If as Christians we are allowing any guide, principle, or worldview to determine our course ahead of “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself” we are and will forever be unable to follow Jesus in our actions in any way, shape, or form. When we appeal to heritage, history, law, tradition, or nationalism above “do unto other as you would have them do unto you” we fail to follow in the steps of Jesus.
This is why the pharisees were so baffled, and so jealous. His actions were in direct conflict with those man-made standards, and that shook the very foundations of their world, their pride, and their moral superiority. Love baffled them. Mercy baffled them. Justice that acted as a battering ram to their walls of injustice baffled them. Jesus just plain didn’t make sense, because they’d lost all sense of what loving God and neighbor really meant. If we find ourselves balking at love and mercy, it is because we have followed them, and not Jesus, and that is –scarily enough– far easier to let happen than any of us dare to admit most days.
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
I Peter 2:21 (NIV)
