"How to Love the Idiots of the World!"
17 August 2025
Covenant Living of Florida Chapel Service
Over the past few weeks, we've been considering Jesus’ command to love our neighbors—even though they might be unlovable, or incarcerated, or foreigners, or enemies, or just different. This morning, I want us to consider how we can love another group of challenging people.
Originally, I had a sermon title — “How to Love the Idiots of the World.” But there was some concern about using that title on channel 90 and in the chapel publicity — understandably so.
Idiot is not a kind or respectable term. My parents never allowed me to use the word idiot, and they never did. My father never called people who voted wrong “idiots.” And my mother never yelled “idiot” at the guy who cut her off in traffic.
However, I hear the term 'idiot' used quite frequently today, as there seems to be less interest in sounding kind or respectable when reacting to self-centered, reckless, and unthinking people who raise our blood pressure by honking as soon as the traffic light changes color.
At one time in history, “idiot” referred to someone with low cognitive capacity.
Random House Publishing has a series of 120 Idiot's Guide books.
- An idiot’s guide to playing the guitar
- An idiot’s guide to plant-based nutrition
- An idiot's guide to bitcoin
- etc, etc
However, today the word idiot is used more broadly and commonly to describe people who really, really annoy us.
I hear it applied to people who have different views about history, economics, politics, vaccines, science, education, or sexuality. I hear it used of people who park in someone else's reserved parking spot. Sometimes I hear it used to lambast food service workers. And I've heard the term directed at the one or two people who drive their scooters recklessly through the hallway.
Now, I'm not going to argue over whether these people are actually idiots — or jerks — or morons — or whatever they're called. The terminology itself isn’t really the issue. The question of what to call them becomes moot when Jesus implores us to love our neighbors irrespective of their social standing or even their behavior.
Jesus seemed to hang out with a lot of people who would have been labeled “village idiots” in his time—tax collectors such as his disciple Matthew, and Zacchaeus, the wee little man who Jesus invited himself to stay with him. Zach worked the tax racket, too. Then there was the questionable Samaritan woman he met at Jacob's Well. One of his disciples was a zealot — quite possibly a radicalized political subversive.
The list could go on and on. There were many irresponsible, reckless, and unwise individuals in his circle. And Jesus modeled love toward these people that others labeled as idiots, sinners, or fools.
I want to suggest that his kind of love is an aspect of the gospel imperative. When we accept Jesus into our lives, we are receiving, along with him, his priorities and values, including the love of neighbors—even if they are different, poor, unlovable, incarcerated, foreigners, criminals, enemies, or idiots. Yes, even the idiots.
If we're truly following Jesus, we'll be loving even the annoying and irresponsible people around us. This is my key idea this morning, and you’re welcome to jot this down in the sermon guide on page three of the bulletin. If we're truly following Jesus, we'll be loving even the annoying and irresponsible people around us.
Of course, this is by its very nature easier said than done. So I want to share 10 ideas to jump-start the love.
1. Allow the love of God to seize your own life as the first priority.
The only way that we can ever love difficult people is if we first encounter his love for us. 1 John 4:19 summarizes it well, “We love because God first loved us.”
One of my favorite contemporary preachers, Fr Ben deHart, of St John's Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, says,
“To love God and neighbor, we don’t just need better intentions or stronger will power. We need the Spirit to transform our hearts… Before we can love God, we have to fall in love with him. And that kind of love cannot be forced. It must be given. I used to think I could generate love by mastering the right beliefs or willing it hard enough. Maybe it worked at first—but it never had legs. It left me striving, but unmoved.”
“Then” he goes on, “through no effort of my own—love seized me instead. It happened at an Episcopal church plant in western Pennsylvania. I was a college student, heartbroken after a relationship I had believed would last. Everything felt like ash. One Sunday, I wandered back into church. And somehow—through the sermon, the liturgy, the table—I encountered something deeper than knowledge or willpower. I encountered Christ by the power of the Spirit. I was, in Thomas Chalmers’ words, ‘seized by the power of a new affection.’”
Allow the love of God to take over your life. Allow your life to be seized by the power of a new affection. And BTW, you’re never too old for a new love.
2. Look to the enabling power of God.
I want to suggest that it's impossible to love difficult people apart from the enabling power of his indwelling Holy Spirit.
In Galatians 5:22-23, Paul says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
There is no way we're going to be able to love idiots if we're lacking the patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control that the Spirit generates in us. We'll just be spinning our wheels — tractionless and frustrated, not only with them but also with ourselves. It's God at work in our lives that empowers us for this kind of unconventional love. Be intentional about acknowledging the source of this love.
3. Remove idiot and related terms from your active vocabulary.
I appreciate the pushback received because my sermon title used the word “idiot.” That kind of sensitivity is actually a very positive indicator and a strength of our community.
One thing I've learned when working with dementia patients over the years is that sometimes even the kindest, most reserved, and controlled people can develop a vulgar vocabulary if they get dementia, not all, but some.
And there has been a lot of speculation on why this is. One theory that makes sense to me is that we tend to store the words that we prohibit ourselves from saying in a completely different part of our brains from the rest of our active vocabulary. And I’m told there is neurological research to back this up.
Somehow, the disease confuses people in such a way that while they lose their ability to use their normal active vocabulary, they end up inadvertently tapping into the separate prohibited list of words — in an attempt to communicate.
Yes, this is a gross over-generalization — and I'm not so interested in getting into the issues surrounding dementia research here — but I want us to note that we all keep an active vocabulary list and a prohibited vocabulary list in our brains.
And my point is that if we're going to love challenging people, we need to shift words like idiot from our active list to our prohibited vocabulary list. When we do this, our default response to outlandish behavior is no longer a brash outburst —but something more along the lines of empathy.
In the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew 5, Jesus is talking about the way things operate in his Kingdom of Heaven — that is, when our lives align with the heavenly way of doing things. And he says in Matthew 5:21-22, “You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder, and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. If they say to their brother or sister, ‘Raca’ — (the Aramaic phrase for ‘You idiot,’) they will be in danger of being condemned by the governing council. And if they say, ‘You fool,’ they will be in danger of fiery hell.”
In other words, if your natural response to the stupidity of others is to shoot off angry insults — IDIOT!, FOOL!, STUPID MORON!, JERK! — You're setting yourself up for the same kind of judgment normally reserved for murderers. So remove these words from your active vocabulary lists. No good can EVER come from responding to anyone with these kinds of words.
4. Instead, adopt gracious speech as your default — gracious words that surface even when those around you are acting and speaking irresponsibly.
In Colossians 4, Paul is addressing believers who were struggling with conflict in their midst. And his instructions are, instead of calling out everyone for their shortcomings, in vs 6 he says, “Your speech should always be gracious and sprinkled with insight so that you may know how to respond to every person.”
If you keep graciousness at the top of your active vocabulary, you're going to be able to respond in a healthy, uplifting way to every situation.
5. Nurture Empathy! That is, work on understanding what makes people tick.
I get annoyed by a lot of the political rhetoric. And one thing that keeps me from exploding or writing people off is to focus less on what they are saying and more on understanding why they think and behave the way they do. What causes otherwise likable, intelligent people to vocally embrace political propaganda and talk endlessly about why they're so right? What causes normally careful people to drive recklessly?
I'm not agreeing with the senseless things anyone is saying, but instead of blasting them out of the water, I want to genuinely understand what makes them tick. So I try to listen for the deeper issues that trigger their irresponsible speech or attitudes.
And I'm not just talking about politics. We need to understand what drives people into racism — if we're going to love the racist, as well as the victims of racism. We need to understand why people drink too much and make fools of themselves, rather than just writing them off as out-of-control drunks.
And who knows, maybe in the process of acting with empathy toward the irresponsible, we'll learn something about ourselves. We might even come to humbly recognize that there are things about people which are too complex to understand — information that is above our pay grades.
6. Pray for them. Shoot up a quick prayer when the driver cuts you off. “Lord, send your angels around that car to protect everyone on the road and especially this driver. He's clearly not ready to meet Jesus, yet. Amen.”
Jesus says we should pray for those who persecute us, that is, those who make our lives difficult. Matthew 5:44 — “Love your enemies and pray for those who harass you.”
And BTW, praying that some jerk will burn in hell doesn't line up with what Jesus is saying here.
7. Train yourself to refrain from gloating.
When people act irresponsibly, they eventually crash and burn. Even if they don't literally crash, they eventually get pulled over and cited. Sometimes we have the pleasure of seeing that happen.
Do you know how many traffic karma videos are currently running on Facebook? — where a cop just happens to be in the right spot to see the guy who cut you off — and then your dashcam captures him getting pulled over.
When that happens — yes, be thankful that the unmarked cop car was in the right place at the right time, but don't dwell on the driver's demise. It's not healthy for our own souls to gloat over even the righteous misfortune of others.
8. Know your boundaries.
We love people despite their behavior, but that doesn't mean we're unaware of it or that we accept it. We're just not allowing them to rent space in our heads. Sometimes we get so fixated on the stupidity of others that we can't stop thinking about them. They take over our heads. And that raises our blood pressure, which frustrates us even more.
If the clowns running the global or national show annoy you, please shut off the 24/7 news stream that endlessly highlights how awful things are. Then, as the Spirit enables you, reach across the boundaries to show kindness.
There were some pastors in our community clergy groups who grated on me. They were full of themselves and their accomplishments. Reverend Idiots, if you will.
For my own sanity and sanctification, I avoided working with them on projects. I maintained boundaries. But I intentionally still made a point of asking them about their health and their children whenever I saw them.
9. Use the observed idiocy of others as a prompt for self-examination and awareness.
“Instead of trying to remove the splinter from someone else's eye,” Jesus says in Matthew 7:3-5, “take the log out of your own eye.”
Instead of focusing on the shortcomings of others, the humble and loving thing is to consider if we're blind to our own shortcomings. Is it possible that some of my behaviors and attitudes have slipped into the idiocy zone?
It's important to continually refresh our self-awareness because no one is all that far from acting like an idiot. We could easily slip over that line and not know it.
10. Pour your energy into preemptive love.
This shifts the focus in our heads. When we're so busy loving people, we don't have any energy left over to rant about the dumb people who invade our space.
And this brings us back to the first idea of allowing the love of God to seize our lives as the first priority. When we allow the love of God to seize our lives, once he gets a foothold, he starts to take over, and his love becomes the defining quality in our lives.
It's no longer a stretch to love the idiots when they show up, because godly loving is already firmly established as a pattern in our lives, and love already has momentum. And that momentum makes all the difference.
Yes, it can still be a challenge to love the unthinking, irresponsible people around us. But Christ, by your invitation, is present in your life, and through your life, he is extending his love to even the least worthy.
And believe it or not, that is the good news.
Let's affirm our faith by reading together from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (MSG) about the love that comes to us through Christ. First, though, I want to read it to you. Then we can read together.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies.
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