Chaotic Love

For those of you who have seen Batman, The Dark Knight, you share in my amazement at the most brilliant movie of the year. This isn’t said because I’m a comic book dork or in love with Christian Bale either, it is said out of a total appreciation for the deep plots interwoven in the movie by the director. I’ve waited to post this for a while now, but after seeing the movie for a second time, my thoughts were affirmed and I figure I should post before I forget. In one weird scene the Joker is beside Harvey Dent (Two Face) in the hospital and he goes on this rant about how people freak out when something doesn’t go according to their plans and how everyone has plans even if they are bad. He says, “You see, nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If I told people that a gangbanger was going to get shot, or a busload of soldiers was going to get blown up, nobody would panic. Because it's all part of the plan. But tell people that one tiny little mayor is going to die and everyone loses their minds!” This is not about condoning anarchy or being chaotic though, it is about seeing what everyone sees as chaos in the world, something so unplanned that we have been freaking out over it since it happened.

The religious leaders of the day (Pharisees & Priests) were really tight with the Roman soldiers. As long as they were making money from the temple the Roman soldiers would protect them and thus grant them a bit of power. Everything was planned. They used God’s law to oppress people because they themselves did not understand it. Everything was planned until a little baby threatened that alliance and greed driven plot. So now we start killing babies right?

If you are this then you get that, if you pay this, you get that, if you fit within this set of rules or factors, you will become or get a certain outcome, all very planned of course. We live in a world with a plan. Everything input has a very carefully calculated output. X = Y= Z…always! Love is the same way. You can earn love, you can loose it, you can return it, you can reject it, but non of that Is possible without a cause, everything that deals with love has a cause, a reason for that love. God came into a world that had great plans and systems and introduced something that went in the face of our plans or systems. God offered unconditional love. This is something we cannot understand and since have been tripping over ourselves because of. You are loved if you are blank…by human standards. By God’s standards there is no if in the sentence, there is no stipulation to the contract of love. A man who killed his wife and little girl is loved as much as a man who goes to church and tithes every Sunday to his local church congregation. This doesn’t sit right with us because it goes against our plan, our set of rules we have deeply rooted and thus become accustomed to. We don’t give money to homeless because what if they buy alcohol? We don’t do things because what if they don’t go according to our plans. The beautiful and uncomfortable thing about God is that He crushes our plans and allows us brief yet powerful views into His. It doesn’t matter what if happens, we are called to love, love with out the chain or conditions.

Jesus was a rebel; He came into a conditional world and offered something unconditional. He walked into the middle of a well planned society and introduced something that didn’t fit well within our plans. Unlike the joker the outcome of this LOVE CHAOS is good and not intended for bad. It’s beautiful to find truth in ordinary things like a movie and unordinary things like fictitious man men villains. Introduce a little chaos into the world, introduce a LOVE that goes aginst the plan or rules we have set, introduce a little Jesus to the world and watch it change.