Love and the Murderous Pastor

Some people are mentors by simply being who they are. The lives they live in our presence are imprinted upon us in ways beyond the power of mere words. Such was Jim Lucas to me. Jim and I crossed paths when I was a student at Michigan State and he a missionary on furlough. After I graduated and he returned to Africa we stayed in touch so that when he and his wife Alice retired to Sebring, Florida, less than two hours from where I was pastoring, we were able to reconnect.

People like Jim, though, never really retire. In Sebring he became a chaplain at the Highlands County jail where he cared for men the rest of us have a hard time loving. He’d always smile when he spoke of them and I think of that smile when I think about how we’re to love those who are hard to love. This is the question that John, a reader and friend, has pressed upon me. How do we love the hard to love?

It’s a sadly relevant question. Our world, our Christian world, is populated by far too many who from positions of authority and trust misuse and abuse others. They violate and dominate the powerless and leave them to spend the rest of their lives recovering their self respect and their faith. To know and to hear of such people makes us rightfully angry, and that is proper. But how, John wants to know, do we love such people?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that we have to face the question. When Jesus challenged us to love even our enemies he meant to confront us with the question of what love might look like in difficult situations. He knew how quickly we default to hate or neglect or dismissal. We won’t always get the answer right, and in fact, the right answer might never be terribly clear. But we can’t brush off the question.

Certainly love for the unlovable is not incompatible with severity of judgment. Anger, as I said, is right. The Pharisees as a class were spotlighted by Jesus as those who put unbearable burdens on people, who used and abused the sheep. Jesus was direct and firm with his condemnation on such actions. Love gives no easy pass. Abusers must feel the weight of their wrongdoing. They need to be confronted and treated with a severity commensurate with their crimes and pressed to move in a direction of genuine repentance. I have in the past been too accommodating to those who needed to be called to account for their abusive actions. Severity is not in conflict with love.

As well, love in such cases ought not to be confused with sentiment. To love another does not mean that I shower him with affection. Clear boundaries and expectations are always called for. To love our neighbor may mean no more than giving him the treatment that the second table of the Law grants to any human person. The Law constrains our worst impulses so that we might at the very least respect another’s humanity. Even our worst enemy deserves truth and safety. If he’s hungry or injured love means I should be willing to give to him what his humanity demands. But it doesn’t mean that I must be comfortable taking him out for a beer and a movie pretending that everything is right between us.

To wrestle with the question of love forces us to puzzle through what forgiveness and restoration looks like. These need not be automatic or quick. When an abuser has left a trail of victims, when he has acted notoriously over a long period of time, we are right to expect a repentance that is as notorious as the offense itself. This may be measured in decades, not days. Mere words can never suffice. And when repentance is demonstrated, we forgive. But love does not mean we elevate them once again to a place of trust. Actions bear consequences and sometimes such consequences are life long.¹

So, you see, the most I’m able to do is to sketch the parameters within which answers lie. When the question is real for us, and not hypothetical, to face it will change us. Jeremiah’s and Jesus’s condemnation of the sins of Jerusalem not only made them angry, it broke their hearts and led to tears. Wrestling with the question of how to love at some point will teach us to lament.

And whatever such love is to look like, it can sometimes be more difficult to live out than even the best of us can muster.

The Rev. John Canning was a pastor in the same city to which Jim Lucas retired. Rev. Canning had earned the trust of an elderly couple in his church and, as they aged, they gave him power of attorney so that he could care for them. Rev. Canning used this power to steal thousands of dollars from them, and then, when they began to grow suspicious, he murdered them in cold blood.² When he was arrested he was placed in the Highlands County Jail. I once asked Jim whether he ever visited Rev. Canning. It’s the one time I saw Jim’s smile fade.

Even the best of us will struggle to find good answers to the question of how we are to love the hard to love. I’m grateful for people like Jim and John, and before them Jesus, for not allowing me, and us, to evade the question.

1. Rachel Denhollander’s now famous address to her abuser, Larry Nassar, is a case study in this. She vehemently pled for just for the sake of those who were abused, but demanded from Nassar genuine repentance.

While asking for the judge’s maximum sentence she says to Nassar, “I pray you experience the soul crushing weight of guilt so you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me – though I extend that to you as well.” This is unsentimental love.

2. Reports on this can be found here and here.