Love...without strings

While I was in Louisiana, I overhead an anecdote that the relief team the week before me had witnessed. At the relief center, one of the pastor's daughters noticed a teenage girl evacuee who's shoes and clothes looked pretty worse for wear. Since they were about the same age and height, she brought the girl over to her car, and then gave to her the shoes and clothes that she was wearing. The evacuee girl's response was "But I'm not a Christian, and I'm not going to become one," to which the pastor's daughter replied, "I don't care."

At Newsong church, the pastor shared a story about their church planting team in Thailand. AIDS is a big problem in Thailand, and because people there are still afraid they can catch the disease from just touching someone with HIV, these people are cast out of the village. Some villages have separate sleeping quarters and public bathrooms for the HIV-infected, others leave them to fend for themselves. In one such mountain-side village, one HIV+ woman was in the former category, and was desparate, especially with the coming of winter. She heard about the Newsong team, and called them by phone to ask for their help in building a shelter and bathrooms for her and others. Though it was very much out of their way, the team came. But the first question the woman asked the team leader when they arrived was, "Do I have to become a Christian to get your help?"

What I find interesting is not that Christians helped, but that the initial response of the non-Christians was, "I know you want something in return." And the sad thing is, they're probably right. These people carried with them past experiences with other Christians who basically said, whether directly or subtly, "If you don't convert, then we don't want to help."

I find this very disheartening. We preach the wonders of God's unconditional love, but then why is our own love conditional? I think as Americans we are very success-oriented, and we love using quick-glance statistics, whether relevant or not, to measure success. (Does no. of conversions determine the success of a short-term missions trip or an outreach event? I think the degree of your obedience to God's leading is a much better measure of success, but because this can't be easily quantified, we casually ignore it.) This attitude can be very subtle, but ultimately sullies God's name in the eyes of the world.

This is one reason my parents are still pretty negative towards Christianity. While my paternal grandfather was alive, he started going to a local Chinese church, mostly to get plugged into a social network and to get help when needed. The people there were very friendly and enthusiastic and showered him with a lot of attention, visiting him at his home, and driving him around. My grandfather eventually accepted Jesus into his life. This is good, and I'm glad for that. The bad thing is once he became a Christian, the congregation and pastor stopped paying attention to him. After all, their "job" was "done". My parents understandably became pretty upset about that, and just reinforced for them that all Christians are like any other group: they just want something from you.

I have to admit I see this in myself as well. I can't help but notice that the people in my church, and my circle of friends, are all basically around the same socioeconomic standing and the same level of education. Am I truly loving unconditionally, or do I like hanging out with you because of how you make me look? or feel? Unconditional love, first and foremost, is completely other-oriented. Unconditional love means nothing that person does can make you love him more, and nothing he does can make you love him less, whether he chooses God or rejects Him. God's love is exactly like that. His love for us before we were saved, and after we were saved, is exactly the same. Doesn't make much sense, but I'm glad for it! Because that also means that while nothing I do can earn more of God's love (it's already so great), nothing I do can also make me lose it. I'm free! I only wish I could love others the same way, but by God's grace, I'm going to keep working on it.