Chances Are Your Using Tough Love Wrong

Visual depiction of how we think of tough love.

I live in Texas and in Texas we have a culture of being tough. We pride ourselves on being full of grit, dirt and a pick up truck. And so in Texas we use a phrase that maybe you have heard or use yourself - tough love.

You may be thinking, “Jason, I thought that I read somewhere that love was patient and kind. It is something that is not envious or boastful. I though love was not proud, dishonoring, self-seeking or eastly angered. I thought love keeps no record of wrongs or delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. I thought love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres and never fails. How can love be tough?”

Well my friend, you must not have grown up in Texas. We like our love like we like our jerky - tough and salty.

Most often, the phrase “tough love” is used in one of two situations. First, and maybe most commonly, is in regards to parenting. Parents who are strict disciplinarians talk about extending tough love to their child. So punishments like spanking, grounding, removing privileges' and/or adding labor or chores might be considered tough love. There is a too many parenting articles on this sort of parenting style that I do not need to toss my two cents in on this.

The second way tough love is used is when you have to tell someone that may be difficult to say, but it will be tough for the other to hear. The idea behind this is that there is some sort of “truth” the one extending “tough love” is bringing to the attention to the receiver of the tough love. There may be tears or anger, but that is what makes it tough to hear. Tough love.

As a Texan, I am a big fan of tough love. In fact, I think that Jesus was an honorary Texan because I think he too placed a premium on tough love. But I believe that even my fellow Texans are using tough love wrong.

The way that tough love is practiced is that it is the “other” who will have a tough time. The toughness is externalized to the one extending love. And this is where tough love is misunderstood.

When we are in conflict with someone who we really think is going the wrong way. When someone betrays us, spits in our face, runs away, wishes us dead, or is heading the wrong way - Christ says we are still to love them.

And loving “them” is really, really tough.

Because they are jerks and sinners. They are stubborn and unrepentive. They are defiant and self-centered. They don’t care about how their actions impact others and they are so narcissistic they really believe the world is all about them. It is tough to love “those” people.

And this is why I think that God in Christ practices tough love. Even as Christ hung on the cross, he extended compassion and forgiveness.

That is tough like a Texan.

That is tough love.

What Marty McFly Has To Do With Jesus Christ

Marty McFly is a character in the "Back to the Future” movies. When I watched these movies as a kid I really thought he was a moron. I mean really, who gets all in a tizzy and looses all sense of self when called a chicken? It was a clever device for to move the character along in the movies but he seemed really over the top as a human being.

But maybe not.

Recently Hidden Brain had a podcast called “Made of Honor”. It explores cultures called “honor cultures”. These are the places in the world where ones honor and reputation are at the very center of one’s life. It is the defense of that honor that dictates behavior that seems irrational. McFly’s behavior may be over the top, but it makes rational sense in an honor culture. At its best, honor culture can spur acts of bravery and courage. It can ensure that the weak are defended and the integrity of a community/family/person are upheld in the face of a threat. At its most unhealthy, honor culture can lead to spirals of violence, systemic power structures, and rationalizations that justify all sorts of unethical behavior. The McFly family is steeped in honor culture values, which get him into all sorts of trouble while also is a contributor of his motivation.

Jesus was one who was also steeped in honor culture, you don’t have to go far into Biblical studies to learn about how the honor/shame culture influenced behavior. To be very reductionist: one avoided shame and tried to gain honor. It might be thought of as a bank account. Where one wanted to accumulate honor (credit) while avoiding shame (debts). This is not a “bad” culture, but it can influence and even condone harmful things.

Jesus, born and raised in the honor culture of his time, teaches a different culture. Specifically, Jesus teaches a “dignity” culture. Where honor cultures circle around protecting honor, dignity cultures circle around the worth of every person. In an honor culture, children can be dismissed since they have little honor. In dignity cultures, children cannot be dismissed because every person is a child of God. Dignity cultures uphold the dignity of those “caught in the very act of adultery”. It upholds the dignity of sinners and tax collectors. It speaks out against those who take advantage of others (Mark 5:25-29) or are stumbling blocks (Romans 14:13). Dignity cultures are scandalized when an innocent victim is killed. Dignity cultures take seriously that some lives need to be protected because those lives are more at risk for harm.

Dignity cultures can be threatening to honor cultures (which contributes to why Christianity is counter cultural), because dignity cultures do not keep score of where honor is. The hierarchy of honor is broken in dignity cultures. In dignity cultures people are asked to sometimes look the fool (1 Cor. 1:23) and forgive seven seven times seven times. Dignity cultures can be threatening to honor cultures because we loose all sense of who "has merit” and who “has earned” what. We loose who is of value and who is not - because we come to see that all people have dignity.

The problem with dignity cultures is not they go too far, but that often those who live in dignity cultures do not go far enough and fall back into a version of honor culture. When we reserve dignity for some and refuse the same dignity to others, we are using dignity language to reinforcing honor culture.

How Can We Fulfill a Law We Break?

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says,

‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Then, if you know the rest of the story, Jesus goes on to break all sorts of laws (healing on the Sabbath, claiming to be divine, turning tables over in the Temple, ignoring his mother’s requests, etc.). How can someone say they came to fulfill the law while simultaneously break it?

To obey the law means actions are directed by an outside or external things that forces compliance. For instance, if I do not pay my taxes the government will fine me. There is force that is outside or external to me that I am really responding to. If the external force was not present, then there is a likelihood that I would not obey the law. This is also why I all slow down when I drive by a police officer, but will speed up once I feel I am “at a safe distance.”

Fulfilling the law is different. Fulfilling the law comes by indirectly obeying the law.

Take the above examples, if I were to pay my taxes out of my internal delight, I am not paying them out of fear that I will be punished by some outside force. Rather, when I pay my taxes out of a personal choice, I am fulfilling the law, but not considering (thinking about the consequences) the law. If I were a person who loves to go the speed limit because I think don’t want to rush or if I think that driving slower is just more pleasurable, then I will not go over the speed limit. I am indirectly following the law.

Sometimes what looks like obeying the law, is really fulfillment of the law. And sometimes what looks like breaking the law is also fulfilling the law.

Jesus fulfilled the law, even as he breaks them.

For instance, not working on the Sabbath was a law. There was punishment if you did not obey the law. But this law was put into place in order to keep people from being abused and overworked. It was a law meant to protect people from being treated as objects. So when Jesus healed on the sabbath, yes he broke the law but in doing so the law was fulfilled. The law was intended to humanize people but was used to objectify people. As Jesus humanizes those he healed on the Sabbath, he broke the popular interpretation of the law, but fulfilled the law in full.

As you can see, It is much easier to obey than it is to fulfill the law. Because sometimes obeying the law means breaking it, and breaking the law often comes with consequences. The question Jesus poses to us is do we desire to fulfill the law or only obey it?

Forgetting to Remember

Jesus said that he came to testify to the truth (John 18). He also said that those who continue in his word are true disciples who know the truth (John 8). It sometimes is the case that Christians can get it in our minds that since Jesus testifies to the truth and followers of Jesus know the truth, that we have sole access to Truth.

Beyond making it difficult to be in relationship with us when we believe we have sole access to Truth, we Christians are not very good at admitting we are wrong. How can we be wrong if we have access to the truth? How can Christian beliefs be wrong if our leader testifies to the truth?

Gil Bailie points out that the Greek word lēthe means forgetful. He notes that when you put an “a” as a prefix you get alētheia, translated as truth (as it is in John 8 and 18). Literally speaking this word means to not be forgetful, or to stop forgetting.

This means that living in the truth does not mean to speak with absolute and ultimate unquestionable correctness. Living in the truth means that we do not forget.

Photo by James Hammond on Unsplash

We can be wrong and still be living in the truth, because living in the truth means we admit that we do not have the whole truth. Even that which we do “know” to be True, we hold lightly because we admit there maybe things we are unintentionally forgetting.

Living in the truth is one of the distinctions of the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. The kingdom of this world is more interested in forgetting than in remembering. As such, the kingdom of this world is not of the truth. The kingdom of God does not forget and thus is a kingdom of the truth. It may explain in part why the prophets emphasis remembering and why Jesus asks us to “do this in remembrance of me.”

The reality is living in the truth means that we admit we are wrong. We do not fear being wrong, in fact the Gospel proclaims that there is a joy in being wrong. As Bailie points out: “The joy of being wrong is that being wrong can be forgiven: it is insisting on being right that confirms our being bound in sin.”

And so on this week going into the beginning of a new year (Advent) consider the baptism vows which say:

We renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sin.

We accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

We confess Jesus Christ as Savior, put our whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as our Lord, in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.

Let us not forget.