Beloved Friends-
In 1967 Martin Luther King Jr published his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Sadly, it is as timely and relevant in 2020, now 53 years later. Flipping through the pages readers today will find words that could have been written during this current season of unrest, despair, violence, challenge, heartache and perseverance. Of the many words to lift up my eye was drawn to this succinct, profound and mind-mending proposition:

Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

This Sunday we will continue our 4-part sermon series: How Then Shall We Live?

I am holding up 4 seminal questions from Wayne Muller’s book of the same title to each of the subsequent gospel texts as we begin this church season called, Ordinary Time. It is the season we walk with Jesus and do our best to discern a pattern, a path a practice and a way of Love for us to live day by day as followers.

Last week we began with the first question: Who are We?

We held this question up against the gospel text in Matthew 9:35-10:8 in which Jesus calls and then SENDS OUT his apostles. I suggested that we too, at least in part, are a people being sent out to engage in the work of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

This week we will turn to our second question: What do we Love? And we will hold this question up alongside the gospel text in Matthew 10:24-39 in which Jesus continues giving his set of instructions. We will wonder together how this sacred text amidst the backdrop of our current context inform who or what and how we are called to love as a community of faith.

But for today, I need to listen more than I need to speak (or write), so I am yielding the balance of this blog to our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. Recorded in August 2017, following the horrific tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia where Heather Heyer was struck and killed after a car drove into a crowd at the end of a peaceful protest, his words ring with urgency still and offer a message of hope for work of building the Beloved Community.

Click on the video below to hear Bishop Curry’s words and may they feed our souls and strengthen our resolve to live our lives in such a way in the days to come, that they reflect the powerful words of MLK: Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

And may you never forget that you are loved.
Lisa

Translate »