Problems Only Love Can Solve

Jesus is a classic non-dual thinker who knows how to deal creatively with mystery, paradox and negative people too. We cannot love, forgive or be patient if we are totally dualistic. Jesus refuses to lend himself to hostile, dualistic thinkers who present him with a false dichotomy. As he often does in such cases, Jesus keeps quiet, changes the subject, tells a story, reframes the whole question or just refuses to engage with obvious ill will. He knows that a person becomes a mirror image of anything if he opposes it in kind. So Jesus just refuses to answer. Amazing that we made Jesus into the consummate answer giver because that is not what he usually does. He more often leads us right onto the horns of our own human-made dilemmas, where we are forced to meet God and be honest with ourselves. He creates problems for us more than resolves them, problems that very often cannot be resolved by all-or-nothing thinking but only by love and forgiveness.

—from the book Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent
by Richard Rohr