Undeserved Love

A biblical look at a politicized human trauma.  A need for love in the darkest corners of society, and the power of love to redeem the least of these.

This episode is the third installment in a ten-part series on learning to love with all our heart, part of a broader goal this year to study the greatest commandments – to love the Lord (and our neighbor) with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Here is the link to Aaron Stark’s TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/azRl1dI-Cts?si=4tEVKUAKfXo3WMiG 

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

New episodes drop on Tuesdays.

Transcript

         On a darkened stage under a single spotlight, Aaron Stark, addressed a crowd of anxious listeners in Boulder, CO.  His opening line?

“I was almost a school shooter.”

         I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone along the way.

         Aaron Stark’s Ted Talk has received almost 15 million views as of the airing of this podcast.  Aaron isn’t particularly eloquent or exceptionally charismatic – in fact, he comes across as quite ordinary.  The type of man that would be considered jovial and kind – today, in his forties and in his own words, “a happy family man” – the utter normalcy of his appearance and demeanor makes his opening line all the more jarring.

“I was almost a school shooter.”

This episode is the third installment in a ten-part series on learning to love with all our heart, part of a broader goal this year to study the greatest commandments – to love the Lord (and our neighbor) with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  In every account of the gospels, the command to love always begins with the heart… and Aaron’s story gets to the heart of one of the greatest tragedies in modern American history – mass shootings.

         The Gun Violence Archive is a non-profit organization that tracks gun violence in the United States.  The GVA defines a mass shooting as a shooting that injured or killed four or more people, not including the shooter.  Last year, there were 656 such events in the United States.  Here is what we know – mass shooting events continue to be on the rise and despite seemingly endless debate amongst politicians, mental health professionals, and firearm experts… no medical, legal, technological, or political answer has arisen with any effect.  I’m not here to debate any of the big picture solutions – I’m here to point you toward the biblical solution, the obvious solution, the solution that can’t be passed into law or enacted on a grand scale, the solution that has to be written on human hearts… the same solution that saved Aaron Stark and all his potential victims… in a world where everyone loves their neighbor mass shootings don’t happen.

         Aaron Stark’s story is full of tragedy.  The son of addicts, he was constantly on the move – avoiding legal entanglement for his parents.  He attended dozens of schools throughout his childhood.  Couch surfing from household to household, constant instability led to a weight problem, antisocial behavior, and other difficulties like poor hygiene and torn and stained clothing.  By his own account, Aaron was the target of abuse in his home, in school, and feeling worthless was the only way he ever felt.

         By the time Aaron was 16 years old, he was homeless, sleeping in a friend’s shed, and by age 17, he dropped out of high school and began to plan an attack.  He knew how to procure a firearm and he had chosen two potential locations to end his own life and the lives of others.  The local food court or the local high school.

         So, what stopped him?  A shower and a meal.  That’s what stopped him.  Remember the friend that let him sleep in his shed?  When Aaron visited him with the goal of saying his goodbyes, his friend, Mike, invited him in to take a shower, have a meal, and watch a movie.  A visit intended to be short turned into a five day stay… he never got the gun.

         When Jesus wanted to explain how to love your neighbor – He didn’t talk about showing kindness to the person next door with the well-manicured lawn.  He also didn’t talk about how to show kindness to kind people who make us comfortable.  He also didn’t talk about national reform or collective efforts to love entire neighborhood.  Jesus explained that loving your neighbor was a lot more inconvenient, uncomfortable, and personal than what any of us want to do.

         Jesus describes love as a personal decision to do good to the person right in front of you.  Jesus tells us to love like the Good Samaritan.  If you aren’t familiar with it, the parable of the Good Samaritan is the account of a man who needed help because he had been robbed along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and a Samaritan who became his unlikely savior.  Jesus describes the scenario in Luke 10.

Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.'

Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise."

         The parable of the Good Samaritan is gritty and unsavory when you think about it.  The man has been beaten, his clothes stripped, and his wounds raw.  He likely smelled bad, sounded worse, and looked horrible.  So, what do you do?  You treat him like a person.  The words associated with the Good Samaritan are compassion and mercy.

         Compassion is that feeling you have when you are moved to concern for the sufferings and misfortunes of others… and mercy is when you do something about it.  Many people feel compassion, but show no mercy.  I don’t know what the priest and the Levite felt when they saw the man on the side of the road, but I know what they did – they passed by on the other side.  Even if they felt compassion, they offered no mercy.

         Loving your neighbor doesn't need to be complicated.  The Samaritan bandaged the wounds, got the man somewhere safe and stable, and then continued on his way.  He didn’t do everything, but he did do something.  For Aaron Stark, a shower, clean clothes, and a decent meal became the beginning for a new trajectory in life.  Only later did Aaron reveal how close to the edge he had been.  He credited two events for bringing him back from the brink.  The shower and meal from his friend Mike… and a blueberry-peach pie a friend made him for his birthday when he was in a dark place.

         These are not earth-shattering acts of love, they are small, mundane acts of mercy that offered compassion to a soul at the precipice.  When we learn to love the dirty, the unwashed, the needy… when we learn to love those who deserve it the least – we tap into the redemptive power of love.

         The apostle Peter understood how loving the undeserving could change the world.  In 1 Peter 4:8, he would write, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”

         I don’t know whether or not Peter was thinking of his own life when he penned that phrase, but certainly it could be said of Peter that Jesus loved him in a way that covered a multitude of Peter’s sins.

         Peter wasn’t the bravest or the brightest or the most consistent of Jesus’ followers – but Jesus didn’t give up on Peter.  Even when Peter argued with Him or behaved cowardly or failed to show up or when Peter was rash and impulsive.  Peter was foolish and brazen and proud and a thousand other unlovable things – yet, Jesus stood by him.  Jesus prayed for him and fed him and taught him and was patient with him.

         And that could be said of all of Jesus’ apostles – from the angry sons of Thunder, James and John, to the doubting of Thomas to the complicated personal history that men like Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot brought with them – to the untimely born Paul that persecuted the church before learning to champion the cause of Christ.  Jesus showed love and kindness that redeemed these men from lesser lives.  He pulled men like Paul and Peter back from the brink.

         Love covered the multitude of their sins and catapulted undeserving men into lives of honor and purpose.

         Today, Aaron Stark speaks at schools and on campuses across the country.  From a broken youth sleeping in a shed to a man with a family and a mission to help others prevent the violence he almost unleashed.  A warm meal, a shower, and a friendship that was undeserved covered up the darkness and allowed room for the light to shine.

         There is a beautiful Psalm that highlights the need for redemption that many souls, just like Aaron, yearn for.  The 130th Psalm is a cry for help.  It is sung from the perspective of someone needing to be forgiven, loved, and redeemed from their own sins and uncleanness.  It is only eight verses long:

[Psa 130:1-8 ESV] 1 A Song of Ascents. Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! 2 O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! 3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. 5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 6 my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. 7 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. 8 And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Psalm 130 is a Song of Ascents.  This song was sung by Jewish people as they ascended the road to Jerusalem to visit the temple.  The temple was where they went to seek God’s forgiveness.  In short, as the people traveled upward, they had to be vulnerable and honest with God about how far they had fallen down.

         The world is full of people who live with the pain of how far they have fallen.  They are intimately aware of their flaws and damage and baggage.  They know their own darkness, their regrets have whispered negativity into their hearts every day for years and oftentimes abuse and neglect have left them wounded and broken… and they know it.  They’ve been treated like garbage and they have likely lived down to those low expectations.  They’ve lied, cheated, coveted, hated, and abused right back in a cycle of sin that exists in every generation and every corner of the globe.   For such folks, the darkness of anger, depression, and the numbness of lost hope creeps into their hearts until they believe that not only do they not deserve to be loved, they believe love doesn’t exist.

         You want to know what causes violence, death, hatred, malice, and pain?  It is a world without the redemptive love of Jesus.  A world where the Aaron Stark’s exist and are never given a shower and a meal but instead are passed by instead of redeemed.  Though love can’t save everyone because not everyone in this world wants to be saved it can as Paul says, “by all means save some.”

         Want to love with your whole heart?  Learn to love those who deserve love the least.  After all, “I was almost a school shooter” is another way of saying “I wasn’t a school shooter.”

         When Aaron was humanized and treated with dignity and respect, it caused him to rethink the trajectory of his life.  Love gave him hope.  Do the world a favor this week, look around and find a way to offer human decency to your fellow man.  Cast your care for your fellow man beyond the boundaries of your own comfortable circle.  Keep your eyes open for the downcast, the outcast, and the isolated… and offer them the reminder that they too are made in the image of God.  You never know what sort of life you may be nudging them toward.  

Learn to love better – learn to treat the least of these like humans.  

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By sharing with others or leaving a review on Apple Podcast, you help us reach more people. Also, if you want more information about the work I'm doing at Eastland, visit us at eastlandchristians.org or my personal Bible site, Biblegrad.com, where you can sign up for daily Bible devotionals called Biblebites and receive them in your email each morning, take online Bible classes, or find videos that will help you study through the Bible throughout the year.

And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”