In recent months I binge-watched all the seasons of Downton Abbey. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every episode. I have found myself saying things in my head with an English accent (although I completely butcher the accent if I try to speak the words aloud). One of my favorite lines that several of the characters repeated is “Are you mad?” I say it flawlessly in my head and always laugh out loud a bit. Of course the phrase they used and now I mimic refers not to a question about being angry but is more of an inquiry about bizarre or even crazy behavior.

Wouldn’t it be a glorious thing if people asked us that same question in response to the way we love God and love people? I want someone or many someones to walk right up to me and ask me if I’m mad. With complete confidence and a big smirky smile I would gladly respond, “why yes, I am quite mad, because I am attempting to love people the same way my Lord Jesus does” (insert your own English accent here because as already disclosed, I am terrible at it).

The way Jesus loved people, as portrayed in the Gospel messages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, shows us radical, mad, messy, and costly love. He never cared what others thought and never had a care for Himself in His extravagant love. What freedom and what elegance He had. If only. If only we could become just a bit mad in our love! What if in our love of others we had no selfish motives? What if in our love of others we listened more than we talked? What if we responded with grace first instead of judgmental attitudes? What if we found the humility in love to not always assume we are right? (Because guess what? We aren’t. Not one of us.) What if we just gave ourselves away? What if we could truly comprehend the example of Jesus and knew, that we knew, that we knew that loving people with reckless abandon would push away all their obstacles and detritus of life and usher them straight to the throne of God? Jesus’ message is so revolutionary, so mind boggling, so utterly transformative and freeing. Mmmm, just let it go, let it fly. Let’s change the world.

Unfortunately, what I see in society (including the Christian society), is a morphing, a turning, I’ll even go as far as to say a perverting, of what radical love is. Instead of grasping to see and understand the mind of Christ we have given Him a piece of our mind instead and extrapolated that the meaning of love is the freedom to do anything you want. The highest expression of love we can fathom seems to be total acceptance of all belief and all behavior. Some of you are starting to bristle because you have swallowed your own definition of love instead of seeking the truth of God in complete humility. I will forever be a student sitting at the feet of Jesus and trying to learn His truth. One thing I have learned is that my understanding of love is at best 2-dimensional. He has perfect love and perfect justice at the exact same time. That skips around the edges of my mind and I can hold bits and pieces of it but I can’t totally process it because I am not perfect and will never be so on this earth. I can trust though that He is all things perfectly at the same time. We can not have the audacity to think we have probed the mind and heart of God and put upon Him our weak definitions of love.

We can however mimic His behavior. We can earnestly study His word and listen to each other. We don’t need to resurrect the church, or the Bible, or doctrine. He already did that. Instead of being caught up in arguing our own truth in the hopes of winning (whatever it is we think we are going to win), we can and must just pour it all out….all the love we have….to push the obstacles out of the way so people can get to Jesus. I’m telling you, all people need is a cleared path to Jesus. The rest is His to do. Just clear the way with your mad love. That is our calling, our great commission.