Attack and Withdrawal
Jesus calls us to love one another as he has loved us. And there are two basic forms of relating to others in which we fail to do this: attack and withdrawal.
The Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 illustrates this well. The man journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho was first attacked by robbers, and then he experienced the affront of withdrawal when the priest and the Levite passed on by. Unexpectedly, a Samaritan steps in to show the suffering man real compassion.
In the same way, each of us is tempted to one of these loveless modes of relationship. Here in the Midwest, we’re very familiar with the withdrawal of passive aggressiveness. In a big city out East, one might be more accustomed to verbal assaults. Regardless of whether you are more prone to attack or to withdraw, know that both of these are at odds with the compassion Christ calls us to. There is no place for blatant meanness nor cold indifference in His Body.
So my exhortation to us this morning is that we would reject all forms of attack and withdrawal, and instead love those whom God has sovereignly placed in our lives with the same love He has shown us. Let us pray.
Prayer of Confession
Father, we cry to you for mercy. Forgive us for our lovelessness. In our relationships with believers and unbelievers, in our theological and political disagreements, with our families and our friends — we so often give in to attack and withdrawal and fail to minister to one another. We tolerate contempt in our midst, when we know that Jesus came to save the world, not to condemn it.
We confess to you that we often struggle to believe how much you truly love us and the broken people around us. We confess that we also confuse compassion with indulgence. Lord, you tolerate no sin, yet you do not condemn us. Instead, you lay down your life as the Good Shepherd for his wayward sheep. So because we know you are a compassionate and merciful Savior, we come before you now to confess these and other sins to you in this moment of silence…
