Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-stronger

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It was a simple statement.

Because of its simplicity, I stop sipping my coffee and read it again.

Here’s the statement:

Gospel: The crowd tries to stop Jesus from healing the girl then mocks him. Don't let anyone prevent you from loving.

February is culturally known as the month of love. Amidst those tasty, staled, delightfully colored candy hearts and Hallmark cards, there we don’t want to forget:

Love—isn’t only a feeling.

Then what else is it?

Love—is a verb.

God is love.

Out of God’s love God created. That is the good news. God didn’t have to but God did. And thus, we are.

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God... ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love… ¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

It really isn’t that easy? Or is it?

Jesus loved radically. Radical love, is a love so extreme that it dissolves our existing boundaries, whether they are boundaries that separate us from other people, that separate us from preconceived notions we my have about each other, or that separate us from God.

 ⁹Whoever says, ‘I am in the light’, while hating

a brother or sister, is still in the darkness.

¹⁰Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the

light, and in such a person there is no cause for

stumbling. ¹¹But whoever hates another believer 

is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does

not know the way to go, because the darkness

has brought on blindness. ~1 John 2

Despite the warnings and threats from the community, Jesus compassionately cared for those on the margins in his community. But also, Jesus cared selflessly for those he called disciples.

Here in lies a potential problem:  it is easy to spot the outsider but do we know who is an outsider on the inside?

Not sure what this means?

Here is an example our own denomination faced and still faces at times:

To be an outsider on the inside looks like a woman pastor not being treated in the same way as the stereotypical male pastor.

Essentially, in God’s sight, no one is a misfit. There is no set protocol for God’s community. It is our call as God’s people not to cast judgment or the first stones but to join God in love the world and everything in it.

Often the crowed tried to stop Jesus from loving. But he didn’t listen. Selflessly he gave of himself until there was nothing else to give.

In turn, those he loved, well, they lived.

Love, friends.

Will you prevent it or perpetuate it?

“Love your neighbor; she/he is like you.”

Martin Buber’s translation of the biblical command is rhythmically stronger than what we are used to. The pause in the middle of the sentence makes us think.

How so?

Love of self and love of others are not compared in this translation. Working on a deeper level, this translation points to their common root, which is equality.

Our love assumes likeness in others, even if we cannot see the likeness.

Love is perhaps the deepest need that people have; learning to give and to receive, their our greatest task.

Don’t let anyone prevent you from loving.