"It's All About Love." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church, on Good News Sunday.

"It's All About Love"

1 John 4:7-21; Mark 12:28-34

Today is officially Good News Sunday at Littlefield!

            Have you heard some good news today?  In the scripture lessons or in the songs?  [I hope so.  That takes a bit of the pressure off me. Though I’ll do my best.]

            I do believe we have good news to share-- important and life-changing good news.  Sometimes I think I risk sounding like a “broken record.”   Some of you have heard me say this over and over again, in various ways.   But the more I’ve studied the scriptures over the years and looked for the main themes and the big picture, the more I’ve become convinced that our Christian faith is really all about love. 

            God loves us.  We are—all of us-- God’s beloved children.  Our faith is about responding to God’s love for us and for all God’s children by loving God   and loving all the people God loves. 

            The Hebrew Scriptures include a lot of stories and verses that a lot of us find puzzling and troubling.  Yet one of the major themes is of God’s steadfast loving-kindness.

            One of my teachers at Princeton Seminary did her doctoral dissertation on the recurring theme of “hesed”, which is a Hebrew word that can be translated as “mercy,” or “steadfast loving-kindness.”  

            One of the other prominent themes in the Old Testament is how God keeps sending prophets to call people back to living in right relationship with God and neighbor…  and how those right relationships are characterized by love and justice and mercy.

             The gospel message in the New Testament proclaims in various ways how Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth, to embody God’s love for us, and to show us how to live in the way of love.   Jesus preached about the “kingdom of God” or the “reign of God” and how we are called to live into it.      

            When people asked Jesus what the most important commandment is, he said what’s most important is two-fold:  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made it clear that your neighbor is anybody we encounter, anybody God puts in our path—even people who are different…  people we might even see as enemies. 

            In his last talk with his disciples, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  People will know you are my followers by the way you love one another.”[1]

            Jesus made it very clear that it’s all about love.  So, I keep wondering how so many people who call themselves “Christians” could be so confused about this.  

            So many people in our society fear and mistrust those who are different:  Muslims…  people whose skin is a different color…  immigrants… refugees.   

            There are so many people in our nation who are hungry or food insecure or lack the basic things they need to live a life of dignity. The gap between the very rich and the poor keeps widening.

            This week, in particular, there has been a national conversation on social media and elsewhere about sexual assault.  Women all around the country have been sharing their stories about being assaulted, and many others have been talking about being “triggered” by recent events and re-experiencing their assaults.

            Our nation is divided by partisan politics, and respect and trust and basic civility seem to be in very short supply. In recent weeks, there have been death threats against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Senator Flake. 

            In the midst of all this brokenness and fear and injustice, how are we-- as people of faith-- called to live?

           

            “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.  Everyone who loves is born of God    and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God-- for God is love.   Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.    No one has ever seen God.  If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us.”[2]

            I hear the scriptures saying that loving one another is a spiritual practice.  As we work at loving one another—God is living in us and working in us and perfecting love in us.

            “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love casts out fear.  Whoever fears has not reached maturity in love.”

            We love because God first loved us.   If we say, “I love God” but hate our brother or sister, we’re lying about loving God.   As we heard in First John, “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen—cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

            Fear divides us.  It leads to violence and destruction.   Hatred and fear are toxic.  They harm us-- as persons and as a society.

            But there is a way out.  It is not the way of fear, and hate and violence.  It is the way of love. 
            In Dr. Martin Luther King’s words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”[3]
            If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we have a long way to go to drive hatred and fear out of our lives and out of our society.  Living in the way of love is not easy.  Living in the way of love is too hard to do on our own power alone.
            And so… we need to be in prayer-- together.   We need to open our lives to God’s call in our lives, as we live further into God’s dream for the world—the world that God so loves.   
            We need each other.  The Greek word ekklesia which we translate as “church” literally means an “assembly,” or those who are gathered together.   We need to come together as a community of faith-- not for the sake of coming to a place called church-- but for the sake of coming together as part of the Body of Christ… for the sake of gathering as disciples who need to learn and practice living in the way of love.  
            We need to love one another and encourage one another.  We need to love one another into becoming more and more the beloved children of God we were created to be.   We need to love one another into becoming the beloved community. 
            God isn’t finished with any of us yet.  Our love isn’t yet perfect, and it hasn’t yet cast out all our fears.   But God is still working in and among and through us, through the power of the Holy Spirit-- leading and empowering us to become more patient and kind and generous… and helping us to become less envious or controlling… less irritable or resentful.  
            God is still working in us, guiding us further into the truth, re-forming us, teaching us what it means to go out and be the church in the world, in this time and place.

            The good news is that as we grow more and more into God’s way of love, God’s love will cast out our fears.

            In a broken and fearful world, we can trust in the Holy Spirit to give us courage to pray without ceasing.[4]   As we work with others for justice, freedom and peace, our lives will be transformed, and together we can change the world.        

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 30, 2018

---

[1] John 13:31-35

[2] 1 John 4:7-12

[3] Quoted from Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (1963).  I have read that he first said it in a sermon around 1957.

[4] This is an allusion to the “Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (USA)”, 1990.

"It's All About the Love." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Good News Sunday.

"It's All About the Love"

Matthew 22:34-40; 1 John 4:7-21

            Today is officially Good News Sunday at Littlefield!   We told people that—if they brought someone to worship today—we promise that they would hear some good news! 

            Have you heard some good news?  In the scripture lessons or in the songs?  [I hope so.  That takes a bit of the pressure off me, now.  Though I’ll do my best.]

            I do believe we have good news to share-- important and life-changing good news.  Sometimes I think I risk sounding like a “broken record.”   Some of you have heard me say this over and over again, in various ways.   But the more I’ve studied the scriptures over the years and looked for the main themes and the big picture, the more I’ve become convinced that our Christian faith is really all about love. 

            God loves us.  We are—all of us-- God’s beloved children.  Our faith is about responding to God’s love for us and for all God’s children by loving God   and loving all the people God loves. 

            The Hebrew Scriptures include some stories and verses that a lot of us find puzzling and troubling.  Yet one of the major themes is of God’s steadfast loving-kindness.

            One of my teachers at Princeton Seminary did her doctoral dissertation on the recurring theme of “hesed”, which is a Hebrew word that can be translated as “mercy,” or “steadfast loving-kindness.”

            One of the other prominent themes in the Old Testament is how God keeps sending prophets to call people back to living in right relationship with God and neighbor…  and how those right relationships are characterized by love and justice and mercy.

             The gospel message in the New Testament proclaims in various ways how Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth, to embody God’s love for us, and to show us how to live in the way of love.   Jesus preached about the “kingdom of God” or the “reign of God” and how we are called to live into it.            

            When people asked Jesus what the most important commandment is, he said what’s most important is two-fold:  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made it clear that your neighbor is anybody we encounter, anybody God puts in our path—even people who are different…  people we might even see as sinners or enemies. 

            In his last talk with his disciples, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  People will know you are my followers by the way you love one another.”[1]

            Jesus made it very clear that it’s all about love.  So, I keep wondering how so many people who call themselves “Christians” could be so confused about this, who they could exclude and condemn people Christ has shown us we are to love and welcome.

            So many people in our society fear and mistrust those who are different:  Muslims…  people whose skin is a different color…  immigrants… refugees…people of different sexual orientations.    

            There are so many people in our nation who are hungry or food insecure or lack the basic things they need to live a life of dignity. In the midst of all this brokenness and fear and injustice, how are we-- as people of faith-- called to live?

           

            “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.  Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.   Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.    No one has ever seen God.  If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us.”[2]

            I hear the scriptures saying that loving one another is an essential part of our spiritual practice and life.  As we work at loving one another, God is living in us and working in us and perfecting love in us….

            “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love casts out fear.  Whoever fears has not reached maturity in love.”

            We love because God first loved us.   If we say, “I love God” but hate our brother or sister, we’re lying about loving God.   As we heard in First John, “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen—cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

            Fear divides us.  It leads to violence and destruction.   Hatred and fear are toxic.  They harm us as persons and as a society.

            But there is a way out.  It is not the way of fear, and hate and violence.  It is the way of love.  In Dr. Martin Luther King’s words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”[3]
            If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we have a long way to go to drive hatred and fear out of our lives and out of our society.  Living in the way of love is not easy.  Living in the way of love is too hard to do on our own power alone.
            And so, we need to be in prayer.  We need to open our lives to God’s call in our lives, as we live further into God’s dream for the world—the world that God so loves.
            We need each other.  The Greek word ekklesia which we translate as “church” literally means an “assembly,” or those who are gathered together.   We need to come together as a community of faith-- not for the sake of coming to a place called church-- but for the sake of coming together as part of the Body of Christ, for the sake of gathering as disciples who need to learn and practice living in Christ’s way of love.
            We need to love one another and encourage one another.  We need to love one another into becoming more and more the beloved children of God we were created to be.   We need to love one another into becoming the beloved community. 
            God isn’t finished with any of us yet.  Our love isn’t yet perfect, and it hasn’t yet cast out all our fears.   But God is still working in and among and through us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, leading and empowering us to become more patient and kind and generous, and helping us to become less envious or controlling, less irritable or resentful.
            God is still working in us, guiding us further into the truth, re-forming us, teaching us what it means to go out and be the church in the world, in this time and place.

            The good news is that as we grow more and more into God’s way of love, God’s love will cast out our fears.

            In a broken and fearful world, we can trust in the Holy Spirit to give us courage to pray without ceasing.[4]   As we work with others for justice, freedom and peace, our lives will be transformed, and together we can change the world.       

           

            Thanks be to God!

         Amen.

---

[1] John 13:31-35

[2] 1 John 4:7-12

[3] Quoted from Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (1963).  I have read that he first said it in a sermon around 1957.

[4] This is an allusion to the “Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (USA)”, 1990.

"Why Interfaith?" From an Interfaith Panel Discussion on May 6, 2017

"Why Interfaith?"

From an Interfaith Panel Discussion on May 6, 2017

Shalom....  Asalaamu alaikum…   Shanti…  Peace be to you all.

            I thought I’d start with a little history. Some of our local religious communities have been involved for years in interfaith endeavors.  So much of our interfaith work has been about relationships, so I’d like to talk about my experience with this.

            The congregation I serve--Littlefield Presbyterian Church-- has been involved in interfaith work since the late 1970’s. At this point, it’s one of the few remaining Protestant Christian churches in east Dearborn. 

            In the beginning, almost 90 years ago, it was a neighborhood church, in an area that was predominately Catholic. Over time, the neighborhood changed due to white flight and new neighbors moving in. Most of the new neighbors were Muslim. The congregation could have moved to the suburbs or closed, which is what some other churches did. But they did a mission study and decided they were called to stay where they were and be good neighbors to the people who were moving in, and to witness to God’s love where they were planted.  

            Littlefield called the Rev. William Gepford to help them in their “ministry of reconciliation”[1]  and to build mutual respect and understanding among Christians and Muslims, and over the years. Dr. Gepford was one of the pioneers in interfaith work in the metro Detroit area and beyond.

            In the early years, Littlefield invited their Muslim neighbors to a series of a gatherings, during which people got to know one another over meals and conversation.  Over time, they built relationships in the community and worked together on projects like the annual holiday food baskets that served up to 100 needy families.  Dr. Gepford worked with a team of interfaith leaders to plan the first interfaith Thanksgiving service, a tradition that continued many years until a number of communities were holding their own interfaith services.

            I was called to be the pastor of Littlefield in 1997  and became involved in the interfaith work.  When 9/11 happened, it gave many of us a renewed sense of urgency about nurturing our interfaith relationships.  

            Those first few days were fearful times.  The church put up a sign on the doors that said, “This is a Hate Free Zone,” and some of our neighbors asked if they could come in and pray.  We went to one anothers’ houses of worship to show our support.

           

            We continue to visit back and forth between churches and mosques, attending worship and meals and other events.  We offer one another care and support.  Our Muslim neighbors invite us to break the fast at Ramadan iftar meals.  We invite them to join us for our Christmas Eve Lessons & Carols service.

On the Sunday in September closest to the International Day of Peace, we hold a service of Interfaith Prayer for Peace.  We encourage people to practice “respectful presence,” which means that we participate in the parts we can, and listen respectfully and learn in other parts.[2]  We typically have a Jewish cantor, an Imam, and a Christian pastor, and we’ve also occasionally had someone from the Sikh or Buddhist community.  We experience elements from each tradition, and we pray together “with one voice” in a litany for peace in our communities, our nation, and the world. We make new friends over refreshments following the service.   

            Because Littlefield has worked to build relationships in the community, our Muslim neighbors trust us and send their kids to our annual Peace Camp in the summer. The kids build a neighborhood of peace and justice out of cardboard boxes, they sing songs of peace, and learn some peace-building skills. And we all make new friends.

            Our Dearborn Area Interfaith Network builds relationships and works together on some events.  On the first Thursday in May, we hold our annual National Day of Prayer Interfaith Prayer gathering.  Each January we sponsor an interfaith convocation in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King.

            Some years ago, when Terry Jones came to town to protest what he wanted to see as “sharia law” in Dearborn, he wanted to protest outside the Islamic Center of America.  Religious leaders from around the metro area gathered and encircled the mosque to show our support. 

            At a committee meeting a few days after our most recent interfaith service, several of our members talked about how grateful they are to live in Dearborn, to be neighbors and friends with people from Lebanon and Palestine and Bosnia and elsewhere. 

            As one of them said, “Isn’t following Jesus really all about love?” 

            I believe that’s true.  My Christian faith teaches me that “perfect love casts out fear.”[3]  When we get to know our neighbors, when we grow in understanding, we don’t need to be afraid of one another. 

            When we get to know each other, we discover how much we have in common.   As children of Abraham, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the same God-- the God of mercy and compassion. We are all taught by our faith to love God and neighbor. We worship  the God who is one.   We are all "people of the book."   The "family tree" of our faith makes it apparent that we are family.  We're connected, all the way back to Adam and Eve, and we trace our ancestry back through Isaac and Ishmael to Abraham.     

            When we study history, we are aware of how each of our faith traditions has had a tendency to be exclusivist, and to believe that it has the only path to God.  But there have always been valued streams of thought which are very respectful of the religious behavior and ideas of other faith traditions.  I am glad to be a part of that movement.

            I’ve read a lot of helpful books on interfaith work. One I read recently is helpful:   The Interfaith Alternative: Embracing Spiritual Diversity. [4]   The author, Steven Greenbaum, talks about the concept of “right belief,” which he says has been an organizing principle of our spiritual paths for a very long time.  If a religious community believes that we have the only way, that we are the only chosen people, and that we follow the only right spiritual path, the result can be distrust, hatred and violence.   

             Greenbaum offers an interfaith alternative, which respects each spiritual path and recognizes what we all share in common:  the call to love and to be loving and compassionate.

            He suggests “Maybe dividing ourselves into righteous pockets of spiritual belief is not the best way to bring about love.”  We humans are great at building walls between ourselves and those who are different in some way. For too long, too many of us have been stuck in a paradigm that demands that we search for or protect the one “right belief.”  

            I think Greenbaum is right when he says “Who has the right belief?” is the wrong question,  and that we need to be more concerned with a different question: “How do we live as a result of our beliefs?”   We need to stop arguing about which religious tradition is “best” or “right” or “true,” and find ways to be in conversation with one another and to work together to honor God/Allah/Hashem or whatever we call the One God we worship, through works of compassion, mercy, and justice.

            How many of you know the story of “The Blind Men and the Elephant”?   It’s an Indian fable. We had a picture book version at our house when my son was young, and I bought a new copy recently.  The story originated in the Indian subcontinent and is widely known in many traditions, including Buddist, Jain, Hindu, and Sufi Muslim traditions.

            In various versions of the story, a group of blind men (or people in the dark) are led to an elephant to touch it, so they can learn what an elephant is like.  Each person feels a different part.  In some versions, their differences lead to violence, as each one is convinced he has it right and tries to dominate.  In some versions of the story, they stop shouting, start listening to each other, and work together to “see” the whole elephant. 

            I think it’s time we all become more conscious and more intentional about this.  It’s time we stop trying to defend our one right truth and find ways to be in conversation with those who may have experienced a different truth?    We need to heed the common call of all our religious traditions, the call to love and compassion.

            As we come to understand the depth of our neighbors' relationship with the God we both worship, we learn to respect and value their faith, even while we recognize and affirm our different paths.  

            For those of us who long for a better, more peaceful world, it’s painful to see so much of what’s going on-- to see the racism, Islamaphobia, and anti-Semitism in our world. We live in such a fearful time, and political rhetoric has magnified it. Fear breeds animosity and hate. Hatred breeds more fear. It’s a vicious cycle.  

It can feel overwhelming.

            Because I follow Jesus, whom I know partly as the “Prince of Peace,” I believe I am called to be a peace-maker. That means I need to be working for reconciliation and justice.  Working against racism… working to alleviate poverty… working to promote understanding between all God’s people.

            The more we come to know one another, the more we understand that we have common ground. A few years ago, a large number of Islamic scholars and leaders signed a document, A Common Word between Us and You, which affirms what we, as people of the book and children of Abraham, share in common.[5]

            A Common Word affirms the “Shema,”or the "Great Commandment" to love God completely and to love our neighbors as an important value we share in common. Wherever we find such common ground, it can help us find ways for us not only to live together, as good neighbors, in peace. It can help to deepen our friendship and help us to find ways to cooperate with one another and to work together in the public square for the common good. And we can leave a more just and peaceful world for our children and grandchildren.

---

[1] 2 Corinthians 5

[2] https://www.presbyterianmission.org/wp-content/uploads/respectfulpresence1.pdf

[3] 1 John 4:18

[4] Steven Greenbaum, The Interfaith Alternative: Embracing Spiritual Diversity. (SkyLightPaths, 2015)

[5] http://www.acommonword.com/

"Commanded To Love". A sermon preached at Littlefield Presbyterian Church on May 10, 2015. Texts: Acts 10:44-48; John 15:9-17

I recently came across some notes I’d taken from a book a group of us read together in the park some years ago--— Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace?   

There’s a story in the book that continues to trouble me.   Yancey retells a story told by a friend of his who works with the down-and-out in Chicago.

            A prostitute came to him in "wretched straits"--  homeless, sick, addicted to drugs,  unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter.  Yancy's friend said, "I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story....   I had no idea what to say to this woman.

            He said, “At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help.  I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face.  "Church!"  she cried.  "Why would I ever go there?  I was already feeling terrible about myself.  They'd just make me feel worse."

            What struck Yancey about that story, he says, is that—according to the gospels-- people much like this prostitute came to Jesus--  not away from him.  The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge. 

            So he asks:  Has the church lost that gift?  Evidently the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers.  What has happened?--  he wonders.

            I've found myself pondering the questions Philip Yancey was asking,   as he to pondered the meaning of grace.

            Yancey quotes author Stephen Brown's observation that a veterinarian can learn a lot about a dog owner he has never met just by observing the dog.  He goes on to ask an important question:  "What does the world learn about God-- by watching us-- his followers?^[1]

            I could really resonate with Yancey  when he observes how--  like fine wine poured into a jug of water--  "Jesus' wondrous message of grace gets diluted in the vessel of the church."^[2]    I think he’s right.   Jesus' gospel of grace has been diluted and distorted by the church     

You've probably heard me say it before:  "Everything we do is witness.  Some of our witness is very positive...   and some of it is very negative witness."

A lot of people have been turned off by people who call themselves Christians…  and some have been wounded by the church.  For some time I’ve been saying that I think the wrestling with the tension between LAW and LOVE in the church is a sign that we may be on the verge of a new kind of Reformation.   I believe that we need to recover a sense of urgency to focus on Jesus’ Great Commandment:  the commandment to love.  When he was asked what was the most important commandment, Jesus said, “Love God.  Love your neighbor as yourself.”

 It sounds simple enough.  But it isn’t easy to LIVE the great commandment.  God’s ways are not our ways. 

In the book of Acts, we have an account of how the early church worked through a crisis.  Who is included in God’s salvation plan?  In chapter ten, Luke tells how the Roman centurion Cornelius, who was seeking God, had a vision in which an angel of God told him to send for Simon Peter… and how Peter had a vision that challenged his ideas about what it means to be a person of faith.

While Peter was still trying to figure out what to make of the vision he had seen of the assortment of unclean animals on a sheet   and the command to not call profane anything that God has made clean, he was led to the house of Cornelius.  There he preaches the gospel  of Jesus Christ, and proclaims  that he now understands that “God shows no partiality.”  In other words, God intends to include people that—left to its own devices—the church wouldn’t include.  That’s the context of the story we heard this morning from Acts.

            The circumcised believers had just witnessed the Holy Spirit falling upon on all who had heard Peter's sermon.  But how could this be?--  they wondered.  The Holy Spirit is being poured out even on the Gentiles?  

            We need to remember that Jesus and his first followers were Jews.  As a faithful Jew, Peter had taken the regulations in the Jewish purity codes for granted and observed them all his life.            But then he has a series of experiences that challenge his understanding. 

            Peter says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit,  just as we have?   So he orders them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and he stays with them for awhile.  

            It would have seemed very clear to some people in the early church what God required of them.  For many centuries, their religious tradition had taught them that to be a “holy” people means to be separate...   and to have very clear, distinct boundaries between their community and those outside the community. 

            And yet, in this story in Acts, we hear how the church was learning from the Holy Spirit and actually changing its policies.  The early church in Judea begins to realize that they’re going to be in relationship with people they’ve always avoided--  and that the church should minister to them.^[3]

            There were still a lot of legalists who kept insisting that the Gentiles had to be circumcised    and observe the Jewish purity laws in order to be followers of the Way.    But God had a new vision for the church.

            So--  what might this story be saying to us today?  What do we see in God’s vision for the church in our time?

            I think we need to be asking questions about how God might be at work in the midst of the struggle.   How do we discern God’s will for the church--  in this time...  in this context?   Can we be open to the leading of the Spirit further into the truth--  even if it means we’ll have to change our minds about some things?

            Like our ancestors in the faith before us, we need to figure out what God’s will is for us in our time.        

           

"Abide in my love,"  Jesus says.  "This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you...."

            Could it be that-- in order to be Jesus' friends-- we need to be willing to sacrifice some of the things we've always believed?

            As we seek God’s will for us, we need to study and faithfully interpret the scriptures.  We need to learn how to talk with one another about difficult issues.  We need to create a community of  welcome  and peace and safety where people feel safe to come...  and safe enough to let you know who they are.   We need to be a community where we can all feel safe in sharing our hurts and doubts and struggles and fears...  a community where we can learn and heal and grow together...   a place where people will know we’re Christians by our love.

            We won’t always hear a clear answer that we like--  an answer we’re all going to agree on.   A group of human beings isn’t going to always agree on everything.   So, as we hear God saying, “What God has made clean, do not call profane,”    can we be open to whatever new growing edges God gives us in our life of faith?  Can we find ways to live together in love--  even when we disagree with one another about some things?   Can we love one another even when we disagree with one another about human sexuality… or the church kitchen… or any number of things?  

            As the story unfolds in the New Testament, it tells how the church discovered that God had  “broken down the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles”^[4]  and founded a Realm that would cancel exclusionary distinctions between “male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free”^[5]...    and brought them all together in one Body of Christ.^[6]

            These are not easy times for the church.  But I'm convinced that God is up to something.

            God's love and grace are truly amazing!    So how do we love one another, as Christ has commanded us?  How do we connect with people who are seeking God?  How do we share the good news of God's amazing grace with the people who most need to hear it?

            As we seek to prayerfully discern a clearer vision of what God has planned for us, we can approach the future as a real Pentecost kind of adventure.      

            We need to be praying for answers to questions like "Who needs to hear the gospel of grace and love?"    Who among us?  Who outside these walls?  "What gifts do we have to offer someone who is seeking God?"   "What can we do to reach out to them… and to minister to them?"  Are we prepared to love anyone to whom the Spirit leads us?     

                                     

            I think that--  if we are serious about living as friends of Jesus and being part of the Church of Love--   we will find ways to connect with people who need to be reassured that they are welcome and loved.   We will find ways to minister to them  and with them.  

            If we are serious about being friends of Jesus, we will do what he commands us.  We have been chosen to go and bear fruit--  the fruit of love...  fruit that will last.

            The good news is that Jesus says these things to us so that his joy may be in us and that our joy may be complete!

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen.


The Rev. Fran Hayes
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
May 10, 2015

                       

                                                                       

                       

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^[1]Philip Yancey, "What's So Amazing About Grace?   (Zondervan, 1997), p. 14.

^[2]Yancey, p. 29.

^[3]Acts 11:21-26

^[4]Ephesians 2:14-15.

^[5]Galatians 3:28

^[6]Ephesians 3:4-6; 4:1-16.