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The back cover of my Living New Testament reads:
Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful
or proud,
Never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It
is not irritable or touchy.
It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it
wrong.
It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out.
If you love someone you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost.
You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him,
and always stand your ground in defending him.
All the special gifts and powers from God will some day come to an end,
but love goes on forever.
Jesus spelt out very clearly the demands of discipleship: that we love
God, and that we love each other with the same love we nurture
ourselves. There are no clauses denoting "special circumstances" which
allow us to avoid these commandments. While we may at times convince
ourselves that we are extending God's love to those we meet, it is only
when we measure up our version of love against Christ's demand (that we
forgive as freely as we have been forgiven) that we discover we stand on
shaky ground indeed. For try as we humanly may, it seems often
impossible for us to forgive those who have caused horrific and lasting
grief and damage to those we love, including ourselves. Yet Christ's
commands stay unaltered. For Christ insists we forgive, not in our own
strength, but in the power of the Spirit. Love has been dissected,
analyzed, and debated, in various attempts to provide guidelines or
edicts which give full measure to the meaning of Christ's words, or
perhaps to define the limitations within which we can be expected to
love. After all this discussion what do we understand love to be? What
are the precepts that love embraces? Perhaps we could look at a new
definition of love for the incoming millennium.
Love costs.
Love is unselfishness.
It is honesty, integrity, humor, compassion, empathy,
understanding, patience, self-care, a listening heart and ear.
It is looking at the world, at people, at circumstances, with eyes that
perceive every facet of their focus,
yet see beyond the present and envision changes which may be wrought in
God's time.
Love is letting go, rather than clinging to.
Love is embracing, rather than abandoning.
Love is letting go of hurts and pain, offering forgiveness and peace in
their place.
Love never needs nor waits to be acknowledged, but continues to encircle
all.
Love is setting free, rather than judging, for none but God can judge
accurately.
Love is straining every personal resource to allow others rise from the
quicksand of their circumstances.
Love will not permit us to act from fear of others or the unknown.
Though there may be things of which we are afraid, love will provide a
buffer zone to enable us to function while acknowledging our limitation.
Love never plots or plans harm to others, rather it surrounds the others
with thoughts of loving.
In his time Jesus chose, from among those who followed him, twelve men
singled out for special training and duties. They were to offer God's
forgiveness, love and healing to those in the villages and regions Jesus
designated. He chose these special workers from local fishermen, a tax
gatherer, a patriotic fanatic and from among John the Baptist's
disciples. That Matthew the tax collector, a traitor by Jewish
standards, did not have his life prematurely ended by a knife thrust
from Simon the Zealot, is testimony to the harmony between Christ's
co-workers which rescinded prejudice and perceptions. Herein lies a
tremendous truth - those who hate one another can learn to love one
another when they first love Christ.
By their trade fishermen presented special qualities, well equipping
these men for the long and difficult task ahead. They needed patience,
perseverance, an eye for the right moment, the knowledge to discern
which bait would be most effective at any given time, together with the
capacity to appear invisible, for even a shadow could cause fish to take
fright. These were ordinary men, without wealth, academic backgrounds,
or social positions. They were not Rabbis, Saducees or Pharisees, and
they could not could claim religious authority or privilege. Instead
they were drawn from common people who did ordinary things, to become
ordinary people who did extra-ordinary things. These were the inner
circle of disciples whom God called and Jesus chose to be the flag
bearers of the Gospel of Love. They were not commanded, for Christ
never seeks conscripts, they were volunteers drawn to God incarnate by
the magnetism of his presence. These were among those Jesus loved so
tremendously that he would bring them before God, using the words of
John chapter 17, to seek a blessing for them in just the way a parent
would present a child at the Temple for a blessing. After Christ's
ascension and the events of Pentecost, these would be the fore-runners
of an ever growing company who, motivated by love, would set the blaze
which exposed the base ideals and images of the world as they preached
the Gospel. Having witnessed the fate of their Master at the hands of
civic and religious authorities, they were under no illusion as to what
the preaching of forgiveness and love could entail.
Somehow, during the past two millennia into the company of disciples,
there have been those who have, like the shepherds God condemned in
Ezekiel chapter 34, dressed warmly and eaten well from proceeds supplied
by the sheep with whose welfare they were entrusted, yet they failed to
heal the sick, bandage the wounded, or seek out the those who had
strayed. There are those who claim that time and energies devoted to
scholarship have qualified them to speak for God, or with the voice of
infallibility. The sheep have again been scattered. Now we face a
world situation in which family members war against one another, and
beyond the family it is nation against nation, economy against
economy. Political demigods vie with one another, while millions are
starving, homeless, lost, bewildered, ill or dying. Love has been
strangled by conditions, and peace has evaded all humanity. So today,
and for some time past, God has chosen and Christ has called out those
who will carry the message of God's love, grace and forgiveness. This
time God has reached further from the "acceptable" or "expected" scions
of society. This time God has chosen the lepers.
Lepers have always evoked a sense of fear from among the healthy of any
population. They have been hidden from sight, locked away on islands
specially designated for those infected with this disease, barred from
within the city limits by Jewish law, left to fend for themselves
without medical resources, without food, clothing or shelter. Lepers
did not choose their condition. Those with leprosy were separated from
family and employment, from their spiritual communities, and from all
they cherished by edicts and laws based on ignorance, superstition and
limited medical knowledge. For them there was no right of appeal. For
them justice has lost its meaning. In earlier times their condition was
deemed as punishment meted out by God. When we diligently search
Scripture we discover that at all times God's eye has been on the
lepers. Namaan learned that strict obedience to God's word could rid
him of this disease. Accounts in Matthew 8: 1-3 and Luke 17: 11-19 tell
how Jesus cured first the one, and then the ten lepers who came to him
asking for his touch. Stories are told of St Francis of Assisi who,
after his conversion, leapt from his horse and embraced a leper.
Lepers are those who have nothing left to lose but their lives. They
cannot be threatened with further loss, nor bribed with promises of
restoration. Modern day lepers are those who have lost friends and
family, and those who have found doors of employment opportunities
locked. They are the ones who have been vilified for being who they
are, who have been spat upon, who have been barred from their spiritual
homes by those who justify their actions in the name of a hateful God.
They are also the ones whom God has called from within spiritual
communities which have become infected with greed, with rigid hierarchy,
with corruption, with the politically ambitious, and where legalistic
conformity has prevented attempts to care for all the sheep in God's
flock. Lepers may include members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered Christian community, but not all of our community have
been called or chosen, for not all of our community have been denied
spiritual, emotional or financial succor, and not all of our community
are prepared to love as freely as Jesus demands. Some have even become
our persecutors.
Love costs. Love costs so much that for God it involved living in human
form, being subject to all human circumstances, being flogged, tried
unjustly and executed. Like the leper, God knew what it was like to be
stripped of friends, to be plagued by the religious of his day, and to
face hostility from within his family. Love costs us our self-will as
we surrender it to Jesus. Love costs us the right to avenge wrongs, or
to seek revenge. Love insists that we forgive totally, unconditionally,
without the need to seek formal reconciliation, recompense or apology.
Love demands that, without any reservation, we see all others as loved
by God. Love requires that we pay attention to the stains on our hands
and hearts and leave God to attend to the apparent faults of others.
Love does not permit us to treat others in ways which puff up our
supposed holiness. Love will not tolerate snide comments or unfounded
allegations against others, in fact love will not allow us to speak
unkindly or unwisely about any. Love asks that we smother the barbed
attacks of others with a blanket of love, which protects us and enfolds
those others of God's children within their Creator's arms. Love does
not tolerate a "them and us" mentality, for God's love flows equally to
all, just as Christ's blood flows equally for all. God has chosen
lepers, those who have nothing to cling to but their living Redeemer, to
carry the word of love and acceptance into the world at this time, for
it is lepers who embody the special qualities which equip themselves for
the task ahead.
Our world is crying out for love; for love that heals, restores and
calms; for love that reveals the face of God. Who can God call on to
walk the countryside planted with landmines but the lepers who have
already involuntarily traversed the paths of pain and hatred? Who can
God ask to share the losses of millions of refugees but those who have
known the loss of their own homes, physical and spiritual? Who will
answer the call to bind up the suppurating and bleeding wounds of the
world but the lepers who have learned to use Christ's healing in their
own lives? Who will help peel away layers of conditioning and prejudice
from those who are not willing any longer to carry these burdens, and
choose to leave them with Jesus? From the rugged hillside, from caverns
which barely see sunlight, from within the clefts in the Rock the lepers
are moving. Stretching out maimed limbs and with scarred faces they
return to the world bringing with them naught but Love. In such a time
as this God calls on those who have an extraordinary perception of love
to carry forgiveness, grace and healing into the presence of all
creation.
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by Martin Luther King Jr.
by Rick Mathis by Thich Nhat Hanh, Mobi Warren (Translator)
Other Writings By Rev. Vera I. Bourne:
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