Love does not make victims. What behavior Jesus really condemns

Text taken from the booklet Love Doesn'T make Victims, published by Faith, Family, Equality: The Latin/A Roundtable* (United States), freely translated by Silvia Lanzi

Love does not make victims and not oppressive, because loving as God loves is to believe in equality. When we take Christianity seriously we begin to understand that God is love and that nothing and nobody is important (in Christianity and beyond it) like God and his love. We also begin to understand why Jesus said that the world would recognize us as his followers because of the intensity and authenticity of our love (17). Because, as the old Spanish Adagio says: "Actions make love, and not his good intentions". Talking about love is not the same as loving - it's simply talking. Discussing how to love is not the same as loving. "Love" is a verb that provides action, commitment and risk (18).

This is why, according to Christianity, the most crucial moment in which God has shown his love without limits, conditions or exceptions, it was when Jesus was crucified. Jesus risked and paid with his life what he had taught us about love. Jesus knew how to love. And since he knew, he himself can teach us that love does not make victims and not oppressive. On the contrary, love defends the victims of the powerful (19) and those who think they are morally better than the others (20).

But has Jesus did not condemn these behaviors? Yes. He condemned the behavior of those who think they have the right to judge or despise others. Jesus condemned the behavior of those who place religious observance or certain requirements over love for others. Jesus condemned, by calling them hypocrites, those who judge others using biblical doctrines and texts and has also condemned those who judge others because they do not fulfill religious obligations or do not follow certain moral precepts. Jesus was much more interested and attentive to the hearts of people, to their most sincere and profound motivations, and he was not interested in the blind application of the texts, doctrines, or of the precepts (21).
Jesus has often been accused of bad biblical texts badly (that both he and his contemporaries had no doubts were inspired by God). Jesus was often accused of behaving live violation of what were the explicit precepts of the Bible. But, if we care, we would understand that Jesus never hesitated, despite everything that was said against him, because he really believed and teaching with his life that God is love and that he is transforming our world according to his will, and that his will is compassionate love, because God is love.

That's why Jesus taught us that anyone who believes this and wants to follow him, must take the risk of loving as God loves. And God loves everyone without limits, without exception and without condition. This is also why Jesus taught that love is the greatest behavior asked and expected by his followers. Love without conditions or exceptions is the criterion on the basis of which one day God will decide whether or not someone contributed to the construction of a new world according to his will (22).

Ask yourself sincerely before God: do you think it is really possible to be Christian as they judge or persecute others?

If you understood what we have talked about in this booklet, you know that God is love and that man must be an image of this God who loves us madly without limits, exceptions or conditions. This is the God who loves us like this, not because we should be good, but because it is in his nature (23). If you understood what we talked about in this booklet, you also know that a follower of Christ must love to imitation of God (because we are an image of God). You also know that there is nothing and nobody - in Christianity or beyond it - more important than God and his love.

You also know that love does not make victims. Love does not pursue, does not despise, does not abuse, does not hurt the others. On the contrary, love frees us from those who would like to judge and condemn us. And it makes us free to build, with Jesus, a new and different world, in which all human beings will respect each other and will recognize each other the same dignity and the same rights, because all men are the image of God. It is God who wants everyone, without exception, are his image and his children. Nobody has bought or gained God's love. God does not love us because we are good, but because we are human (24). It would be an ideal thing if everyone agreed on everything. But that's not the case.

However, reality (at least for those who are seriously considered Christian) is that we are all the same before God. All of us have the same dignity and the same rights. Not because there are laws that decide who is better than the others, but because all human beings are children and daughters of the same God - images of each other of a God who is love.

Our dignity and our rights (since we are human) have been given to us by God. Not by the laws.

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(17) Giovanni 13: 12-15, 31-35.

(18) Giacomo 2: 14-26

(19) Luke 1: 46-55.

(20) John 8: 3-11.

(21) Matteo 5: 38-6: 6. Matthew 23: 2-34.

(22) Matthew 25: 31-46, and again Giacomo 2: 14-26.

(23) Sapienza 11: 21-26.

(24) Romans 8: 31-35, 37-39.

* Faith, Family, Equality: The Latin/A Roundtable aims to promote the understanding, acceptance and promotion of the Hispanic (Latinos) and their families by transforming their communities of faith and the Hispanic community as a whole.

Original text (PDF): Love Doesn'T make Victims