We Still Don't Know What Love Means

I've been listening to Ray Lamontagne for the last couple years. Ray is a brilliant songwriter who delivers stories in something like a deep smooth whisper. He has that golden voice but I think it's his honesty that I connect with even more. His songs seem to be born from questions and pain, and if I myself am honest in saying more, I think I connect with this because I am a person who thinks a lot about pain. I wrestle with the broken stuff in my own life and in the lives of the people around me. I have a lot of questions.

It is for all of the reasons above that some friends and I drove 500 miles from Florida to Atlanta to see Ray Lamontagne play on a Saturday night a couple months back. We parked and made our way excited to the door, and as we took our place in line, I heard it:

"You're going to Hell."

The man's voice was loud and not kind and he added his thoughts on fornication and homosexuality, angry answers to questions that no one was asking. In the first moment I was shocked and I then I was sad and then I was walking towards him.

"Do you think this is working?," I asked.

I figured he would be excited that someone actually wanted to talk to him, and he certainly seemed prepared for an argument. Instead, the yelling guy told me that I would need to talk to a different person, pointing toward the younger man to his left. (The yelling guy needed to keep yelling.) Now, this whole thing surprised me because I had no idea that these people had assistants. I guess the kid was learning the ropes, hoping to be prepared to yell on his own within the next year or two...

I told the kid that they needed to stop, that they were only doing damage, offending everyone. i told him that people respond to love, and that I could hear no love in their shouted judgments. His response made me more frustrated, and after a brief back-and-forth, I rejoined my friends in line and entered the show.

It took a while to calm down and let it go. In theory, the yelling guy and I believe some of the same things. "We're on the same team", you might say. But I believe in a God who maybe doesn't scream at people the first time he meets them. Evangelism aside, screaming at strangers seems a horrible marketing plan to me. I believe in a God who places a great emphasis on love, a God who loves people and asks his followers to do the same.

By the time Ray took the stage, I was able to enjoy the show. The best music is the kind that moves you, reminds you you're alive, takes you on a journey. I smiled through the opening "You Are the Best Thing", imagined during "Empty" and remembered during "I Still Care for You". I had been hoping all night to hear a song called "Jolene" and so I smiled again when it's opening chords arrived as the encore.

The song is a story song about a man lost and looking back on a broken relationship. You can see it from start to finish and the chorus echoes the words "I still don't know what love means". It is a confession, something like a question. Something in me stirs when I hear it - there is freedom in honesty and those are words I can sing myself.

And it hit me during that encore that I wished the shouting man could have heard Ray Lamontagne sing those words. I wish he could have attended this show he chose to protest. I don't know how hearing happens - how certain things move and change us, but I wished it could have happened to the guy outside.

I think I went back to him in my mind because he is also the reputation of The Church. We are known to the world as something like the guy outside. We tell people how to vote and think and live. We shout our judgments. We are quick with our answers and slow to confess our questions, maybe slower even still to meet other people in theirs.

A shouted "You're going to Hell" is an awful introduction to a God who desires to love and know His children. Ray had my attention with "I still don't know what love means." I can relate to that, and I can't help but think that a lot of other people can as well.

And it's interesting that all of this happened on a Saturday night, because Saturday nights set up Sunday mornings. Some people stay out late, hunting for meaning and answers in songs and bars and a thousand other places, because they're certain that our Sunday mornings would only be more like shouting strangers. But what if we were known as a people in true pursuit of love, a people committed to representing it well? What if we were known for constantly showing up to wrestle the needs and questions around us, and what if we took it so far as to be honest about our own.

12 Comments »

1. I used to live in Atlanta and those guys were at a christian concert I went to downtown. I wonder if they do that at the John Mayer show as well?

   Comment by adam herod - Mar 17, 2009 @ 07:29 AM

2. This reminds me of advice I found in a parenting book once. You can be right, but wrong at the top of your voice. Also, I totally zeroed in on your use of the word “offended.” You said they were “offending everyone”. If you want to do an excellent bible study, read through the new and old testament with a keen eye towards each situation in context and discern when God would have us be *offensive* towards nonbelievers and when he would have us be *sensitive* towards them.

   Believe it or not we have some specific commands to be unoffensive.

   Good writing, Jamie. Very engaging. The pacing, the word usage, the observations. I really enjoyed this article.

   peace|dewde

   Comment by dewde - Mar 17, 2009 @ 09:30 AM

3. There’s a man by the name of Brother Micah who goes around to a lot of college campuses….the things he says sound much like the man you encounted in Atlanta. I don’t understand how these people can call themselves “Christians” when they have so much hatred in their hearts.

   Comment by Colleen - Mar 17, 2009 @ 03:52 PM

4. Same guys were at National Youth Workers Convention in Anaheim a couple years ago. Big signs said “Youth Specialties is Taking You to HELL”. Nice.

   Comment by David - Mar 17, 2009 @ 03:58 PM

5. Jamie… I feel what you’re saying bro… I don’t understand how or where in the Scriptures they find their reasoning to share the story of Jesus the way that they do… it just doesn’t make sense…

   @Dewde - I agree with you on the fact that in some ways we will be and need to be the offensive one. However, what I think Jamie was getting at is that we are meant to be offensive in a loving manner. The story of Jesus is an offensive story… we need to tell people that they don’t have what it takes to get it right… we can go about sharing this offensive story offensivly or we can share it with love, thus making them firstly more open to us and secondly, more open to Jesus…

   Great post Jamie… you really challenged me to think about my day to day living… and whether or not I’m truly being offensive in the way Christ was.

   Comment by Jason - Mar 18, 2009 @ 01:22 AM

6. @Jason:

   I was making an argument for being unoffensive, not offensive :-).

   “Believe it or not we have some specific commands to be unoffensive.”

   peace|dewde

   Comment by dewde - Mar 18, 2009 @ 04:15 AM

7. Absolutely loved this. If the greater Christian community could get their minds around this, everything would change.

   Also, selfishly excited to see that Jamie will be at Catalyst West Coast next month. See you there buddy.

   Comment by Aaron L - Mar 18, 2009 @ 03:56 PM

8. I live in Atlanta.

   Matter of fact, I may have even ran into the guy who was shouting.

   What you are discussing and the questions you are presenting are the same ones that toggle my mind for days and hours. It hurts. It makes me angry. It makes me cry. It makes me sad. It makes lose hope.

   The God that embraced me is the one Kim Walker sings about in “Oh, How He Loves Us!” And I cry even now as I type these words because there are so many people who have never experienced His love… even Christians.

   This tension was the same thing that angered Jesus, himself. Seeing the religious leaders who were more focused on proving a point than loving a people.

   Jamie, you give me hope.

   You’ve shown me that Jesus not only came to save us from sin, but He came to Write Love On OUR Arms! And He has written love on mine. Now it’s my turn to write that same LOVE on others.

   You remind me that there is a message that shouts out even louder than “You’re going to Hell!”. It’s a message of hope; a message of love; a message of restoration; a message of forgiveness. A message that shouts out to us all…

   “Oh, How He Loves Us!”.

   And that’s the message I’m gonna tell.

   Thanks.

   Comment by Antwon Davis - Mar 18, 2009 @ 04:10 PM

9. @Dewde - Sorry bro, misunderstood you :) I think I must’ve been hitting at the same thing you were saying then, but just in a dif way. If not, then I think I’ve completely misunderstood what you’re trying to say… On that note, if you were near me I’d buy you a beer :)

   @Antwon - Great comment bro, you inspired me even further! I’ve heard Jamie’s story, do you know where I could find it on the net?

   Comment by Jason - Mar 19, 2009 @ 05:24 AM

10. @Jason - Jamie has a myspace page where you can find more of his writing (http://wwww.myspace.com/jamiewrites) & his organization, To Write Love On Her Arms is http://www.twloha.com is super informative too.

    Jamie, again, you never cease to inspire & amaze. I am patiently awaiting your book. ;)

    Comment by Christin - Mar 19, 2009 @ 07:46 AM

11. I have felt the same way so many times. It breaks my heart to walk past somebody who is completely missing the point. We are called to be like Christ but so many miss the point that he didn’t stand on a soapbox and yell his message to the lost- he was love to them (actually on that vein- he did get pretty worked up by those who called themselves righteous and spent all of their time judging).

    I wonder how many people have been turned away because they haven’t seen the love that Christ was all about.

    Jamie- thanks for the insight. You are right- we have not yet learned how to love. But hopefully one day we will.

    Comment by Corri - Mar 24, 2009 @ 07:58 PM

12. I was getting drive-by evangelized on Jones Beach once.  After telling them that I already have Jesus, they insisted that I explain to them what flavor of Jesus I had, how I knew Him, and whether or not I was genuine about Him.  Maybe they could fix the Jesus in me.  It took me a little while to calm down too.

    (Jason, I need to feel the love of Jesus too—buy me a beer instead.)

    Comment by Shamrock - Apr 16, 2009 @ 11:15 AM

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