There is a lie that is spreading throughout the culture of our United
Methodist Church. Don't get me wrong. This is not a malicious lie,
nor is it intended to do harm. This lie is not the product of angry or nasty
people. Nor is it repeated with malignant
purpose. But it is a lie nonetheless. And despite benign intent,
it is doing real and substantive harm. Not only is this a lie, it
is anti-Christian. In recent weeks I've
heard it from ministerial candidates, in children's sermons, in liturgy, and
even in sermons in United Methodist pulpits. It's said in reasonable
psychotherapeutic tones with wan smiles and earnestly furrowed brows.
It's purred gently to upturned cherubic faces and launched in a hundred
different venues, and it goes like this:
"You cannot
love others until you love yourself."
Now, I am a
proponent of a healthy self esteem. I think people should practice
reasonable self-care. But loving yourself
first? Putting yourself first?
Before others? Really? This notion flies in the face of
foundational Christian understanding. It is, and I use this word with
some hesitancy, a heresy.
The core story of
Christian faith is that God gave God's self on the cross in Jesus Christ so
that we might be redeemed. The holy utterance here is that
self-giving love redeems or saves. It redeemed us from the cross and it
continues to redeem as we pour ourselves out for others in self-giving love.
Jesus said that
whoever tries to save their lives will lose that life, and whoever seeks to
save their life will lose it..... (Matthew 10:39, 16:25; Luke 9:24). He didn’t say, “take care of number one
first!” We are a people who are
anchored in the notion of self-sacrifice, not self-love. We follow a
Master who was executed at age 33 to give himself for others. He did not
stop to love himself first. He gave himself, and in the giving found
glory. We are to look to the interests
of others before taking care of our own interests (Philippians 2:3). We are called to present our bodies as
"living sacrifices, pure and holy...." (Romans 12:1). Nowhere in our sacred story are we called
to love ourselves first as a pre-requisite to loving others.
It’s my conviction
that this notion of loving yourself first exposes the tip of the iceberg that
is the incursion of narcissistic culture into the sacred life of Christian
community. It’s certainly up to each
person and community to choose self care over care of others and I have no
judgment about such choices. But let us
be clear that such a choice is not a choice to practice Christian faith.
Indeed, one of the
deepest joys of Christian faith comes as we discover our true selves in the
process of giving ourselves for others.
There is nothing quite like the dynamic of a community of people who are
rooted in the notion that self-giving love redeems. It is redemptive not only for the “other,”
but for the one who is doing the giving as well. An entire community of people who put others
first is a community where everyone is beloved, where the abundance of God’s
Spirit is released and realized. It is,
in short, the “Kin-dom of God.”
So, let this brief
tirade serve as a humble, if blunt call to turn from a culture of narcissism
and reach into a life of self-giving love.
Let each of us not look to our
own needs first, but to the needs of our sisters brothers (there he goes
quoting scripture again) even if it’s at cost to us. For in so doing we will find our true selves,
and even life itself.
And
let those who would follow Jesus, deny themselves – not put themselves first – and
pick up the cross and follow him.
sr
