Do I really need to care about people?
If you’re thinking about close family and friends, that’s easy to answer. “Of course, I love and care for my friends; I’ve gone through life with them!” But let’s ask this again with different people in mind:
The toxic individual with an undiagnosed personality disorder. Or maybe the guy who’s struggled on and off with any form of substance abuse. Maybe someone who can’t seem to hold a job for more than a couple weeks, and he uses you to get by. Perhaps someone who truly has brought turmoil into your life, and you feel better off without them.
What about those people? Do I really need to care about them too?
All of us have people living on the outskirts of life, and usually we like to keep them there. We don’t actively seek out difficult people, and when they do come into our lives, we’re quick to limit our interaction with them. And when someone has been declared a lost cause, why should I also waste my time, energy, and finances on them?
If I voted on who is the King of Lost Causes, it would be the Gerasene Demoniac in Mark 5. You may know him as Legion, and he had a terrible lifestyle. Read the opening verses for yourself: He lives in a graveyard and the town treats him like an animal: chain and subdue the guy. The pièce de resistance of Legion’s story? He passes his days shrieking and mutilating his body.
This man was psychotic and dangerous. He is rightfully ostracized from the community, and he has little hope for any future. Dave Garland calls him “a microcosm of the whole of creation, inarticulately groaning for redemption (Rom. 8:22). He is condemned to live out his days alone amid the decaying bones of the dead, with no one who loves him and no one to love.”[1]
But then Legion meets Jesus, and his life changes forever. However, what’s noteworthy in the story is the town’s response: they beg Jesus to leave. What just happen? From everything we described of this man, Jesus did the town a huge solid: they finally can sleep through the night without ear-piercing screams; they don’t need to spend their time subduing the maniac, and most important, they have a man who can return to society as a functioning adult.
You know what the real problem was for the town—why they were upset? Jesus just cost them a fortune, 2,000 pigs to be exact. They all were for helping the demoniac, until it decimated their wallet. Now they wanted Jesus out of there because of it.
How many pigs is Legion worth to you? How much of a cost can you handle? In this story, Jesus is showing that there is no excuse, no one beyond a redemption arc. If someone as hopeless as Legion can become a preacher,[2] then there is no one beyond the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. How much more should we see this for whatever Legion resides in your life.
We are called to have messy—dare I say—unlovable people in life. And my knee-jerk reaction ought never be calculating how many pigs I’ll lose because of them. So, circle back to that final question: Do I really need to care about people?? In fact, change the wording: as a Christian, do I need to love unlovable people? Following Jesus Christ as the example, the answer not only is yes, but it’s more extreme than that: you are called to love lost causes, psychotics, outcasts, people who you believe could never experience God’s grace.
That radical love is nothing less than the love Christ showed us—the most unlovely of individuals—at the cross. And if we claim to have experienced this love for ourselves, Christ calls us to display this same love coming out from ourselves.
[1] Garland, D. E. (1996). Mark: The NIV Application Commentary, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 203.
[2] When you read Mark 5:19-20 for yourself, what else would you call him besides a preacher?