Love is Not Authenticity

Here’s one of my favorite childhood folk tales:

A farmer went to the town to sell his produce and returned with a large pot of treasures. His family gathered around him to hear the story of his windfall of fortune. He said, “As I walked through the forest on my way back, I heard someone groaning in a cave. I entered the cave and saw a dying tiger with a massive infected wound on his arm.

“I had pity on him, so I used my first aid kit to bind his wound and gave him water to drink. Since it was getting dark, I stayed with him overnight. The next day, he got better and gave me this pot of treasures to express his gratitude.”

Feeling envious, his brother’s wife inquired about the cave’s location and asked her husband to find the place and try his luck. The next day, he went and found the cave. Surprisingly, he heard the tiger groaning inside, so he went in and saw the dying tiger just like his brother had told them.

He thought, “Yuck! My brother didn’t tell me that the wound was so stinky.” He reluctantly bound the wound, hoping to get the reward like his brother. He slept in the cave dreaming about returning home with a treasure pot. The next day, the tiger got better and ate him for breakfast.

This story is based on Taoist philosophy calling for multilayers of interpretations. On the surface, it teaches people that you cannot copy someone’s success by superficially duplicating what they do. At a deeper level, the elder brother’s action stems from his sincere love for the wounded and suffering. Motive matters!

Then if we reach even deeper, it teaches us that nature reads your motive and rewards your heart over your action.

Chinese adults tell fables like these to teach children to cultivate morality. However, for those who love to think deeper, these stories serve as tools for spiritual development, much like Jesus’ parables.

We can look at the story as a lesson on how love can transform nature. It’s natural for people to fear a tiger, and it’s natural for the tiger to eat a human. If we are authentic, we cannot naturally love our enemies. When Jesus asked us to love our enemies, he asked us to rise above authenticity.

The culture today glorifies authenticity. In the name of expressing themselves, they gratify their authentic feelings. They can be rude and say, “I am just being authentic.” Paul said, we are to tell the truth in love. Telling the truth sounds authentic, but without love, the truth becomes a weapon to hurt rather than to heal.

The Bible says that our authentic nature is a fallen nature. If I am authentic, I rather eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If we are authentic, we cannot love the way Jesus wants us to love. The way Jesus wants us to love is not transactional but transformational. It requires us to sacrifice our authenticity.

In the story, the younger brother is authentic. His love for the tiger is a pretense—a transactional deed. The tiger was also authentic when he ate the low-hanging fruit. His elder brother was not authentic. He went beyond his instinct to love the tiger. The tiger was not authentic when he rewarded his prey. Touched by love, he has risen above his authenticity.

In this week’s scripture lesson, Jesus gave us a new commandment to love one another. If you read the Old Testament, you would find that to love one another is not something new. So, why did Jesus call it a new commandment? He said this the night before he went to the cross, and he prayed that night:

“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” (Mat 26:39).

This prayer shows that if Jesus were authentic, he wouldn’t go to the cross—he would rather not drink this bitter cup. Yet, he went to the cross to fulfill God’s will—not his own will. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy will be done,” because God’s will is not just a high road but a higher road that requires us to rise above authenticity.

Today, we will explore how to take a higher road of “Thy will be done” in our cultural norm of “My will be done.” Let’s begin!