Day 17, Monday, Book of Faith – Lenten Journey

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the hymn “They Will Know We are Christians by Our Love” because we are singing it in choir. The hymn is meaningful to me because of the connections it makes with my first experiences of Bible camp. As we all sang this song around the camp fire, a brand new community of strangers trying to live out the reality of this song, I remember “getting it.” I remember having a vision that this as how we are to live out our lives as Christians; that we are to love in such a way that it is obvious that we are disciples of Jesus.

I said that I’ve been thinking a lot about this hymn lately and part of my thinking has been to cynically challenge the claim made in this hymn. Will they really know we are Christians by our love? The church as a whole has been guilty of some pretty loveless acts over its lifetime. There is terrible bickering within some congregations. Even today’s devotion expresses a style of evangelism that doesn’t seem very loving, where people are coerced, buttonholed, pestered or even intimidated into following their version of the faith. Just how much love is being expressed within some congregations? Just how much remarkable love do we express in daily life?

Maybe the song is similar to Jesus’ intention for us as we pray the Lord’s Prayer, that when we sing the words we express our hope for how we will live into this vision of the Christian life. When we pray, “thy will be done,” it is with the knowledge that we don’t live out the will of God throughout our lives, but this is our goal. Every time we pray it we are reminding ourselves that this is what we want to do. We want God’s will to be done around us AND through us. We really do want people to know we are Christians by our love.