to the royal council room.
The most enduring voices from this era belong, however, to those members of “the Twelve” minor prophets, whose words were recorded in blunt detail. Amos left his large estate near Tekoa in Judah to travel northward into the territory of its sibling rival, Israel, around the year 760 B.C. He explored the expansive prevalence of social sins in that realm which, he made clear, would soon result in divine judgment upon these people. According to Amos:
Colossians 1:15-28
Paul’s letters from prison address a couple of specific issues—the nature of a relationship between master and slave, for instance, when both are Christians, and a proper response to the false teaching that was being promulgated at Colossae. But mostly, these writings paint, in vibrant colors, the character of moral choices in a world that is compromised and broken. Darkness and light are the key metaphors. Evil has wrapped a blanket of pain and harm around all that takes place in the human arena. Jesus is the brilliant light of God, penetrating earth’s atmosphere with grace and reconciliation. Because of Jesus’ physical departure at the ascension, his followers now must step in and become a thousand million points of light, restoring relationships and renewing meaning. Jesus is great, and because of our connection with him, we can be great too. Not for our own sakes, of course, but as witnesses of the eschatological hope that tomorrow’s amazing future of God is something we already participate today. That is why Christianity is the religion of the dawn.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians, more specifically, is quite short, but it packs a big punch of theology and perspective. First, Paul celebrates the faithfulness of these disciples of Jesus, and also the great majesty and power of the one they serve (Colossians 1:1–23). After a short declaration of Paul’s immense care for the Colossian congregation (Colossians 1:24–2:5), he addresses the problem that was beginning to divide the congregation (Colossians 2:6–23). Although it is difficult for us to know exactly what were the specific elements of the false teaching that some were embracing, it appears to have included the worship of angels, certain forms of asceticism, and possibly a unique version of how the commands given through Moses were to be kept. These slim details suggest to some that an early form of Gnosticism was taking root. Others find a Jewish connection, with certain leaders pushing for a Palestinian ritualistic legalism of the kind that Paul had reacted against so strongly in his letter to the Galatians. Whatever the case, Paul’s response was to urge the congregation to focus on the superlative transformation brought by Jesus, which did not need to be supported with secondary rules and regulations. This is the focus of our New Testament reading for today.
Luke 10:38-42
Our first glimpse of Jesus in Luke’s gospel is the heaven-heralded Savior, born in a miraculous way to the poor, and announced to the poor (Luke 2). Our first impressions of Jesus reveal the common pedigree he shares with those around him, which makes him one of us in the whole human race (Luke 3:23–38; note the different way that Luke and Matthew handle Jesus’ genealogies), his unusual gifts as a teacher (Luke 2:41–52), and his miraculous healing abilities (Luke 4–5). As with the other Synoptics, Mark and Matthew, Luke tells the big-picture story of Jesus’ life in three major sections:
2–9 Jesus heals, as evidence of the Kingdom of God
9 Transitional Event—the Transfiguration
9-19 Jesus teaches the meaning of discipleship
19 Transitional Event—entry into Jerusalem
20-24 Jesus teaches through self-sacrifice, and heals even death
But just like Matthew overlaid this general movement with a more specific subtle paradigm, so Luke builds a traveling motif into both this volume and the book of Acts. Here, Jesus moves toward Jerusalem as the culmination of his ministry. In Acts, Paul makes a very similar journey toward the capital city in Palestine that serves to climax his missionary efforts. Luke’s additional emphasis in the gospel looks something like this:
2–9 Jesus’ northern ministry of healing
9:51-62 Transitional Event—the road to Jerusalem and the cross
10-19 Jesus’ journey and ministry of teaching
19 Transitional Event—entry into Jerusalem
20-24 Teaching and healing come together in Jesus’ own experience
Perhaps the most striking and clearly Lukan focus in conveying the message about Jesus is his recognition that God has special care for the poor (noted in Mary’s song, identified in the offering brought by Joseph and Mary at Jesus’ circumcision, asserted through the record of Jesus’ pronouncements of woes on the rich and blessings on the poor, and insinuated in the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man), the sick (notably the number of demon-possessed who are healed by Jesus, and also the lepers who are cleansed and the paralyzed who are restored to mobility), the marginalized (shepherds, children, tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, and the blind), and women (Mary, Elizabeth, widows, the hemorrhaging woman, Mary and Martha, and the crippled woman).
In our Gospel reading for today, Luke emphasizes Jesus’ camaraderie with women, and Jesus emphasizes that women are capable of being more than domestic servants, as the society of the day tended to make both females and males think. Mary and Martha are both invited and called into the full gospel ministry and mission of transformation. They do not simply care for Jesus and the evangelists; they are Jesus’ ministers of grace.
Application
Years ago, young William Borden went to Yale University. He was the wealthy son of a powerful family. He could do anything in life that he chose. And when he graduated, he chose to become a missionary of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
His friends thought he was crazy. “Why throw your life away like that?” they said. “You’ve got so much to live for here.”
But Borden knew who held his tomorrows. He made his choices. And God gave him the inner strength to live his convictions.
He set out on a long journey to China. It took months in those days. And by the time he got to Egypt, some disease managed to make him sick. He was placed in a hospital. Soon it became obvious that he would not recover. William Borden would die a foreigner in Egypt. He never reached his goal. He never went back home.
He could have been troubled by the tragedy of it all. But his last conscious act was to write a little note. Seven words. Seven words that they spoke at his funeral. Seven words that summarized his life, his identity: “No reserve, no retreat, and no regrets!”
Alternative Application (Amos 8:1-12)
A British nobleman once commissioned William Hogarth to paint his portrait. Hogarth was the kind of artist who believed in realism: “Paint it the way you see it!” That was his motto. Unfortunately, the nobleman was rather ugly, so when he saw his likeness in the portrait, he was rather upset. He refused to pay Hogarth even a single pound for all his efforts!
But Hogarth needed the money. For him, a deal was a deal. So he sent a letter to the man, telling him that a circus master had seen the painting, and he had liked it very much. If the nobleman no longer wanted the painting, Hogarth would just add a tail and some horns and sell it to the showman for public display at a carnival.
The very next day Hogarth’s commission arrived. The nobleman took delivery of the offensive painting and promptly burned it to ashes!
That’s the way it is with ugly things. We don’t want to look at them. We don’t want to wake up to their reflection. At best, ugly things are for a circus sideshow. At worst, we’d like to destroy them and erase their memory from the earth.
Particularly if the ugly things are us. A man named Parker once came up with this “law”: Beauty is only skin deep, but ugliness goes clear to the bone. And though we’re quick to see that ugliness in people around us, it is frightening when we face ourselves and find the worms and decay within. I will do almost anything to make excuses about myself rather than admit that I might have done something sinful or evil.
Part of the problem is that most evil is too sinister to seem sinister. Most sin is too nice to seem “sinful.” Gossip starts out as genuine concern for somebody else. Extramarital affairs begin with good friendships. Workaholism originates with the joy of using the talents God gives us. But they become sin. That’s what they are. We can call them anything we’d like: temporary indiscretions; pressures of circumstance; mistakes of
judgment. But they are still sin. And they have a thousand thousand brothers and sisters, as Amos reminds ancient Israel and our modern selves.
In his powerful novel Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad tells the story of Marlow, a riverboat captain in the Congo. He hears of a man named Kurtz who lives out in the jungle and runs a kingdom of his own.
Kurtz started out as just an ordinary trader. He visited the villages. He bought and sold in the markets. He actually fell in love with Africa and its people. He was a good man, with good intentions.
But somehow, along the way, a web of little things trapped him into a kingdom of evil. When Marlow finds him, right and wrong have no more meaning for him. And his dying words are: “The horror! The horror!” A multitude of good intentions, innocent deeds, simple choices, and in the end, a horrible web of evil.
And that is why we all need Amos’ prophetic discipline. Sometimes we see it as an ugly word, a torture, a bitter pill to swallow. But Amos sees discipline as a sign of God’s love. It hurts. It puts God’s people in agony. It cuts like a knife. But the surgery is one of love.
The Chinese have several characters to express the concept of love. Some are simple. Some are complex. But the most profound of all is the symbol that fuses together two characters, the one for ordinary love and the one for pain.
“Pain-love,” it is called. It is the love of a mother for a child. She disciplines her daughter and feels the ache that cuts her own heart. It is the love of a husband. He stays with a troubled spouse and experiences the trauma of her bitterness. It is the love of God. He empties himself of glory and shares the sufferings of his people.
“Pain-love.” Deep love. The kind of thing that makes us “disciples” of Jesus. After all, what is really ugly in this world? Sin is ugly, but so are the wounds and scars and pain that it causes. And there is the key to discipline. As Amos knows, the discipline Israel needs to go through is not the torture of a sadistic ogre in the heavens. It is the “pain-love” of one who cares, who shares, who knows the ugliness of sin, and who will die making things right again.
But life is not like that, she said. We know that too. We wrestle every day of our existence. What job should we be looking for? Who should be our life partner? Where will we send our children to school? How do we care for the sinner while condemning the sin? Do we walk out of the grocery store with paper bags that destroy trees, with plastic bags that use up oil, or with cloth bags that pollute the water when we wash them? How do we watch the starving children of the world on television and then turn back to our rich and excessive meals, throwing the scraps away as garbage?
The answers are rarely easy. Our lives reflect the struggles of choices made and often choices regretted. Think of Corrie ten Boom, who tells her story in The Hiding Place. During World War II, her family hid some Jews to keep them from the gas chambers. She and her father needed to find a safe place for one Jewish mother and her very young child.
One day a local clergyman stepped into their watch shop. They decided to ask him if he would take these two frightened ones into his home. He refused, however. Corrie couldn’t believe it at the time, so she impulsively ran to the mother and grabbed the little baby from her arms. She brought the child to the pastor and tried to thrust him into the pastor’s hands.
Again he refused. “No!” he said. “Definitely not! We could lose our lives for that Jewish child.”
Who could blame him? How could he help others, if he himself were dragged away to the concentration camps? That was his decision as he wrestled with himself in the gray area of his circumstances.
Father ten Boom gathered the little one in his arm and said to the pastor, “You say we could lose our lives for this child. I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family.” Another self. Another choice. You and I wrestle with such choices every day of our lives.
Think of the things we say:
“I don’t really feel like myself today.”
“I’m so ashamed of myself!”
“For a moment there I forgot myself.”
“I just hate myself!”
What are we saying? What is really happening to us? A father had abused his daughter, time and time again, for years on end. Eventually he got out of jail on parole. The first time he got together with his daughter, he said, “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I don’t know what to say. I wish I wasn’t myself.”
We think we are making our way in life. We think we know the self that is best for us. We think we can find a way to swim outside of the ocean, a way to fly without looking up to the heavens or to grow without digging deep. But we can’t, can we? We cannot, till Love wrestles us in the night and gives us a new name. For in the end, God must wrestle with us as he did with Jacob many generations before. God must wrestle with us, or the choices of our hearts will lead us astray.
Amos 8:1-12
As the epochs of Israel’s political fortunes unfolded, the message of the prophets became increasingly apocalyptic. There was a growing sense that because things had not gone the way they should have, producing heartfelt and ongoing national repentance and covenant restoration, Yahweh will have to intervene directly again, in a manner similar to that during the time of Moses. When Yahweh interrupts human history the next time, however, along with judgments on the wickedness of the nations of the world, Israel will also fall heavily under divine punishment. But because Yahweh is on a mission to restore the fallen world, this next major divine intervention will be paired with a focus on establishing a new world order as well, even while the old is falling away under the conflagration. In this coming messianic age, everything in both society and the natural realm will finally function in the manner the Creator had intended in the beginning. Furthermore, because Yahweh is faithful to promises made, Israel will not be forgotten, and a remnant of God’s servant-nation will be at the center of all this renewal, restoration, and great joy.
Things appear to have changed significantly for prophets in the eighth century. While Isaiah was expressing the passion and purposes of Yahweh with lyric eloquence in the south, prophecy took on a decidedly angry character in the north. The powerful team of Elijah and Elisha railed against the royal pair of Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 17–2 Kings 9) for their anti-Yahweh religious stance and their anti–Sinai Covenant betrayal of people like Naboth (1 Kings 21). Micaiah joined their entourage for one brief incident (1 Kings 22), lending credence to their pronouncements of judgment, even while having direct access to the royal council room.
The most enduring voices from this era belong, however, to those members of “the Twelve” minor prophets, whose words were recorded in blunt detail. Amos left his large estate near Tekoa in Judah to travel northward into the territory of its sibling rival, Israel, around the year 760 B.C. He explored the expansive prevalence of social sins in that realm which, he made clear, would soon result in divine judgment upon these people. According to Amos:
- There was a growing economic gap between very rich and very poor, accentuated by the callousness of the wealthy (6:4–6).
- Public worship had become repetitions of superficial liturgical acts (4:4–5; 5:21–23).
- The rich were stealing the lands of the poor through criminal lending practices, coupled with repossessions when impossible borrowing terms caused inevitable loan repayment defaults (2:6; 8:4, 6).
- Law courts were routinely denying justice to the helpless, simply because they could not pay bribes and had no social standing (2:7; 5:10, 12).
- In the marketplace, the poor were constantly cheated (8:5).
- Throughout the nation, there was overt conspicuous consumption (4:1).
- Added to these were blatant debauchery and other forms of an immoral lifestyle (6:5–6).
Colossians 1:15-28
Paul’s letters from prison address a couple of specific issues—the nature of a relationship between master and slave, for instance, when both are Christians, and a proper response to the false teaching that was being promulgated at Colossae. But mostly, these writings paint, in vibrant colors, the character of moral choices in a world that is compromised and broken. Darkness and light are the key metaphors. Evil has wrapped a blanket of pain and harm around all that takes place in the human arena. Jesus is the brilliant light of God, penetrating earth’s atmosphere with grace and reconciliation. Because of Jesus’ physical departure at the ascension, his followers now must step in and become a thousand million points of light, restoring relationships and renewing meaning. Jesus is great, and because of our connection with him, we can be great too. Not for our own sakes, of course, but as witnesses of the eschatological hope that tomorrow’s amazing future of God is something we already participate today. That is why Christianity is the religion of the dawn.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians, more specifically, is quite short, but it packs a big punch of theology and perspective. First, Paul celebrates the faithfulness of these disciples of Jesus, and also the great majesty and power of the one they serve (Colossians 1:1–23). After a short declaration of Paul’s immense care for the Colossian congregation (Colossians 1:24–2:5), he addresses the problem that was beginning to divide the congregation (Colossians 2:6–23). Although it is difficult for us to know exactly what were the specific elements of the false teaching that some were embracing, it appears to have included the worship of angels, certain forms of asceticism, and possibly a unique version of how the commands given through Moses were to be kept. These slim details suggest to some that an early form of Gnosticism was taking root. Others find a Jewish connection, with certain leaders pushing for a Palestinian ritualistic legalism of the kind that Paul had reacted against so strongly in his letter to the Galatians. Whatever the case, Paul’s response was to urge the congregation to focus on the superlative transformation brought by Jesus, which did not need to be supported with secondary rules and regulations. This is the focus of our New Testament reading for today.
Luke 10:38-42
Our first glimpse of Jesus in Luke’s gospel is the heaven-heralded Savior, born in a miraculous way to the poor, and announced to the poor (Luke 2). Our first impressions of Jesus reveal the common pedigree he shares with those around him, which makes him one of us in the whole human race (Luke 3:23–38; note the different way that Luke and Matthew handle Jesus’ genealogies), his unusual gifts as a teacher (Luke 2:41–52), and his miraculous healing abilities (Luke 4–5). As with the other Synoptics, Mark and Matthew, Luke tells the big-picture story of Jesus’ life in three major sections:
2–9 Jesus heals, as evidence of the Kingdom of God
9 Transitional Event—the Transfiguration
9-19 Jesus teaches the meaning of discipleship
19 Transitional Event—entry into Jerusalem
20-24 Jesus teaches through self-sacrifice, and heals even death
But just like Matthew overlaid this general movement with a more specific subtle paradigm, so Luke builds a traveling motif into both this volume and the book of Acts. Here, Jesus moves toward Jerusalem as the culmination of his ministry. In Acts, Paul makes a very similar journey toward the capital city in Palestine that serves to climax his missionary efforts. Luke’s additional emphasis in the gospel looks something like this:
2–9 Jesus’ northern ministry of healing
9:51-62 Transitional Event—the road to Jerusalem and the cross
10-19 Jesus’ journey and ministry of teaching
19 Transitional Event—entry into Jerusalem
20-24 Teaching and healing come together in Jesus’ own experience
Perhaps the most striking and clearly Lukan focus in conveying the message about Jesus is his recognition that God has special care for the poor (noted in Mary’s song, identified in the offering brought by Joseph and Mary at Jesus’ circumcision, asserted through the record of Jesus’ pronouncements of woes on the rich and blessings on the poor, and insinuated in the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man), the sick (notably the number of demon-possessed who are healed by Jesus, and also the lepers who are cleansed and the paralyzed who are restored to mobility), the marginalized (shepherds, children, tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, and the blind), and women (Mary, Elizabeth, widows, the hemorrhaging woman, Mary and Martha, and the crippled woman).
In our Gospel reading for today, Luke emphasizes Jesus’ camaraderie with women, and Jesus emphasizes that women are capable of being more than domestic servants, as the society of the day tended to make both females and males think. Mary and Martha are both invited and called into the full gospel ministry and mission of transformation. They do not simply care for Jesus and the evangelists; they are Jesus’ ministers of grace.
Application
Years ago, young William Borden went to Yale University. He was the wealthy son of a powerful family. He could do anything in life that he chose. And when he graduated, he chose to become a missionary of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
His friends thought he was crazy. “Why throw your life away like that?” they said. “You’ve got so much to live for here.”
But Borden knew who held his tomorrows. He made his choices. And God gave him the inner strength to live his convictions.
He set out on a long journey to China. It took months in those days. And by the time he got to Egypt, some disease managed to make him sick. He was placed in a hospital. Soon it became obvious that he would not recover. William Borden would die a foreigner in Egypt. He never reached his goal. He never went back home.
He could have been troubled by the tragedy of it all. But his last conscious act was to write a little note. Seven words. Seven words that they spoke at his funeral. Seven words that summarized his life, his identity: “No reserve, no retreat, and no regrets!”
Alternative Application (Amos 8:1-12)
A British nobleman once commissioned William Hogarth to paint his portrait. Hogarth was the kind of artist who believed in realism: “Paint it the way you see it!” That was his motto. Unfortunately, the nobleman was rather ugly, so when he saw his likeness in the portrait, he was rather upset. He refused to pay Hogarth even a single pound for all his efforts!
But Hogarth needed the money. For him, a deal was a deal. So he sent a letter to the man, telling him that a circus master had seen the painting, and he had liked it very much. If the nobleman no longer wanted the painting, Hogarth would just add a tail and some horns and sell it to the showman for public display at a carnival.
The very next day Hogarth’s commission arrived. The nobleman took delivery of the offensive painting and promptly burned it to ashes!
That’s the way it is with ugly things. We don’t want to look at them. We don’t want to wake up to their reflection. At best, ugly things are for a circus sideshow. At worst, we’d like to destroy them and erase their memory from the earth.
Particularly if the ugly things are us. A man named Parker once came up with this “law”: Beauty is only skin deep, but ugliness goes clear to the bone. And though we’re quick to see that ugliness in people around us, it is frightening when we face ourselves and find the worms and decay within. I will do almost anything to make excuses about myself rather than admit that I might have done something sinful or evil.
Part of the problem is that most evil is too sinister to seem sinister. Most sin is too nice to seem “sinful.” Gossip starts out as genuine concern for somebody else. Extramarital affairs begin with good friendships. Workaholism originates with the joy of using the talents God gives us. But they become sin. That’s what they are. We can call them anything we’d like: temporary indiscretions; pressures of circumstance; mistakes of
judgment. But they are still sin. And they have a thousand thousand brothers and sisters, as Amos reminds ancient Israel and our modern selves.
In his powerful novel Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad tells the story of Marlow, a riverboat captain in the Congo. He hears of a man named Kurtz who lives out in the jungle and runs a kingdom of his own.
Kurtz started out as just an ordinary trader. He visited the villages. He bought and sold in the markets. He actually fell in love with Africa and its people. He was a good man, with good intentions.
But somehow, along the way, a web of little things trapped him into a kingdom of evil. When Marlow finds him, right and wrong have no more meaning for him. And his dying words are: “The horror! The horror!” A multitude of good intentions, innocent deeds, simple choices, and in the end, a horrible web of evil.
And that is why we all need Amos’ prophetic discipline. Sometimes we see it as an ugly word, a torture, a bitter pill to swallow. But Amos sees discipline as a sign of God’s love. It hurts. It puts God’s people in agony. It cuts like a knife. But the surgery is one of love.
The Chinese have several characters to express the concept of love. Some are simple. Some are complex. But the most profound of all is the symbol that fuses together two characters, the one for ordinary love and the one for pain.
“Pain-love,” it is called. It is the love of a mother for a child. She disciplines her daughter and feels the ache that cuts her own heart. It is the love of a husband. He stays with a troubled spouse and experiences the trauma of her bitterness. It is the love of God. He empties himself of glory and shares the sufferings of his people.
“Pain-love.” Deep love. The kind of thing that makes us “disciples” of Jesus. After all, what is really ugly in this world? Sin is ugly, but so are the wounds and scars and pain that it causes. And there is the key to discipline. As Amos knows, the discipline Israel needs to go through is not the torture of a sadistic ogre in the heavens. It is the “pain-love” of one who cares, who shares, who knows the ugliness of sin, and who will die making things right again.
