W

hat is God’s dream for this world? The Bible and Christian theology give no clear answer to that simple question, but there are glimpses. More than glimpses, perhaps. The Bible opens windows to see into the world as God desires it. If we know what God desires, if we know what God’s dream is, wouldn’t we give our lives to fulfill it? [The “dream of God,” of course, is not a biblical term; but the idea is entirely biblical.]

Jesus’ invitation is this: “Seek first [God’s] king-dom and [his] righteousness.” [Matthew 6:33] Seek the justice, the good works, the right ways, and the faithful-ness of God. Seek the path of God, the ways of God, the reign of God. Seek God’s presence, God’s embrace, God’s love. God’s kingdom encompasses all of that.

Among other things, when we seek the kingdom, we seek to know and to live according to the values, the moral values, of the reign of God. The question of God’s kingdom is what the world would be like if God were king, president, leader of the world, rather than those who are in charge. What are God’s values? What are the charac-teristics of the moral vision of God’s kingdom?

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AS SHALOM

The prophet Isaiah saw through a window and described a time when natural enemies would live together in peace, the time of shalom:

The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,

and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy on all

my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full of the knowledge

of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

[ Isaiah 11:6-9]

Some people see in these words only a description of what life will be like at the end of time, as perhaps a description of heaven itself or of the time some call the millennium. But this seems to me an open window for us to see into the dream of God. Is this not what God desires for the world? And if it is, is it possible for us to work together toward the time of shalom even in this present world? Is this not our call as Christians?

Paul’s words to the Christians in Rome are at least an echo of Isaiah’s vision: Love does no harm. [Romans 13:10] The key phrase “no harm” unlocks the window to this divine dream. And love unlocks the door to the place where “no harm” becomes our experience. God desires a world where creation cooperates as it did at the beginning, where violence is unknown, where shalom permeates all the world. God desires the world described by Isaiah and will bring it into perfect existence at the end of time.

At the end of the book of Isaiah, we see the same vision described by God’s word through the prophet:

Behold, I will create new heavens

and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered,

Nor will they come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever

in what I will create….

The wolf and the lamb will feed together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox,

but dust will be the serpent’s food.

They will neither harm nor destroy on all

my holy mountain, says the Lord.

[Isaiah 65:17-18,25]

SEEKING THE KINGDOM

Some people say that we must wait until the end of time for this dream to become real. But is God’s desire for us only to wait, to do nothing, to let the world continue just as it is until the end? What does Jesus mean by seeking the kingdom? “Seeking” is an active word. Jesus invites us to actively participate in the dream of God, seeking to bring it about by what we can do.

Seek peace, and pursue it, the Psalmist said. [Psalm 34:14] That’s an active pursuit, a full participation in a life which desires peace and does what it can to create it.

The account of Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple in 2 Chronicles 7:14 includes words familiar to many Christians, especially those of us who spent many years in the revival tradition of the church: If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

This invitation to confession and repentance in a time of national threat tumbles past the open window where we see God’s dream. Stop at the window and climb in. Enter into the dream of God opening before us, and join the activity of shalom - humbling ourselves, praying, seeking God’s presence, turning from our sinful ways.

The kingdom of God and the dream of God are the same thing. God desires a world where peace and love reign supreme, a world where natural enemies live together in peace, a world where the strong and the weak eat and play together. God desires a world where no one does harm to another, a world where violence is only a mem-ory, where abuse can no longer be found, and where war is gone forever. God desires a world where people’s words, thoughts, attitudes, and actions all emerge from love.

Active pursuit of the divine dream fills the pages of scripture. God calls Abraham to leave his family and home and enter into a strange, new land. God draws Moses from the security of his home to return to the dangers of Egypt, then urges the Hebrew people to leave Egypt to go to the mountain where Moses heard God’s voice. God thrusts the shepherd boy into the world of kings and armies and nations. God pulls the prophets, one after another, out of their relatively comfortable jobs and homes into lives where they make many enemies and face humiliation, suffering, and death.

Jesus sent the disciples out to do what he had done. I “came to seek and to save what was lost,” Jesus said. [Luke 19:10] And so he ate with tax collectors and “sinners.” He spent time with women and men who were denied an equal place in the society of their day. He touched the leper, the untouchable, and the unloved. He forgave the unforgivable. He gave himself into the power of those who he knew would kill him. He did all this to actively seek the kingdom of God in this world.

THE HEART OF JESUS

One story in the gospels reveals the heart of Jesus, in distinct contrast to the heart of people who were blind to the values of God’s kingdom. [See Luke 7:36-50] Jesus accepted an invitation to dine at the home of one of the religious leaders in a certain town. The custom in that day was to sit on the floor with feet tucked under or behind them, “reclining at the table,” as it was called.

While they were eating, a woman came into the house and stood behind Jesus at his feet. Other people saw her as one “who lived a sinful life,” whatever that meant and whatever her reasons. If she was a prostitute, as many think, she may have been driven to that life through abuse or poverty.

As she knelt behind Jesus, her eyes flooded with tears which fell onto his feet, and she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and used the perfume she had brought with her to anoint his feet.

The religious leader, a Pharisee, watched all of this happen, noticed that Jesus did not protest, and thought (perhaps with anger, contempt, and self-righteousness): “If [Jesus] were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is - that she is a sinner.” The implication is clear - that if Jesus knew what kind of person she was he would have been equally contemptuous and sent her away. He would have had nothing to do with her.

Jesus was a prophet, and Jesus allowed her to anoint him, perhaps even welcomed it. He went on to talk about forgiveness and love, suggesting that the Pharisee knew nothing about either one and that this woman had experienced both.

On another occasion, Jesus said to other religious leaders who had the same dismissive attitude toward people they characterized as sinners: “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” [Matthew 21:31]

Jesus did not explain that statement, but he did say to the religious leaders that their refusal to repent was the reason these other people were going in ahead of them. Like the woman at the dinner, these “tax collectors and ‘sinners’” had experienced forgiveness and love and were pouring out all they had for God. They trusted God as Jesus spoke of love and forgiveness and came freely, joyfully into God’s kingdom.

The religious leaders Jesus addressed, however, refused to repent. In their stubborn spiritual blindness, they thought they were right and moral and acceptable to God. They thought they had no need of forgiveness and were dismissive of love, so they could not even see their need to turn to God.

So far as we know from the text, the behavior of these religious leaders was morally impeccable according to the standards of the day. I am sure there must have been exceptions, but I accept the idea that the Pharisees were men whose outward behavior conformed to traditional boundaries of morality in areas of sexuality, family life, and religious duties, for instance. But they lacked love which was the foundation of morality in Jesus’ teaching.

One story typifies Jesus’ view of the Pharisees as a group when he called them hypocrites: “You give a tenth of your spices - mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness.” [Matthew 23:23]

THE ONLY THING THAT COUNTS

If we neglect love, including justice, mercy, and faithfulness, we neglect the core value, the ultimate moral value of the kingdom of God. If we dismiss love as not all that important, we miss what Paul said was the only thing that matters, the only lasting reality.

The only thing that counts, Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, is faith expressing itself through love. [Galatians 5:6] He implied that faith which does not express itself through love does not count. He writes in this letter about freedom, strongly urging these Christians to stand firm in the freedom Christ has given them and not to let themselves come under the yoke of slavery. What was that slavery but a strict adherence to rules of behavior which could be obeyed without love of God or people?

Paul speaks of indulging the sinful nature, which most people understand to refer to various outward behaviors. But the behaviors came from self-centeredness. So for Paul, the opposite behaviors came from an other-centeredness: serving one another in love. He continues by saying clearly that the entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” [Galatians 5:13-14]

An attitude toward life dominated by a willing love for people is the most important thing. Such love will be demonstrated by various behaviors, but loving one another from the heart is of first importance. Heart-felt love is the supreme value.

Love is not abstract, but concrete. Tangible passion for doing good for those we love stirs our hearts, trembles in our spirits, and drives us to daily actions and words of love for God and for people around us. Our minds fill with thoughts of love. Our hearts surge with feelings of love. Our spirits soar with the freedom to love.

Such overwhelming love may be beyond our experience. Surely we do not all experience this degree of love every day and in every relationship. This kind of love comes from God as a grace of the Spirit.

Paul’s climax in this letter to the Galatians speaks of the fruit of the Spirit, of the visible result of the Spirit’s work in our hearts and souls.

The fruit, as I read the scripture, is love. All the other things are ways of expressing that love or what flow out of love when we allow it to be supreme: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. [Galatians 5:22-23]

These are all matters of relationship: to ourselves, to others, and to God. Certain behaviors are suggested by these things, such as being physically and verbally gentle with people. But the behaviors come out of the attitude of the loving heart which is gentle, peaceful, patient, kind, good, and faithful.

THE EXCELLENT WAY

One of Paul’s clearest statements on love comes in a letter addressed to a seriously divided church, perhaps as divided as the church in our own day. He admonishes them about those divisions throughout the letter, urging them to repent and turn away from their factions, schisms, divisions and to find their unity in Christ.

They are all members of one body, he says, and none of them can say they don’t need the other members, any more than the foot can say it doesn’t need the hand or the ear can say it doesn’t need the eye. They all need each other. How desperately we need to hear the same message today! The words are so familiar to many of us that they have lost their power to challenge us and call us to repentance.

In the midst of that portion of the letter we stumble - almost literally so - over what Paul says about love. [See 1 Corinthians 13] “The most excellent way,” he calls it. Love is the way of life which takes precedence over every other way of living and being in relationship with people. Rather than allowing our preferences, doctrines, ideas, loyalties, or spiritual gifts to become more impor-tant, Paul urges us to give first place in our lives to love.

We could speak in languages we had never learned, Paul writes. We could speak for God with understanding of great mysteries. We could have a faith that could move mountains. We could give away everything to the poor or surrender our body in martyrdom. But if we do not have love, if we do not do these things out of love, with hearts and minds filled with love, they are all worthless.

What comes before love for us today? What seems more important, taking priority in determining how we live with people, or whether we live with them at all? Do we make truth or principles more important than love? Is our commitment to justice more essential than loving relationships? Have we allowed our fear of “losing the denomination” to take priority over seeking love in the relationships that make the denomination viable?

People have always had different ideas of what love is, what it looks like in actual practice. So Paul goes on to describe the kind of love he means, the practices of love in everyday life:

• Love is patient
• Love is kind
• Love does not envy
• Love does not boast
• Love is not proud
• Love is not rude
• Love is not self-centered
• Love is not easily angered
• Love keeps no record of wrongs
• Love does not delight in evil
• Love rejoices with the truth
• Love always protects, trust, hopes
• Love perseveres and does not give up

I see a pattern in all of this. Love is first a matter of the heart. Love is an attitude toward ourselves, toward other people, toward God. Love comes from within. But it also has practical consequences in our behaviors. In our relationships, love will not allow us to be unkind in what we say, or rude in our conversations, or quick-tempered in our reactions. Love will not allow us just to walk away from people.

Love for ourselves allows us to be patient and kind, and not angry, with ourselves. We can stop keeping track of all the “wrongs” we have done to ourselves. We trust ourselves, hope in ourselves, and don’t give up on ourselves.

Love for other people looks the same way in our relationships with them - patience, kindness, trust, and hope. In current conversations in the church, tolerance is seen as a virtue by some and a vice by others. But if it means a willingness to let other people be who they are rather than who we want them to be, to hold different ideas than we hold, to live differently than we do, then tolerance is part of love. For love is not easily angered, not self-centered, not proud, not rude.

What about the love that “does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth?” Does tolerance look the other way? How can we tolerate “evil” behavior in the church? These questions surface regularly in conversations about homosexuality. Our response depends on our under-standing of homosexuality as a moral concern, especially whether or not it is sinful or evil, a discussion I’ll come back to in the next chapter. For now, I agree that if tolerance simply excuses or even affirms what is false or evil, it is not love.

Love for God, similarly to love for ourselves and for others, follows the same pattern of relationship Paul describes. I have at times been quite impatient with God, even angered by God. I have been self-centered in the relationship, not giving my attention to God but keeping it on myself. I have not always trusted God or been hopeful; at times I have felt like giving up.

Loving God is a matter of relationship, not of doctrine, a matter more of heart and soul than of mind. Mind does enter in, of course, for how can we love God with our whole being unless our minds love God as well? But I know too well how we can convince ourselves we love God because we believe or do “the right things” as Christians, while our hearts are closed off to God and our spirits are drifting far away from God’s presence.

At the conclusion of this part of his letter, Paul names three realities he believes are at the heart of this life God has given us: Faith, hope, and love. And then he says that the greatest of these is love. Why? Because only love is eternal.

Even faith and hope will cease when they have been fulfilled, when we are eternally in God’s presence and know as we have been known. Yet love will remain forever. Love is eternal. Love is the ultimate value in life, for it is the only thing that remains when all else is gone.

How can we continue to cut people out of our lives, push churches out of our denominations, end relationships with other people on the basis of any other value? Whatever moral values we have are subject to this ultimate value of love. And love perseveres and never fails, never gives up.

One childhood memory stands out as I reflect on what I learned growing up in church and in a Christian home. I was about ten, and my sister was eleven. I was a runt, and she had an early growth spurt; so she stood a foot taller than I did. We had been arguing, although I don’t remember over what. I certainly wasn’t going to let her win. I suppose we had been regularly bickering back and forth over many things. Dad’s way of correcting our behavior on that occasion was to have us open the Bible to 1 Corinthians 13 and write it out long-hand. I don’t remember how many times, but enough that I never forgot it.

When I was 17 and had been asked to preach a sermon in church one Sunday evening, I turned to this chapter. My first opportunity to speak from the pulpit demanded that I preach on the most important thing in life. The Living Letters had just come out, and I spoke from that straightforward version which describes it so clearly. For instance, it says: “Love is not irritable.” Ouch!

Through the years, I have never departed from this core conviction that the most important thing in life is love. Jesus taught it. Paul taught it. At the heart of all scripture, I am convinced, is that childhood verse we all learned: “For God so loved the world….” The love of God for all creation is the reason we are called to love everyone. No exceptions.

A NEW COMMANDMENT

Jesus gave a new commandment on the night before he died. He had clearly affirmed love for God and for neighbor as the two greatest commandments during his ministry. No commandment is greater than these, he said. [Mark 12:31] Then as he met with his closest disciples that night, after he took the role of the least of all servants and washed their feet, saying he had given them an example to follow, Jesus said to them:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all [people] will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” [John 13:34-35]

The command to love was not new, but the quality of that love was something new - “As I have loved you.” The earlier command to love our neighbor as ourselves, coming out of the Torah [Leviticus 19:18], is a challenge to most of us because how many of us truly love ourselves in a healthy, appropriate way? Now Jesus calls us to love one another in the same way that he loves us.

Jesus honored people as they were, even as he expected repentance in their hearts and lives. He did not condemn, though he did judge the attitudes of the heart. He welcomed people whose behaviors were condemned by religion and society, people who were outcasts in their communities, people who had admittedly done what was wrong. He ate with them in their homes and freely forgave them. He did not look down on them.

If Jesus spoke words that sound condemning toward anyone, it was to the religious leaders of the day — and not because their outward behaviors were un-acceptable in religious and cultural terms, but because they were spiritually blind and inwardly unloving. He judged their hearts. He called them to inward change. The behaviors Jesus described as most unacceptable to God were actions demonstrating pride, greed, self-righteous-ness, and unloving hearts.

Yet Jesus honored them all. He ate at the homes of the rich and powerful, just as he ate with those who had nothing. He invited everyone to follow him, to share in the life he offered. He turned no one away. And when some turned away from him because they would not give up their pride, riches, and honor, he was sad for them. But it was their choice, not his.

The new commandment Jesus gave us is to love one another in the same way he loved us: Honoring all people, accepting the unacceptable, touching the untouch-able, forgiving the unforgivable. Jesus loved us by giving himself away, even to death itself. He suffered rejection, ridicule, abuse of all kinds, and physical violence, to show the full extent of his love. He refused the place of honor, rejected the place of privilege and power the people offered him, even willingly took the role of the least of all servants in order to show his love. This is the love we are commanded to live by.

GOD’S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

If we had any doubts about the extent of God’s love, Paul erases them in his letter to the church in Rome: When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly….God demonstrates [his] own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us….When we were God’s enemies, we were re-conciled to [him] through the death of [his] Son. [Romans 5:6-11]

The Bible does not use the phrase “unconditional love,” but this text seems clear that the love of God has no boundaries, no limits. It is unconditional. This is the grace of love. God showed that love for all the world while we were God’s enemies. Remember what Jesus said: “Love your enemies.” This is what God did - and continues to do. This is what Jesus did. God loved us and sent God’s Son to give his life for us - before we had become good and moral, upright and acceptable, before we had repented and turned toward God, before we cried out for help - while we were yet enemies of God.

There is no one God does not love, no one beyond the reach of God’s love. There is nothing we could ever do to make God stop loving us. We are called to love in the same way: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Then Jesus pushes us a step further. This is how people will know you are my followers, he says, when they see you loving other people. I have read biblical commentaries which say that loving other Christians is all Jesus meant here. The “one another” we are to love includes only other people who also confess faith in Christ. And by implication, they suggest those are people “of like mind” with us in all matters of doctrine and practice. That becomes a very narrow group of people, if it is even possible, and not at all what Jesus meant.

God loves the whole world. God loves even the enemies of God. God sends rain on the evil as well as the good. God reconciled the world through Christ. God’s will is that no one should perish. I would need to write a book much longer than this one to list and discuss all the scriptures which speak of God’s unconditional and all-inclusive love. Those are not in themselves specific biblical words, but the idea they convey is - that no one is outside the love of God.

LOVE AND TRUTH

In one of many email groups I belong to, one man said, “I am tired of hearing about love; what we need to hear is the truth.” These words were spoken in the context of a discussion on whether the practice of homosexuality is sin or whether the church should be open to all people, including people of different sexual orientation. I under-stood this man to be saying that “the truth” would shut them out, and that we should not use “love” as an excuse for accepting them.

Jesus spoke of truth on many occasions, always as something we know experientially, from the heart and not the head. John’s gospel includes part of an ongoing conversation with the Jewish religious leaders opposed to Jesus, some of whom even claimed he was of the devil because of his claims. In the context of Jesus’ claims to be “the light of the world” and to give light to people living in darkness, Jesus said: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” [John 8:31-32]

The continuing practice of what Jesus taught seems to be what Jesus means here. If we continue to do, to put into practice, what Jesus taught, then we are really his disciples. Then we know and experience the truth, and only then are we free.

What was Jesus’ teaching? In this conversation in John, Jesus had just spoken of his intimate relationship with the Father, as he called God, and of how he always did what pleased God. What did Jesus do that always pleased God? What did Jesus teach, both in word and action?

Jesus clearly said the most important thing in life is to love God with all that we are and to love others in the same way Jesus has loved us. This is Jesus’ teaching. We are to hold on to it, to grasp it, to cling to it, to hold it close to our hearts. We are to let love take root in our heart, growing within us, and bearing fruit in our lives - the fruit of the Spirit, including joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We are to accept the unacceptable, touch the untouchable, and forgive the unforgivable. No one is to be outside the reach of our love.

If we love in this way, Jesus says, we are his disciples, those who learn from him and follow his way of

life. As we live in this way, we will know the truth.

Truth and love are not opposites. Rather, truth flows from love because truth is of the heart. Truth is not about what we believe but how we live. Only as we love fully, as we are fully loved by God, can we know the truth. And when we know the truth through love, Jesus adds, that knowledge and experience of truth will set us free.

Love leads to freedom. We are not free without love. Doctrines do not set us free; they divide us from those who believe differently. Laws do not set us free; they bind us with rigid rules which no one fully keeps, and so they make us even more aware of our sinfulness without setting us free from it. Clearly-defined groups of people - defining who is “in” and who is “out” will never set us free; rather creating these groups breeds enmity, jealousy, hatred, violence, and leads to great harm to people. Only love leads us into truth and freedom.

THE WORKS OF LOVE

Only the actions, the works, of love show the sincerity of the faith we proclaim. The book of James, in traditional versions, speaks of faith and works and says that faith without works is dead, that it is of no value. Many commentators have explored the interpretations of what James meant. I think he meant that the works of love, the actions and behaviors which come out of love for God and people, are what clearly demonstrate that our faith is of God.

James speaks of being faithful in our relationship with God. Being faithful in any relationship comes from love for the other person. He speaks of not showing favoritism, of not giving preference to the rich over the poor. That is a matter of love. He speaks of taking care of orphans and widows - the weak and powerless in any society - and says this is the very essence of religion. He speaks of taking care of the physical needs of the poor rather than just praying for them and sending them on their way. All of these are the actions, the works, of love for our neighbor. The works of love reinforce and demon-strate our faith in God and in Christ.

James continues with other examples of love. He mentions the royal law early in his letter - to love your neighbor as yourself - and says that if we are really keeping that law, we are doing what is right before God. He goes so far as to say that we are not in a right relationship with God unless our faith is demonstrated outwardly through these works of love. He includes in his examples being self-controlled in what we say to other people. He goes deeper and talks about bitterness and selfishness in our hearts. And by contrast he talks about loving peace, being considerate, showing compassion to other people.

The church experiences unity through loving one another from the heart and expressing that inward love through outward actions of compassion, grace, and generosity. James, perhaps the earliest of the New Testament books, reinforces what Jesus taught about this in summary fashion. We would do well to listen again to the message in our day.

Why is it so important that we live with such love in our lives? We love because we have been loved by God. Read the little book of 1 John. God has lavished love on us. The very essence of God is love. We know what love is because Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. Everyone who loves knows God. God is love, and all love is of God.

For more than 30 years my preaching has been molded by these thoughts written at the close of that first century of the church, probably among the last words of the New Testament to be written down. The traditional author of this letter is the apostle John, one of the sons of thunder, who once wanted to call down fire from heaven on Jesus’ enemies. If he wrote these words, he made a fascinating journey of transformation in those 60 years. He learned that love is supreme among the values of the kingdom.

We hear the same challenge as in James: How can we say that we have love if we do not take care of people in need without setting conditions? For our love is proved by our actions. And he adds an additional challenge: We cannot love God whom we have not seen if we do not love people whom we have seen. These words challenge me as much as anyone.

I am not perfect in love; I continue to struggle with loving the person sitting next to me, standing in front of me, walking past me on the street. I find it no easier than others to love the person who shouts at me, who does not respect me, who wants to shut me out of the group because of my ideas, my beliefs, my ways of living.

FEAR AND LOVE

Fear drives people to shut other people out. Fear drives us to define the groups we want to belong to in ways that keep other people out. Fear stirs up the need for feeling safe among people who share similar ideas, beliefs, experiences, commitments, and sometimes even outward similarities of social/economic class, racial/ethnic heritage, political loyalties, national pride, and other group characteristics with which we identify. Fear is the root of all hatred, abuse, violence, and even the all-too-common lack of respect and acceptance of people who are different from me.

Fear knows no boundaries of moral or theological distinction, whether we are conservative or liberal. Fear crosses over all the fences we erect to drive us farther away from “the others.” Fear casts a dark shadow over the ground between us, moving us still farther away because we are afraid we might fall into some pit if we try to cross that ground. Fear reflects a false light behind us, drawing us to a place where we think the light will be found, but where we are enclosed by cliffs imprisoning us in our fears.

I discovered as a teenager in the letter of 1 John a simple, powerful statement which has stayed with me and guided my beliefs and actions in so many ways. It says that perfect love drives out fear. [1 John 4:18]

Many people think - and confidently announce - that love is too simplistic. Love resolves nothing. Love cannot contain violence and abuse. Love is too soft, too tolerant, too nebulous. Perhaps we all are tempted to think the same way. But when we do, we fall back into the fear that creates so many of the problems we face in our world, the fear that causes divisions, the fear that molds and casts into concrete the tightly-controlled groups which have nothing to do with each other, which loudly deride the other, and which too often resort to abuse and violence to “solve” the problem.

Ridicule, abuse, and violence never resolve a problem, never eliminate division. They only reinforce the enmity and bitterness that is there. They build the walls that divide us still higher. Fear drives us to these actions, and these actions drive us further into fear. Love is the answer, the only answer, to fear. Love, perfect love, drives out all fear, along with the bitterness, hatred, and violence it provokes.

Was Jesus too soft when he stood up to his enemies without abuse or violence? Was Jesus too soft when he refused to give in to fear and hatred? Was Jesus too soft when he counseled us to love even our enemies? Was Jesus too soft when he accepted suffering and death at the hands of his enemies? The answer of the church has always been “no.” A resounding no. A deafening no. Jesus was no wimp. He was not soft. Jesus taught a different way to live in a dangerous world.

Jesus transformed lives through love. Jesus began a transformation of the world which continues to this day through love. Jesus showed us the way of love, taught us to love by his words and his life, called us to seek first the

way of love because it is the way of the kingdom of God. If there is any hope for the world - and for the church in all its divisions - that hope will be found by following the way of Jesus, the way of love.

 The Practices of Love: Compassion