Love Looks Like ...

36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 37 He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:36-40)

Loving God and neighbor are the most basic Christian principles, and the most challenging to live out. We accept, with joy, the call to imitate Jesus and heed his call to love our neighbor by feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned, clothing the impoverished. This active love for others is how we express our love and reverence for God. But Jesus was more than an outreach center.

While we readily recognize the agape love (loving-kindness) Jesus taught in his care for those living on the margins, we forget this same embodiment of God's love challenged the status quo, verbally outwitted his foes, and didn't apologize for displaying righteous indignation. We often limit love to what feels good and makes us happy, but the life - and death - of Jesus calls us to a broader, deeper understanding. While meeting the immediate needs of the voiceless, Jesus also spoke truth to power on their behalf. He became an enemy of the state, not for healing a blind man, but for trying to get those with influence to see.

Our tangled systems of injustice often create minor beneficiaries at the expense of major victims - and we are all both. Love is the daunting work of dismantling the platform we're standing on as we assemble the stage for those who don't even know they are worthy of a place on it. This was the bittersweet work of Moses and Martin (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) - to risk not entering the Promised Land while ensuring that others can.

We must do no less.

4 The LORD said to him, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants'; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there." 5 Then Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord's command. (Deuteronomy 34:4-5)

15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil. 16 Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. 17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands -- O prosper the work of our hands!

(Psalm 90:15-17)