By J.R. Miller
The art of living together is not easily learned. Indeed, it is the one lesson of life--and it takes all life to learn it. We cannot evade the lesson, for we cannot live apart. We are not made for solitariness. We need continual contact with others, in order that we may have the benefit of the impact and discipline of life on life. We are made to love together, and the ideal is very high. Christ gave the secret to his disciples. They were to love one another, and the measure of their love should be, "As I have loved you."
When we have learned to live in this way, we shall have no trouble in living together. It is worth our while to study the Master's rule of love, that we may know how to make it our own. How did he love his disciples? We have it in his every-day life with his disciples.
In the broadest sense his love was unselfish. SELF never thrust itself into any thought of his. It is selfishness which so often mars men's treatment of each other. "How will this affect me?" is the question which rises first in deciding what to do. It never rose at all in Christ's dealing with others. He thought only and always of what he could do to give pleasure or do good.
The spirit of unselfishness showed itself first of all, in unvarying kindness. His heart was sensitive to every pain or suffering in any life. He was touched with the feeling of every human infirmity, and longed to help or strengthen or comfort. He was ever ready to do gentle or obliging things. He did not expect others to help or serve him--he came not to be ministered unto--but to minister.
We cannot love as he loved, in the great infinite ways of his divine power. We cannot imitate his miracles of mercy and helpfulness. We cannot feed multitudes with our little loaves and fishes, or go along the streets and heal sick people by hundreds. But for every miracle that Jesus wrought, he did a thousand simple deeds of kindness, just such deeds as we can do. "As I have loved you" means therefore no impossible thing in our daily life. The divinest thing in the world is love shown in unselfish kindness. It may be only a gentle word, the commonest act of helpfulness to a lowly one, a bit of cheer to one who is discouraged. We cannot know the power of helpfulness there is in the commonest kindnesses we may do.
The love of Christ was always patient. Impatience mars a great deal of human love--but he never showed the slightest impatience to anyone. He did not fly into a temper as we do so often when people try us. His disciples were dull and slow learners. It seemed as if they never would learn the lessons he wanted to teach them. But he did not chide them. A great teacher said he never could forget how a boy whom he had rebuked for his dullness in not understanding some lesson, looked into his face and said, "Indeed, sir, I am doing the best I can!" The teacher said it shamed him to think how he had wronged and hurt the boy by his impatient and unworthy outbreak. Jesus never did anything like that. He had infinite patience with the slowest scholar he was trying to teach.
He had patience also with his disciples in their many failures in faithfulness and obedience. We are very exacting in our friendships; making large demands upon those we call friends, impatient even of the slightest lack of devotion; quick to resent any lack in loyalty or service. But Jesus bore with his friends in all their lack of faithfulness, never rebuking them and never withdrawing the rich grace of his love from them. They slept, when he had asked them to watch beside him while he was enduring his agony. Their failure grieved him sorely--but he uttered no word of complaint or chiding. It hurt him to have them so misunderstand his teaching about himself--but the only word he spoke was, "Have I been so long time with you--and have you not known me?" He was patient with their faults, their failures, their fears, their doubts, their denials, and all their unfaithfulness. They made friendship very hard for him--but he never failed nor faltered in his loving--he loved them unto the end.
Think what it would mean if we were to live together in this patient and forbearing way as Christians. Is not impatience one of the faults in our ordinary fellowship, which do most to mar the perfectness of our relations as Christians? Do we not too easily grow weary of the dullness of those we ought to help? Do we not chafe at the slowness of those who are walking with us? Do we not fail continually in sympathy with those who are weak and faint, with those who are feeble in body or mind? Do we not show irritation when others misunderstand us, when one doubts the sincerity and the reality of our friendship, or when those who we have trusted prove unworthy of our confidence? No doubt there are sore testing of love--but remember what "As I have loved you" means to us. The law of love is not "Do to others--what they have done to you," but "Do to them--what you would have them do to you."
Few of us go through life without being unjustly treated. The teacher was wise who exhorted those he taught, to accustom themselves to injustice. It is not an easy lesson to learn--but it is part of "As I have loved you." We must keep our love sweet, patient, forgiving, bearing all injury and wrong, if we would obey the Master's word and follow his example.
"As I have loved you." How small and inadequate much of our loving of each other is, when we lay it alongside this pattern! Christ loved men because he was their Friend. He never asked whether they were worthy or unworthy. He despised no one--but saw in every meanest wreck of life--a possible child of God and sought to lift the unworthiest to glory. In living together as Christians, we are to love all whom Christ loves. Not everyone is beautiful, holy, or a saint--but love makes us gentle with rudeness, harshness, or unkindness; patient with faultiness, pitiful toward weakness. Whatever others may do to us or fail to do--we must always love them.
F.W. Robertson tells of a friend who had failed to speak a word for him when he was falsely charged, leaving him defenseless against a slander. But he did not complain. He only says, "How rare it is to have a friend who will defend you thoroughly and boldly!" Yet that is what a friend should do. If you hear a word spoken against your friend, your fellow-Christian, if you love him as Christ loves you--you will defend him, stand between him and the false thing charged against him. That is the way the Master did, when any of his disciples were maligned. We cannot be too ready to speak for others, when they are criticized or calumniated. Too often we forget this requirement of Christian love. Some even seem to be glad to hear evil of others, and to believe it, and to allow suspicion to poison their friendship. This is cowardly, as well as unchristian. The true course regarding evil spoken of others, if possible, is to refuse to hear it; if we must hear it, to refuse to believe it; if it is so plain that we cannot but believe it, then to cast the mantle of charity over it and seek in every way to save the person against whom the evil is proved. "If any man is overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself, lest you also be tempted." That is loving as Christ loves us.
Is Christ-love the master-passion of our life?
