“And who is my neighbor?”
Luke 10:29
“You also are to testify for me.”
John 15:27
The daily
path that the Christian person takes in the surrounding context
will define their identity and determine their function in
everyday life, whereby the person will witness to who they are
and whose they are—a testimony all the world observes. Moreover,
whose is an existential issue of belonging that is either
typically ignored by Christians, or ambiguous to observers. What
the Christian person experiences in all this is dependent on
their depth of knowing God and their extent of understanding the
Word.
The
journey we’ve been on so far in this study keeps widening in its
scope of essential issues such that our challenge is
unavoidable. On the other hand, whether our path is actually
narrowing is based on our resolve for these inescapable issues.
The next two issues will challenge our resolve much further, so
that our path narrows in very practical terms for the
unmistakable viability of our Christian faith (not any faith).
Perhaps this should further alert you to suspend any assumptions
you might have, given the seeming familiarity of these next two
issues. “Listen and learn” is our ongoing challenge to be open
to these issues and then to be vulnerable to resolve them.
The Rule of Law
or Rule of Relationship
When God’s people originally
received the Torah from God, it became their Rule of Law. God
communicated to them (not unilaterally commanded) the terms of
the Law in relational language to define the relational terms
for covenant relationship together. They, however, too often
received the Law in referential language, which thereby
transposed those terms of relationship to a mere behavioral code
for them to follow with variable connection to covenant
relationship. Hence, God’s Law was transposed from its essential
qualitative terms as the Rule of Relationship to a reduced
quantitative system for a Rule of Law. When the Rule of Law is
quantified outer in, it inevitably distorts justice and becomes
inequitable—the systemic condition prevailing globally today. As
this reduced system evolved further as an outer-in behavior
code, it shifted further away from the qualitative significance
of relationship and its primacy for God. This Rule of Law
prevailed in the ancient history of God’s people and became a
major issue of contention with Jesus throughout the incarnation
because Jesus embodied and enacted the Rule of Relationship.
Let’s examine some parts of the interaction that Jesus had with
experts of the law.
Generally,
since Jesus wasn’t into observing a quantitative system, the
legal experts frequently indicted him for breaking the law. Each
occasion always gave Jesus the opportunity to clarify and
correct their bias by using the qualitative terms of God’s Law
for the primacy of the Rule of Relationship. During one of their
debates, another teacher of the law asked Jesus to state the
most important commandment (Mk 12:28-31, cf. Mt 22:34-40).
Clearly, Jesus distinguished the Rule of Relationship from a
Rule of Law. Yet, here again, the Rule of Relationship can only
be understood in relational language, and merely having the same
terms in reference is misleading and misguided.
This
emerged on another occasion when a lawyer tested Jesus about
inheriting eternal life; Jesus used the opportunity to clarify
and correct what’s written in the Law (Lk 10:25-28). But, the
lawyer was an outer-in person defined by what he did, so he
asked “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ response made the answer
unmistakable to the lawyer (vv.29-37), yet likely without him
understanding the human dynamics involved. Such a lack of
understanding the Word’s Good Samaritan is common among
Christians also, so what Jesus illuminates challenges many
assumptions about the Good Samaritan.
Who
Jesus made unmistakable thereby challenged the lawyer to change
from compliance with a quantified Rule of Law to qualitative
adherence to the Rule of Relationship. The Good Samaritan also
makes unmistakable to all of us the human dynamics in the issue
of neighbor, so that we would enact the Rule of Relationship
rather than a Rule of Law. The challenge to change is not simply
replacing the latter with the former, but a major turnaround for
the persons involved and the nature of their interactions.
The Human
Dynamics of Neighbor
Who would better know the
details in the Book of Leviticus than a priest and Levite? They
certainly heard these details of the Law often, but whether
Leviticus 19:18 rang in their ears upon seeing their injured
neighbor is an open question. I’m sure many Christians in their
shoes would have at least called for emergency help; but they
could still be engaged in human dynamics about neighbor not
unlike the priest and Levite. Really, how so?
When the
priest and Levite separately saw the beat-up man on the road,
they each chose to pass by him on the other side of the road.
They didn’t overlook him or even deny his bad condition, or else
they wouldn’t have moved to the other side. Overlooking,
ignoring or denying neighbors are certainly dynamics that happen
all the time among neighbors—even among friends and Christians.
Jesus illuminated, however, a more pervasive human dynamic
engaged by the priest and Levite: keeping relational distance.
In ancient
Israel, all priests belonged to the Levite tribe, a tribe that
had special status among its tribes (Num 3-4). Given the
Levites’ status, what human dynamics emerge from Jesus’ parable
of the Good Samaritan? The Levites were a unique tribe that took
seriously their role to serve as priests and teach the torah.
The first human dynamic emerging, then, centers on this equation
used for their identity formation. This equation added up what
they did to define their identity. In other words, their
identity was based on a person from outer in, whose function
would be centered in self-consciousness more than
person-consciousness. Their outer-in lens focusing on human
distinctions inevitably engaged in the comparative process of
human dynamics, which measures the outer-in distinctions of self
and others on a vertical scale stratifying their status.
Remember, Jesus’ disciples also engaged in this comparative
process (e.g. Lk 9:46). So, how do these human dynamics affect
how we engage in relationships with this type of interaction?
Since the
Levites were knowledgeable about the terms of God’s Law, they
were aware of how to treat neighbors, strangers, and aliens (as
in Lev 19). But they transposed God’s relational terms to
quantified details of a Rule of Law, and this outer-in lens
determined how they saw others, and thus how they related to
neighbors, strangers and aliens. Based on their lens, how would
you describe the way the priest and Levite treated the injured
man?
Their
outer-in identity as priest and Levite also projected an
outer-in identity onto the injured man. Other than his injury we
don’t have any information about him, but he was obviously not
one like them. His different distinction didn’t measure up to
theirs, and the usual consequence at the very least was to keep
relational distance (contrary to Lev 19). Even if they assisted
the man in some way, their action toward him would have been
condescending, paternalistic at best, which still would have
maintained a stratified structure in the relationships between
them—which should not be confused with love of neighbor. The
diverse ways these human dynamics could be enacted can also be
subtle to elude the awareness of those giving or even receiving
the action. Thus, it is critical to understand:
These human dynamics converge with the
quantified terms of a Rule of Law to make it variable or
relative; and the dynamics also conflate with culture to shape
its beliefs and values—a culture that helps formalize human
distinctions to systematically stratify the surrounding context.
Remember the basis for
skin-ny identity and ableism identity and their consequences
(discussed in Chap. 2), because it’s all part of the human
dynamics of neighbor.
I think
it’s safe to assume that the priest and Levite observed a Rule
of Law, because I don’t think that Jesus was illustrating the
blatant disregard of neighbor by their behavior. As the object
of comparative treatment himself, Jesus had a deeper purpose in
this parable to illuminate these human dynamics:
1.
The range of ways the treatment of
neighbor can have.
2.
And that merely observing a Rule of
Law should not be confused with and must not be considered as
enacting the Rule of Relationship, and thus cannot be a
substitute for God’s relational terms constituting “love your
neighbor as yourself.”
3.
Bringing to the forefront and making
foremost the relational involvement required to love just as
Jesus loved.
It is likely Jesus
used the actions of the priest and Levite as a cautionary tale
to fulfill the first part of his purpose, so that others like us
will be alerted about the discordant treatment of neighbors.
Therefore, based on Jesus’ threefold purpose, the Good Samaritan
widens the challenge for all Christians and unavoidably narrows
the path for our existential treatment of our neighbors.
The Tactical
Action for Neighbor
Given the
fact that the human dynamics of ‘neighbor’ can be subtle and
elude awareness, Christians have to understand how our actions
can be in actual discord with the Rule of Relationship for
neighbor. For example, various neighborhoods in the surrounding
context implement a tactical plan to keep their neighborhood
strictly on their terms—terms, that is, in order to prevent any
intrusion that would change things in their biased view. The
tactic is ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY). The distinctions used
for NIMBY are always quantified on a comparative basis, with the
value measurement enacted in a stratified process. Those
neighbors having the same (or similar) distinctions join
together to preserve their joint neighborhood, likely with
little regard for how neighbors in other neighborhoods would be
affected by NIMBY. Christians haven’t been immune from using
this tactic and may in fact take the lead for the cause of NIMBY.
What NIMBY Christians need to account for is how their actions
create discord with Jesus’ Rule of Relationship for neighbor.
This emerges as we understand the tactical action for neighbor
that the person of Jesus embodied to enact with each of us, his
neighbor.
First of
all, Jesus’ person from inner out embodied the strategic action
of whole-ly God’s relational response of grace to the human
condition. Jesus then enacted God’s tactical action that
distinguishes unmistakably God’s vulnerable relational
involvement of love with persons in the human context, which
functionally unfolded directly in relationships face to face—all
condensed in the often misunderstood parameters of John 3:16,
which the whole Gospel of John summarizes. The strategic,
tactical and functional actions by Jesus embodied the relational
terms of God’s Rule of Relationship, which he unequivocally
constituted in the primacy of the relational involvement of
love: first with God, then with others, including our own person
(Mk 12:29-31; Jn 13:34). Love is the tactical action in
God’s Rule of Relationship that obviously widens the challenge
for all Christians. Less obvious, however, is that the
relational terms of love certainly narrows the path for
relationships in the Rule of Relationship.
“Just as I
have loved you” is the irreducible and nonnegotiable basis for
the tactical action of love. When we don’t understand or even
directly experience Jesus’ love, we readily turn to variable
forms of love to observe his two commandments. If Jesus’ love is
misrepresented, then, the love we give to others doesn’t
represent him—a common witness that Christians project. The
tactical action of Jesus’ love is first directed to us in order
for us to personally experience the relational reality of his
love’s involvement with our whole person from inner out—not
merely a love of what he does for us. The latter is secondary to
the primacy of his love’s relational involvement with us face to
face, which does not keep a sacred distance. On this
irreplaceable basis, Jesus makes further definitive the tactical
action of love: “Just as I have loved you, you also need to
be vulnerably involved to love one another. By this
tactical action everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you are relationally involved in love for
one another” Jn 13:34-35).
Yet, Peter
ignored the tactical action made definitive by Jesus and instead
immediately focused on the secondary, both about Jesus’ person
and his own person. With the secondary, he expressed his
devotion to Jesus not by his relational involvement of love but
about what he would do for Jesus—that is, sacrificing his body
for Jesus but not giving him his whole person (13:36-37). Given
Peter’s relational distance, it should be no surprise for him to
hear later the disarming question from Jesus: “Do you love me?”
(Jn 21:15-18). Peter answered with a variable form of love (phileo)
because he didn’t understand how Jesus loved (agape) him.
The love of phileo can have merit, for example, in the
fellowship between Christians, but it is not a substitute for
the relational involvement of love given us by Jesus and for our
reciprocal response of love to him and others. Agape is
the only constituting basis for the tactical action of love.
Peter’s
relational distance caused him to misrepresent Jesus’ tactical
action of love; and the tactical action Peter used as a
substitute made outer-in distinctions (Acts 10:13-16), which
Peter assumed in observing a quantified Rule of Law. But Peter’s
tactic dealt a harmful blow to the early church’s tactical
action. Thus, his tactic along with other leaders needed to be
confronted and changed in order for Jesus’ tactical action of
love to constitute the church (Gal 2:11-14; Acts 15:1-19). Even
though the tactical action of love turned persons around to grow
the early church, this tactical cycle recurred through church
history and has been consequential for the relationships by
Christians—first with God, second with each other, and then with
all others. Yet, repeating the tactical cycle should not
surprise us, since the variable forms of love used by Christians
generate simulations and illusions in relationships that readily
perpetuate relational distance embedded in the secondary over
the primary, the quantitative over the qualitative, and thus the
outer in over the inner out.
Where does
this leave the tactical action for neighbor? There are numerous
tactics Christians can take with neighbors, even in the name of
love. The issue for us, however, is not about the numerous ways
we can love our neighbor. Jesus narrows the path for all
Christians by an interdependent relational dynamic essential for
God’s Rule of Relationship: (1) “Love your neighbor as
yourself” (Mk 12:31), and (2) love others “just as I
love you” (Jn 13:34). Commonly for persons, of course, there are
also various ways that persons love themselves. But the
qualitative terms of the Rule of Relationship always define the
person as whole from inner out. Love our whole person from inner
out requires us to be vulnerable with our heart and not maintain
distance that prevents love from touching us deeply. This
involves more, for example, than a spiritual exercise but
getting down to the whole person, which also requires vulnerably
listening to our heart in all its feelings. Jesus only loves
with his whole person, whereby he only loves our whole person.
That’s why when our focus is on secondary matters—no matter how
important that secondary may be—we become distracted from his
relational involvement of love. This happened to Peter when
Jesus washed his feet. In this condition—a default mode for
many—how do Christians experience the relational reality of his
love and thereby be able to love our whole person, so that we
can love our neighbor and love each other just as he loves us?
We cannot
reciprocate in Jesus’ likeness and give out what we do not
vulnerably experience in our whole person. In the path
Christians take, all must account for this reality:
Love is variable in a Rule of Law, but love
is irreducible and nonnegotiable in the Rule of Relationship—the
agape Jesus embodied in his whole person to vulnerably
enact with nothing less and no substitutes.
Anything less and any
substitutes for the tactical action of love enacted by Jesus to
be embodied in the Rule of Relationship unmistakably leaves our
neighbor at a distance on the other side of the wide path
taken—left out in the cold. To undertake nothing less and no
substitutes requires, necessitates, makes imperative, even
demands the tactical action of agape, which is
demonstrated by the Good Samaritan. Make no mistake, however,
the Good Samaritan demonstrated not in the extensive secondary
(albeit important) things he did for his neighbor but in the
primacy of his relational involvement of love he made vulnerable
to his neighbor. Here is a person whose sociocultural
distinction was a marginalized identity that many wouldn’t want
in their neighborhood, yet he chose not to be defined by those
outer-in terms. Thus, he loved himself, so that his person from
inner out would love his neighbor.
This
relational process and outcome can only unfold from nothing less
and no substitutes for the tactical action of love as Jesus
enacted in order for his followers to enact in his relational
likeness. Hence, the Word’s Good Samaritan identity is ascribed
incorrectly to too many persons just because of their goodwill
and deeds—which in itself is good but not to the qualitative
depth of the Good Samaritan. Christians needs to understand this
critical difference and account for their tactics with
neighbors.
Therefore,
the tactical and functional actions in our everyday practice
will constitute what kind of person we are and thereby determine
who is our neighbor. The results make evident what we give to
our neighbor and thus what our neighbor receives.
The Nature of
Witness
The
non-virtual fact: Our neighbors only experience from us what we
give out. The existential reality: What we give out is limited
to what we personally experience. This fact and reality underlie
a Christian’s witness in the surrounding context, whether their
witness is intentional or inadvertent. Hence, all Christians
need to understand the nature of their witness and account for
the witness they give out.
All
persons give out a witness during the course of everyday life,
which others can experience or at least observe. This is a
passive witness that merely gives out something about that
person. Christians are always giving out a witness about
themselves that others use to assess our faith, even though that
witness wasn’t so intended. Most of Christian witness is just
the passive type, and this prevailing testimony is rarely
accounted for. Consider the partisan evangelicals who, despite
their emphasis on evangelism, don’t address the passive witness
they give out that also bears witness to the gospel they
proclaim.
Then,
there are two active types of witness that are relevant for
Christians also to account for. The active witness and passive
witness form the witness loop that puts Christian witness
in an ongoing mode—even a default mode signifying Christians are
always bearing witness. The shift to active witness emerges with
Jesus before his crucifixion and after the resurrection.
Gathering with his disciples afterward, he summarized what just
happened to him and stated “You are witnesses of these things
(Lk 24:46-48). In the N.T., witness (martys and its verb,
martyreo) denotes one who has knowledge about what they
saw and heard, and thus can confirm it by bearing witness or
giving testimony. On the one hand, Jesus seems to be identifying
what actually just defines the first active witness as
simply witnessing to what they saw, heard or know—that is, in
effect as an observer of these facts and information that are
received from the embodied Word or collected from the written
Word. As Christians progress from a passive witness, more often
than not they become this first active witness expressing what
facts and information they heard and know. Perhaps most
Christians would think that this active witness is important to
form the witness loop, or that it’s better than just having a
passive witness. Jesus would not agree that such an active
witness would be “my witnesses in the global human context”
(Acts 1:8).
His
witnesses are the second active witness that emerges with
Jesus before his crucifixion. When Jesus revealed that his
relational replacement, the Holy Spirit, is going to “testify
for me, not just truths and knowledge about me,” he
also declared unequivocally to his followers: “You also must
testify” (Jn 15:26-27). Why so? “Because you have been
involved with me to experience my person in relationship
together.” The second active witness is clearly
distinguished from the first by being a witness who doesn’t just
observe Jesus for facts and info. Rather this witness
experiences Jesus by being a relationally involved participant,
who thereby can testify of and for his whole person—sharing with
others his vulnerable presence and intimate relational
involvement embodying the whole gospel. Nothing less and no
substitutes can be, will be and are “my witnesses.”
The Basis for Our Witness
Have you
examined your witness loop yet? Have you ever considered what
your neighbors observe from your witness, or from your Christian
friends and church witness? The basis for our witness prompts
these questions, so we can understand the path we’re on and meet
the challenge before us.
All
Christians certainly give out a passive witness in their
everyday life and the composition of this witness should have
our ongoing attention. At the same time, our active witness must
be understood regarding its basis. Whatever we actively express
about our faith is always either subject to critical review by
others receiving that witness, or subjected to evaluation by the
Word (together with the Spirit)—or by both. Our witness should
never be considered an end in itself but always understood as a
primary means to the existential end that confirms either some
reality about ourself or the reality of whole-ly God embodied by
the Word. When the latter is conflated with the former, the
means-end process becomes ambiguous such that the end of “my
witnesses” eludes our witness. These dynamics make it imperative
for Christians to understand the basis of their current witness.
Lacking this understanding relegates our witness easily to
having no legitimately significant basis or simply no basis at
all. When Christian witness and the Word are not on the same
page, the world (including our neighbor) has a basis to render
our witness without significance and dismiss the relevance of
the Christian faith.
In effect,
Christians need to be part of a Witness Protection
Program in order to ensure the integrity of their witness
is maintained. Without this maintenance, Christians will labor
in the means-end witness process and thereby lose their voice to
echo the Word and to rightly proclaim his whole gospel. The lack
of integrity in our active witness also exposes our passive
witness being rendered by various influences in our surrounding
context, which then begs the question about what we are really
experiencing to determine the nature of our giving out.
Therefore, whenever our witness’ integrity is not ensured, our
passive witness becomes the main determinant for our witness
loop; this then delegitimizes the basis of our active witness
and makes it subjected to scrutiny by the Word (with the
Spirit).
“Listen
and learn” from the scrutiny by the Word of the witness given
out by the following churches:
Two churches gave out a very active
witness, which many churches today would be proud to have. One
of those gave out such a popular witness that they gained a
reputation of “being alive.” But the Word’s scrutiny assessed
their witness as effectively “dead.” They needed to “Wake up…for
I have not found your witness complete, that is, whole in
the sight of my God” (Rev 3:1-2). The other church actively gave
out a witness that strictly adhered to the facts and information
about God, regardless of the pushback they received in their
surrounding context. The Word wasn’t impressed, “But I have this
against you, that you have abandoned the love you experienced at
first” (Rev 2:2-5). They basically shifted their witness from
the tactical action of love constituting the Rule of
Relationship to a quantitative tactical action composing a Rule
of Law that merely conforms to a code of behavior. They needed to turn around (“repent”) and return to
what’s primary for “my witnesses,” so that what they give out
would be based on their relational experience of the Word’s
relational involvement of love with them.
Another active church witness was less
active than the two above. Their witness gave out a very
accepting hand to the diversity in their surrounding context,
which absorbed those outer-in distinctions into a hybrid process
for this church. The Word scrutinized their witness to its core
in order to both reconstitute their witness from inner out and
so that “all the churches will know that I am the one who
searches minds and hearts” (Rev 2:18-23). The last church
witness to learn from was a relatively passive witness that
maintained relational distance in what they gave out. Basically,
their witness emerged from the esteemed distinctions of their
quantitative resources, which rendered what they gave out as
“neither cold nor hot”—as in a distasteful “lukewarm” water that
“I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Since the Word will
“reprove and discipline those whom I love,” in spite of their
lukewarm witness the Word gently called out to them to
turnaround and “Listen! I am relationally involved at the
door to your heart, knocking to be let in so that
there is no relational distance between us” (Rev 3:14-20).
Though the Word does not subpoena us
to “testify on his behalf” as the Spirit testifies (Jn 15:26),
he ongoingly pursues us for relationship so our testimony will
be in likeness. Sadly, too many Christians merely quantify
Jesus’ knocking (Rev 3:20) without its qualitative-relational
significance, such that their personal experience lacks the
Word’s intimate relational involvement of love. The relational
consequence diminishes the experiential basis of what they give
out to lukewarmness—what becomes a distasteful witness others
would spit out of their mouths.
Our
witness loop has much to “Listen and learn” from in order for
our witness to undertake the narrow path of “my witnesses.”
The Constituting
Basis of “My Witnesses”
When Jesus
declared without equivocation that others will know “you are my
disciples,” what did he illuminate that those disciples give
out? Certainly this outcome is contingent on disciples loving
each other but that’s not the constituting basis for the witness
with this outcome. “Just as I have loved you” is not a
reference to what Jesus did but brings to the forefront the
constituting basis for loving one another (Jn 13:34). What is
given out by these followers witnesses to the experiential truth
and relational reality of their persons who “follow my person”
in the primacy of relationship together to be intimately
involved “where I am” (Jn 12:26). The integrity of this witness
is not unequivocal just by loving one another, because human
love is too variable to ensure its integrity. Therefore, “just
as I love you” is the only constituting basis to provide the
experience necessary to give out the love that witnesses
unequivocally for all others (especially our neighbor) to “know
that you are my disciples” (13:35). And while Jesus’ agape
no doubt transforms our person, we shouldn’t assume that it
alters our genes to make giving out agape our default
mode.
This
tactical action of love constituting the basis of our witness as
“my witnesses” is essential to understand at its
qualitative-relational roots. These roots begin from the
trajectory of God’s grace to humanity and emerge strategically
when the Word embodied the whole and uncommon (holy) God to
tactically enact the agape involvement of the Trinity.
Foremost, these roots distinguish the agape involvement
within the Trinity (as in Jn 17:23,24,26), which unfolds in
reciprocal relational involvement between the trinitarian
persons. It is only on the basis of their reciprocal relational
involvement of agape that the Son gives out love: “As the
Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (Jn 15:9). Therefore,
whole-ly God’s agape is not unilateral, but by its
qualitative-relational nature it is always reciprocal for those
who experience God’s agape involvement. Does this clarify
and correct Christian notions of John 3:16, which John unfolds
in his Gospel?
Jesus used the metaphor of the vine and the branches to describe
this relational process (Jn.15). We tend to perceive this as a
static structural arrangement that is necessary for quantitative
results (“fruit”). This shifts the focus from the dynamic
process of intimate relationship Jesus is describing. Three
times he mentions the reciprocal effort “to remain” in each
other (15:4,5,7). The word “remain” (Gk. meno) means to
remain, dwell, abide; applied to another person it denotes
reciprocal relational involvement. This is the same word Jesus
used to describe his authentic (Gk. alethes) disciples
intimately involved (“hold,” meno) with his “teachings” (logos,
his essence, his person, Jn.8:31). When there is this kind of
relational involvement, there are distinct relational outcomes
experienced in this process. One outcome is to know God
intimately—not to be confused with knowing information about
God—which only emerges from vulnerable reciprocal interaction. A
further outcome is the experience of agape involvement,
not only from Jesus but also from the Father (Jn.15:9; 17:26).
These relational outcomes underlie the fruit his disciples bear.
This fruit does not reflect the quantitative results of what we
do; this fruit witnesses to the relational outcome of being
intimately involved in reciprocal relationship with Jesus as his
disciple (Jn.15:8). The specific relational outcome witnessed to
is the experience of God’s qualitative difference in his
agape involvement. This fruit of the vine must be seen as
the agape involvement with others that Jesus said clearly
distinguishes his disciples (Jn.13:35). Hence, only these
relational roots bear this relational fruit just in reciprocal
relationship without relational distance.
“To remain” is a reciprocal effort because it is a relationship
involving the relational work by each participant. Jesus
remains in us with his agape involvement, as he
further shared about the progression of the vine (Jn.15:9). But
he also said, “Now remain in my love.” God doesn’t do all the
relational work, nor do we but we have our part in the
relationship. Our relational work includes obedience – the
relational act of submitting our person (15:10). This may seem
like a contingency to experience his love or to be his friend
(15:14). Yet, it is crucial for discipleship to grasp that these
really are not conditional statements but relational messages.
What comes first in these verses is his love, not our obedience
(15:9).
Moreover, obedience can be either adhering to the quantitative
terms of a Rule of Law, or making our person vulnerable in
response to the Rule of Relationship. According to the Word,
obedience is the relational way we submit our true and whole
person to him for intimate relationship that has the outcome of
further experiencing his love (Jn.14:21,23). Accordingly, love
is not some substance he gives us and thus we possess it; love
is what we experience from him in how he involves himself with
us and treats us. Love is not a feeling; it is what we
relationally experience of him in our heart that increasingly
transforms it and grows it. Love is not something we do, or even
he does; it is what we ongoingly share together in reciprocal
intimate relationship. Through obedience we vulnerably submit
our inner-out person to him for this relationship. As noted
earlier, Jesus defines his own obedience to the Father for the
purpose of this relationship and remaining in his love (15:10b).
In his tactical action of love, Jesus was always closing the
relational gap in his interactions with others, as well as
reducing the relational distance in his connection with his
followers. As hearts kept opening to each other, there would be
intimate connection. Thus, the nature of the witness he always
gave out was based on the vulnerable relational involvement of
his whole person from inner out. The love he enacted embodied
the whole-ly God, which he distinguished in his prayerful
communication with the Father that became definitive for his
family. In this closing prayer to the Father for all his
disciples, Jesus shifted from the vine-branches metaphor to the
relational reality the metaphor symbolized: the intimate
reciprocal relationships uniting them together in family love
(Jn.17:20-23). The uncommon bond of these reciprocal intimate
relationships, which is rooted in the irreducible and
nonnegotiable relational process engaged in agape
involvement, witnesses to the world of the experiential reality
in the relational progression of the incarnation (vv.21,23).
Jesus reconstitutes our quantitative reductions of what
witnessing involves; and he radicalizes our common notions about
evangelism by deepening our focus from merely what he did to the
qualitative substance of his intimate relational presence in
order for our reciprocal response to be “my witnesses.”
Therefore, the tactical action of love constituting the basis of
our witness is neither reducible nor negotiable to our variable
terms in order to constitute the integrity of “my witnesses.”
This is the qualitative-relational nature of the witnesses that
the embodied Word constituted as he prepared to ascend from the
earth (Acts 1:8). Though the palpable Word would still be
present and involved, his relational replacement, the Holy
Spirit, would testify further “on my behalf.” Most challenging
is that the Word constituted the reciprocal relational
involvement of his followers to give out cooperative testimony
with the Spirit (Jn 15:27) to be his personal extension in the
global human context as “my witnesses.” Accordingly, as we share
his agape love with others (including our enemies), then
we witness unmistakably to him who is agape involved with
us. Christians must not mistake “my witnesses” with merely
giving out facts and important info about him, nor with just
confirming propositional truths of the gospel. To witness to
Jesus’ person as the whole-ly God (with Father and Spirit) is to
share the experiential relational reality of intimate
involvement in his life and of receiving his vulnerable
qualitative ontology and relational function given directly to
us in face-to-face relationship together as family.
How many neighbors in the world have been the relational
recipients of “my witnesses”? The palpable Word continues to
scrutinize what we give out.
Take heed: The tactical action of love undertakes a narrow
relational path of involvement “just as I am relationally
involved in love with you” to account for being “my witnesses”
with the integrity of nothing less and no substitutes. This
directs us to the integral theology and practice of our
discipleship and of church, which inescapably converge in the
7th issue to further widen our challenge and narrow our path.