The Gospel According to Peanuts
“I love mankind…It’s people I can’t stand”
- Linus Van Pelt
These monumental words were spoken by the Peanuts character, Linus, to his sister, Lucy. She had just told Linus that he could never grow up to be a physician because he “didn’t love Mankind.” As Lucy is walking away, Linus takes his thumb out of his mouth long enough to retort, ”I love Mankind…It’s people I can’t stand.”
I have always been a huge fan of the Peanuts cartoons by Charles Schultz. Since the early 1950’s, Schultz brought his characters alive with wisdom and simplicity. I have a collection of most of his works in several volumes in my library. And this particular saying has been made into everything from coffee mugs to T-shirts to posters. (I have one of the posters)
Scripture is clear, though, we are called by God to love one another as an essential part of our mission in building God’s Kingdom and Christ’s Church. But often the stumbling block to our “Love one another” journey is to be found in those individuals whose personalities, beliefs and actions make showing that love difficult. We may say to them, “Ooooh…YOU make me so mad!” Like it was somehow out of my control whether I love or hate another person. But I have come to understand that every interaction with another human being is a form of relationship with the “one another.” So when it comes to both love and hate, it “take two to tango.”
That twosome tango doesn’t have to be equal parts love or hate between the pairing. How many times in our lives have we experienced unrequited love? How many times have we wished ill to befall someone we have never met? How often do we build loving or hateful relationships with another human being based simply on assumption or projection?
We live in a country fraught with a division that seems to doom us to failure in this essential task in becoming Christ’s disciples. How do we love those whom we see as violating the teachings of Christ in everything they say and do? How do we change our desire to lob grenades into passionate prayers for good in the lives of those who may wish us nothing but woe and suffering? It seems like an impossible quest. But isn’t our conviction that it’s “impossible” just an excuse to get us off the hook?
Christ teaches that it is not as difficult as we imagine when we see humans as God sees us. Christ told his disciples, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Mt 11:30) Can we not simply come to love one another by focusing on how Christ loves us. “Love one another as I have loved you!” A tall order! Yet, there has never been a human life born for whom Christ did not live and die to save.
In my life, which has by no means been a glorious reflection of God’s Kingdom, I have found that the best way for the Holy Spirit to make perfect the Will of God is for me to just get my “self” out of the way and trust that the Holy Spirit will work to draw both myself and my “enemy” closer to God’s heart in spite of our mutual shortcomings.
In Christ’s parables involving the Last Judgement, we are not portrayed as being held responsible for anyone’s sins but our own. And in John 4:20, It is written, “Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” In the call to be disciples of Christ, we walk a fine line between the call to love one another and the call to proclaim God’s Peace and Justice. But, with God’s help, I believe we can walk that line without falling off the beam.
Blessings and Joy my Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Jim McGrath
