Expanding the scope of love
Easter 6 - Year C
Last week we considered the command to love one another. Those considerations led us to admit our tendency to narrow the scope of our love. Like the first generation of Christians who considered Gentiles unclean and resisted inviting them into the faith community, there are people we struggle to love and find it difficult to welcome. The small size of most faith communities and the decline of denominations in developed nations are consequences of the limits we place on love. The sad truth is we focus on our circle of family and friends because it is comfortable. The reality is we limit our love to people we like and people like us. We avoid people we disagree with and put distance between ourselves and our enemies. God’s commend to love one another has always apply to all people and all nations.
Psalm 67 proclaims, God, Let your ways be known upon earth, and your saving health among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the people praise you. Psalm 67:3 & 5
As people of faith, committed to seeking God’s truth, called to install God’s just, reliant on God’s mercy, and lost without God’s forgiveness, we are not authorized to limit the scope of our love. God expects us to love others (all others) as we are loved by God.
Given our struggles, how can we expand the scope of our loving so it is offered to people we disagree with and people who are enemies? What can we do to overcome our tendency to insulate ourselves with people like us and surround ourselves with people we like so our loving acts demonstrate God’s saving health to all people and nations? Paul’s efforts to make God’s ways known and introduce God’s saving health offer some answers to these questions. First, Paul looked for God in every circumstance and at all times. Paul discerned. Second, Paul acted on what he discerned. Right or wrong, Paul put his money where his mouth
was. Third, Paul delegated. Once an insight, direction, or action God prompted took hold, Paul entrusted to it to the people who acknowledged it’s divine connection. Paul did not construct houses of worship, establish institutions for study, or call for committees. Paul empowered people. He delegated to others. Paul discerned. Paul put his money where his mouth was. Paul delegated. These allowed him, and can allow us, to overcome our limitations and accomplish infinitely more than we can imagine, things the world could not give.
Scripture records that Paul dedicated himself to discerning God’s will. In the first Biblical reference to Paul he was passionately acting on what he assumed to be God’s will. Protecting religious purity, he looked for, captured and brought to trial heretics. Paul was so eager to seek and serve God, he volunteered to be a witness at the execution of heretics.
While Paul was on a campaign to locate and arrest people he labeled enemies, Jesus appeared to him. During that appearance, Jesus told Paul he was not seeing or seeking the truth. To make sure Paul understood he was wrong, Jesus stuck him blind then sent a leader from those he had deem religious heretics to restore his eye sight. God’s is thoughtful. When we get God’s will wrong, God intervenes and redirects. Jonah refused to tell the people of Ninevah to turn from their evil ways. While traveling in a boat away from Ninevah, a storm arose. The passengers and crew cast lots to determine who on board had caused the storm. When the lot fell to Jonah he was thrown overboard. The storm stopped and a giant fish swallowed Jonah. Jonah gave the fish indigestion and it spit us Jonah.
Where? On the shore of Ninevah. When we avoid God’s direction or reject God’s intentions, God intervenes. Because Paul was constantly discerning God’s will he was open to God’s redirection when he drew wrong conclusions and engaged in harmful actions.
Right or wrong, Paul put his money where his mouth was. Paul acted on God’s direction. Paul was not ‘two faced;’ he did not confess one thing and do another. Paul was not passive; he was not all talk, but no action. After Jesus appeared to Paul, Paul became a disciple. He went on mission trips to heal, feed, and offer spiritual care for the faith he had once deemed heretical. The reading today from the Acts of the Apostles records one of Paul’s mission trips. In that text, Paul dreamt a man from Macedonia was asking for his help. Paul accepted the dream as God’s guidance. He gathered his things, collected the people who worked with him, and allocated money to travel 150 miles. When they arrived in Mecedonia no one, man or woman, sought their help. Paul and his team kept searching. They wandered from one gathering place to an other until they met Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from Thyatira. Lydia was wealthy, she had ample resources to attend to her own health and the health needs of her workers and household. Lydia had sufficient funds to feed herself, her workers and household. She needed help with matters of the heart, mind and soul so Paul shared what he knew and experienced of God. He invited Lydia to be baptized. Lydia agreed. Then, following Paul’s example and with Paul’s help, Lydia shared with the members of her household and invited them to be baptized. She invited Paul to use her home as a center for mission work. We know from other passages in the Acts of the Apostles and from Paul’s letters, that he did not stay in Thyatira long. Paul empowered Lydia to care for the believers and demonstratefaith through her own acts of healing, feeding and spiritual care. Paul left Thyatira, wandering off to the next place God asked him to go.
Paul discerned. Paul acted. Paul delegated. Waiting and looking for God’s guidance kept Paul from limiting his love. It corrected his misperception and provided redirection. Taking action on what God asked, freed Paul from the paralysis of analysis and made him a partner in God’s plan instead of a helpless by stander. Paul did not sitting on the sidelines watching injustice and listening to ignorance. Paul took action: sometimes wrong action, often wandering about, but always seeking to serve God. When Paul’s action produced results, he delegated. He did not build institutions or establish commissions. Paul empowered the people healed, feed, spiritually nourished to go and do likewise. Paul moved on to discern, act and delegate elsewhere.
It is possible to expand the scope of your love. It is possible to address the needs of our communities, nation and world. All nations can experience God’s saving health and all people praise God if we release the limits on our love. This is possible when we discern, act and delegate.
