The Rest is Just Details

Back when I was in seminary, the church that I worked for had t-shirts printed up that on the front read, Love God, Love Neighbor, and on the back it said, The rest is just details.

And I loved the simplicity of that.

It makes our Christian faith a practice, and it's not bogged down in religiosity and following a bunch of rules or even alignment with an archaic set of beliefs.

It puts the focus on what Jesus focused on.

In fact, it's a version of what Jesus said many times.

The two greatest commandments are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

And then Paul reiterates that in this passage from Romans that all the commandments come down to this love your neighbor as yourself.

Strange how the Arkansas legislature didn't pass that as a law to be posted on every classroom in the state.

Would have saved some wall space, but I digress.

If our Christian faith is just loving God and our neighbor, simple enough, right?

Easy enough.

I can do that.

Everybody loves love.

All we have to do is love each other.

The rest is just details.

So what more is there to say?

Sermon over.

Just kidding.

Y'all aren't getting off that easy.

You got dressed up for something.

Is it as easy as it seems?

Or as simple as we want?

Can we love one another and the rest be just details?

Because maybe it's me, but rarely have I experienced love that is simple and easy.

We romanticize love.

It's nothing more than warm, comforting feelings or attraction.

Love seems like an emotion or a fondness towards someone.

But relationships are more complex than that.

And so love must be too.

I mean, those of you who have been married or have children may know that you can love someone so deeply, deeper than your bones, and at the same time you want to throttle them.

Nonviolently, of course.

You can love them with your whole heart, and it also means they can break your heart easier than anyone else.

Sometimes the hardest neighbors to love don't live next door, but under the same roof.

And what about the neighbors who believe differently than us?

Who vote differently than us, that have a different set of values than us?

If the rest is just details, it seems like those details are complicating our ability to love God and neighbor.

But the good news is Jesus and Paul don't say you have to like your neighbor, just love them.

And the same goes for loving our neighbor as acts of service to those in need.

It always seems more than just do-gooding.

I mean, as Dr.

King said, it must be more than flinging a coin to a beggar.

That's mercy.

And mercy may be an act of love, but it's not the fullness of it.

Loving and serving our neighbors seems to require much more.

If everything is just details, it seems to me that the details are pretty important and can't be ignored.

The details are complicated and sometimes messy.

The details require us to strive for a more profound experience of love.

Many years ago, even several years before we started our community cafe, we had a break-in here at the church.

I don't know if we could actually call it a break-in since they came in in a door that was inadvertently left unlocked, but he came in three different times, taking more stuff each time.

The most significant thing was a laptop.

You know, we faced these things from time to time.

It's part of being a downtown church.

But what made this particularly painful was we knew this guy.

He'd come to us for help.

We'd developed a relationship with him.

We knew his name.

He was our neighbor.

So how do you love your neighbor when they hurt or betray you?

Our first reaction was self-righteousness.

We helped you, and this is the thanks we get.

Our anger blinded our grace, and it was like we were seeking affirmation that we were good people trying to do something and got no credit for it.

We're over here loving God and our neighbors, and the details seemed to be getting in our way.

So we filed a police report, turned over the security footage, we even gave statements saying we knew who it was.

But none of that felt good.

There was no grace in it.

So Haley and I began to talk about how going to jail wasn't going to help our neighbor.

It would only perpetuate or intensify his destructiveness.

We knew he needed rehab, he needed a break, he needed someone to invest in him.

I mean, after all, Jesus and Paul don't say, love your neighbor until they betray you, then all bets are off.

In fact, the word Paul uses for love is very different than our understanding of love that is romantic and comforting and affectionate.

Paul uses the word agape, which is a more expansive understanding of love.

It's loving the way God loves.

It's unconditional love.

A love that is selfless.

And it doesn't depend on the merit or actions of the other person.

But the details of this form of love bring a vulnerability to being hurt or losing something.

It doesn't guarantee us anything.

In fact, it requires sacrifice.

Agape doesn't promise that feeling of satisfaction or the warm internal comfort we enjoy with loving or helping someone.

So Haley and I started searching for other options.

Well, I did.

Haley, you know, she's so hard-nosed she didn't want to do it.

Speak on Haley Day.

We consulted with the defense attorney.

We met with the detective on the case and we said, we don't want to press charges.

We said, if he's arrested, we'd rather work out an arrangement that if that if he'll make restitution for the stolen items.

Or maybe if he'd come, I don't know, pick up trash around the church or pull the weeds in our flower beds for some weeks, we'll we'll let the issue go.

We weren't trying to hold power over him and make him do demeaning tasks.

We simply wanted to stay in relationship to him.

We wanted to find a way that was redemptive, not retributive.

I wish I could tell you that there was a fairy tale ending and that we all lived happily ever after.

But I can't.

Our neighbor disappeared.

We haven't seen him since.

And I know we were naive and idealistic thinking we could make something like this happen and it would all work out.

And the rest is just details, but those details were just too complex to figure out.

But the process of searching for a different way to handle this situation.

The process of seeking the way of grace was exciting to us.

Staff members who had grown jaded about some of our homeless neighbors began to see things in a new light, and it brought hope rather than bitterness or despair.

Just the thought of seeking this different way gave us life.

Perhaps that's what loving our neighbors does.

Whether it's a neighbor that's as close as your family, or a neighbor with whom you disagree, or a neighbor in need, it may be messy and hard.

It may not solve all the problems of the world.

It may not feel satisfactory, and we may lose something along the way.

But it brings light and life to us and our neighbors.

And it gives honor to God.

So, yes.

Everything comes down to loving God and loving our neighbors.

But let's get lost in the details, shall we?

Amen.