Aggressive Love
He (Jesus) knew that the old eye-for-eye philosophy would leave everyone blind. He did not seek to overcome evil with evil. He overcame evil with good. Although crucified by hate, He responded with aggressive love.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thank you to Reverend King for these powerful, motivating words that can help us navigate contentious days. To help us play nice. Jesus’ revolutionary directive to love our enemies is just as revolutionary today. While our knowledge and skills have certainly advanced from ancient times, the human heart’s capacity to love sacrificially and extend the olive branch of peace will always be a mighty challenge.
Reverend King continues to speak poignantly into our lives, his was not a message of mere words. He passionately lived out loud these themes of love, reconciliation, and justice. He modeled a more genuine, Godward, relational way to live that is timeless. How we view people who think and look differently than us…choosing to live peaceably with those who disagree with us, misunderstand, or even seek us harm…putting action to Jesus’ words to love our enemies and forgive 70 x 7. And just as Jesus lived out the truth of John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends,” so too, Reverend King bravely lived and loved, sacrificing his life for a more just world. Oh yes, he had a dream.
Aggressive love. Two words that seem antithetical. And yet — what kind of love, but aggressive, will counter the relentless forces of negativity, distrust, and contempt? Politicians and media figures sow seeds of division with abundance and ease. These individuals that have the ear of our country and the greatest platform of influence. Certainly no weak-kneed love can counter this level of dissension. Only bold, steady, rock-solid, strong-and-yet-humble, filled-with-conviction love can take on the hate we see sweeping across our nation.
But words are cheap, who in our modern-day, contentiously tweeting world actually lives this way? In an age marked by incivility, we may feel hard-pressed to find examples of this kind of sacrificial love and service. Where can we find a Harriet Tubman, Oskar Schindler, or Mother Theresa to inspire us to action? This is where the eloquence of Reverend King’s life speaks to us in the 21st century. Consider this incident from 1957…
At A.G. Gaston’s auditorium, as King announced Sammy Davis Jr.’s coming benefit for SCLC, a 200-pound white youth got out of his seat right next to Gaston and walked toward the stage. Most people assumed he was a white supporter wanting to shake King’s hand. Instead he began punching King in the mouth. King did not defend himself.
The conventioneers, after a stunned moment, rushed toward the stage. Joe Lowery was, with Abernathy, the first to get to King’s side with fists ready and was astounded to watch King become his assailant’s protector. He held him solicitously and, as the audience began singing Movement songs, told him that their cause was just, that violence was self-demeaning, that ‘we’re going to win.’ Then King introduced him to the crowd, as though he were a surprise guest. Roy James, a twenty-four-year-old native New Yorker who lived in an American Nazi Party dormitory in Arlington, Virginia, began to weep in King’s embrace.
(Diane McWhorter)
Aggressive love — Reverend King became his assailant’s protector. In kindness he embraced him, speaking words of truth and affirmation to his troubled soul. He treated Roy James with dignity, naming him to the crowd as his guest. King believed that “non-violence does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.” Only aggressive love can soften the heart filled with the most aggressive hate. Only aggressive love tames the internal impulse to shame and ridicule another human.
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Dear friends, this is not the model of love that we see esteemed on the world stage today. However, it is the kind of love that many of you live out daily. Your lives sing this out in beautiful and sweet ways.
It’s in our personal day-to-day interactions that opportunities abound to love each other with this intensity. You won’t have to look far to be inspired or to see opportunity. It’s the woman named Maridel who daily cares for families in crisis so children are kept safe and families remain intact. It’s another woman, Pam, relentlessly working to break the stigma of addiction, helping sons and daughters into treatment, and grieving parents find hope in loving well. It’s a man named Terence who set up handwashing stations throughout the city of Atlanta, providing the homeless with the means to implement good hygiene practices during the pandemic, to be safe. Everyday heroes within our communities. If we turn off the spigot of hate, looking up and around at the people who surround us — we will find our inspiration. It lies within our neighborhoods, our schools, our worship centers, our volunteer community groups — within us.
Aggressive love. On second thought, these words really are perfectly paired — for there isn’t anything passive about true love.
Where might aggressive love lead us today?
