“What would love have me do?”
This Sunday Middle Church will celebrate the birth of Jesus, a tender babe born in a dirty manager. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to love another person like God adores this babe in a manager? And what that love means for us when we look toward justice.
Victor Hugo writes, “to love another person is to see the face of God.”
Fierce Love desires for us to see the face of God in those who sleep on the street corner, wait for justice in an unjust prison system, seek asylum from violence, and those who are uniquely different from us.
Did you know God delights in our differences? So, how can we delight in difference and see the face of God in our midst?
Thinking inclusively is an embodied being. To think is to feel and to hold in your body the truth that God created us uniquely and wonderfully made. And to be loved, fiercely.
As we make our way through the holidays and into the New Year, let’s say yes to a love that dismantles systems that try to keep us separated.
This week is all about being for one another. It’s time to lay down previous beliefs and let new ones emerge. It’s time to ask, “What would love have me do” and go see the face of God!
To embrace the call of Fierce Love, we’ve got let go of systems that no longer serve us. Whether political, spiritual, philosophical, or ideological, your belief systems might be blocking you from the love you are called to give and receive in relation to yourself and the world around you.
This week is about leaning into your humanity so that we can be for each other.
“We are all here, struggling to live up to the values we share, so join the crown. Join the band of everyday folks falling down and getting up again, failing, trying, often shining with compassion and kindness, sometimes backsliding into pettiness and fear. Welcome to being human. Do your best, right where you are, to love someone into healing. When you are off your game, someone else on the team will step up and do the work.” – Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Chapter 6, Fierce Love
Here are 3 questions for our prompt this week. Reflect over them and be sure to return to them as you continue to grow and change.
– What are your values?
– How have these values changed over the last year and why do you think that is the case?
– What would love have you do with your values?
