What The World Needs Now

I was a  new pastor in the town.  In my naiveté (being young, idealistic and still in seminary) I expected the pastor of the only other church in the area to welcome me with a phone call or a visit.  When that didn’t happen over the course of a month or two, I took it upon myself to call the pastor and introduce myself.  I asked that we might get together.  He invited me to his office.  When I arrived he began to ask me various theological questions.  I answered his questions about the virgin birth, the Bible, the second coming, etc., with the exuberance of a student who was just beginning to plumb these great theological mysteries.  I thought we were going to engage in a conversation or a discussion about these mysteries.  Instead, when he had asked his questions, he said something like this:  “I’m sorry, but on the basis of your answers you are not yet saved and I am unable to have fellowship with you.”  

His words stung and still sting.  I shall never forget the experience.  I was rejected.  I was judged.  I was damned.  He wanted nothing to do with me—not as a friend, not as a person, not as a brother.  I was dehumanized!  Have you ever had an experience where you have been rejected because of what you think or what you believe?

“I am unable to have fellowship with you” because you do not believe as I believe, you do not think as I think, you do not stand where I stand.  This statement has taken on a new and vigorous life in our present era in both religion and politics.  It is the antithesis of the teaching of Jesus precisely because it divides us and dehumanizes us.  It sucks us all into the same cesspool of animosity, hatred, ugliness, name-calling, meanness, bigotry and arrogance.  

Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote about the word the Greeks used for the highest form of love.  It is the word used in the New Testament: “Agape means nothing sentimental or affectionate.  It means understanding, redeeming good will for all men.  It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return.  It is the love of God working in the lives of men.  When we rise to love on the agape level we love others not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but because God loves us.”  I still believe and still sing, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.  It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.  What the world needs now is love, sweet love.  No, not just for some, but for everyone.”