Loving is Our Mission

             

            I spent the month of August preaching at Holy Cross church in Homewood.  Homewood is a suburb of Pittsburgh and difficult place for many people to live.  For a long time, there were signs up all over those neighborhoods that said: Stop shooting, we love you!  If you watch the news, you see lots of crime in that area of our city.  There is a lot of pain.  With all of the threatening activity that has been going on in our country, in Charlottesville for example, the threat is particularly felt in Homewood.  Those African-American people have endured endless prejudice over the years and have felt themselves frequently to be outcast.  I preached out there thirty years ago when the Rev. Junius Carter was their rector and I heard horrible stories of the way that prejudice and being outcast affected their lives.

            I wish that I had a quick answer to fix all of this.  We live in a time when hatred seems to be growing in this country.  I have never felt a more urgent time for the Christian message of Love above all things to be preached and understood.  It isn’t easy to love.  There are many things that prevent it.  Most of all it is our concern for self that gets in the way.  Our scripture lessons offer some thoughts about this problem and if we take them seriously, they point to some solutions.

            Paul speaks about the radical nature of Love in his letter to the Romans.  His words aren’t really very easy to hear:  bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep…do not repay anyone evil for evil…If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  These are words of advice to his followers in Rome.  Those are good words, but hard to live out.  When we are offended by someone, we tend to respond with anger and retribution.  It isn’t easy to bless those who persecute us. 

            Jesus has some words for his disciples about their trip to Jerusalem.  He tells them that he will go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering at the hands of the priests and the elders, be killed and on the third day rise again.  Peter took him aside and rebuked him: God forbid it. Lord, this must never happen to you!  Jesus responded to him by saying, get behind me Satan, you are a stumbling block to me because you are setting your mind on human things, not on divine things.  It was hard for Peter to understand the suffering that Jesus knew that he was going to have to undergo.  Jesus was speaking about the extreme difficulty that Godly love poses not only to each of us, but also to Jesus himself who came to redeem us all by his suffering. Jesus confronted all of the hatred in the world with love; by offering himself to all of the hatred so that God’s love could prevail in his resurrection.  Continuing that Love is our mission as Christians.  It is our job to reach into this world and to find those who need love and to provide it for them.  That means taking care of the poor and the neglected; those who have no resources, and doing for them what they can’t do for themselves. 

            I have been heartened by the response that so many people have made to the horrible flooding in Houston and all of Southeast Texas.  Beautiful stories are emerging of how people are giving of themselves to make other people’s lives easier.  These are people who have frequently lost everything in the storm, but are given back love and concern by people whom they don’t even know.  The people who are helping are not asking questions about what the people in need believe; who they voted for, or anything else.  They don’t necessarily agree with the people whom they are helping.  That is what St. Paul was talking about when he said bless those who persecute you, as far as possible live peaceably with all.  That is the essence of his messages. That is how love works. 

            Many of the people in Homewood need help.  Holy Cross church does some wonderful things in that community.  Even with all of their own fears and wounds that have come from years of prejudice, they still want to help.  St. Brendan’s has always had a tithing ministry that had done unseen wonders for the charities that you support. You are offering the Episcopal Relief and Development as a place to offer support to all of the people in Texas who have suffered so much.

             I thank God for the persistent love that comes from churches who care for others in the name of Love.  God bless us as we do what we can to spread that Love as far as we can.