“My 19th wedding anniversary is coming up soon. I can hardly wait! Aundrea and I are going to go out for spicy Cajun food, and then we’re going to drive down the road with country music blasting, and then we’ll park somewhere secluded and I’ll snuggle up next to her and tell her how much I love her blonde hair and blue eyes.”What’s wrong with the above scenario, cribbed from yesterday’s sermon by my pastor Josh Waltz? His wife doesn’t like spicy food, nor country music, not does she have blonde hair and blue eyes. So the (putative) plans have nothing to do with her and everything to do with him.This point in the sermon had to do with how we relate to God, especially in our prayers. We remake Him in our own image, shaping and phrasing our prayers according to what we want and how we see God. What we really end up doing is praying to an idea of God that we carry around in our heads, not praying to the actual God of the Bible. A very important theological point, and one that isn’t often made.
But, as the illustration says, we do this image-making in other relationships, too. We give to others what we would want someone to give to us, not what the other person actually needs and wants. I probably won’t get a great reaction, for instance, if I make the fabulous chocolate chile bourbon cake from The Fort restaurant, which I love, for Jim’s birthday. He hates it. If I really want to make him happy, I’ll make him something that he likes. It won’t work for me to think, “Well, he ought to like this.” He just doesn’t. Pretty obvious, no? But we make this mistake all the time, re-making people to fit our own predilections. (Jim fits partially into the description above of Josh’s wife in that he doesn’t like spicy food very much. Gideon and I have made unmerciful fun of him over the years for his delicate palate. The man thinks that Chipotle’s corn salsa is hot!)
How does this point fit in with the principle of loving your neighbor as yourself? After all, if you like something (such as spicy food), then wouldn’t giving that something to your neighbor, your loved one, be the thing to do? Alas, no. I don’t get to serve myself by hiding behind a warped version of the Golden Rule, just as a husband doesn’t get to give his wife a chain saw for her birthday because, after all, that’s what he’d like. (Don’t worry. That’s never happened at our house.) What we all want is to be loved for ourselves, so that’s what we should be willing to give to others.
As the disciples said to Jesus in another context, “This is a hard saying” (John 6:60 ESV). It’s difficult to think this way. “What does this person really need from me? How can I best serve that need?” Lots to think about from one sermon illustration!