Last week, it was about love. This week it’s about…love. I get the feeling, love is on the top of the list of what God tells us that is important for our lives and what we are to be offering one another. It is the fruit we give one another, it is how we abide in God’s love. As I thought about the word love, I remembered a line from an old song…
"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" which was a frequent remark made by the musician Billy Preston and used with permission by Stephen Stills in his song from 1970.
"If you can't be with the one you love, (honey) love the one you're with"
I think that can be a useful way for us to think about that love command that God gives us. We can’t always be with the ones we love, so we are to love the one we are with.
In Boston’s Quincy Market there is a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. The memorial is made up of six pillars of plexiglass. On a background of the millions of prisoner numbers assigned by the Nazis to those who perished, each pillar contains stories that speak of the cruelty and suffering in the camps.
But one of the pillars tells a different story. It is about a little girl named Ilse, a childhood friend of Gerda Weissman Klein, who recounts the tale. Gerda remembers the morning when Ilse, who was about six years old at the time of her internment at Auschwitz, found a single raspberry somewhere in the camp. Ilse carried the raspberry all day long in a protected fold of her pocket. That evening, her eyes shining with happiness, Ilse presented the raspberry on a leaf to her friend Gerda.
“Imagine a world,” writes Gerda, “in which your entire possession is one raspberry, and you give it to your friend.”
In the midst of the horror of the Holocaust, little Ilse manages to discover the joy that only comes from bringing that same joy to another. That is the commandment of Jesus to us who would be his Church: to love one another as Christ, God made human, has loved us.
At the ECW luncheon, we heard from the founder of Magdalene House in Nashville, a non-for-profit recovery community for women and Thistle Farms, a for-profit cottage industry launched to help support Magdalene House and its residents. The founder, The Rev Becca Stevens, once said, “I want to love the world, but I need to make sure that it happens one person at a time that I encounter.”
“After experiencing the death of her father and subsequent child abuse when she was 5, Becca longed to open a sanctuary for survivors offering a loving community. In 1997, five women who had experienced trafficking, violence, and addiction were welcomed home. Twenty years later, the organization continues to welcome women with free residences that provide housing, medical care, therapy and education for two years. Residents and graduates earn income through one of four social enterprises. The Global Market of Thistle Farms helps employ more than 1,800 women worldwide, and the national network has more than 40 sister communities.” (bio)
During Becca’s address a member of that community who has graduated from Magdalene House lit a candle, telling us of the meditation circle at Thistle Farms saying, “We light this candle for the women on the streets, and we light this candle for the women trying to find their way home.”
Love remembers where it came from and love shines forth so everyone can experience it. The light that they have lit with love shines not only in our country but it has gone to Greece to help with the Syrian refugees.
“The current refugee crisis has women and their children trading an unsafe home for unknown waters. With almost nothing but a life vest, they arrive in an unfamiliar world in search of a new life. Women refugees have come together with Thistle Farms to start the first social enterprise in Ritsona, Greece. Women are weaving welcome mats that include the fabric from life vests worn by refugees on their journey to Greece. The Welcome Project is committed to helping women find their path forward. They believe that love is the greatest force for change in the world.”
As Christ gives his life for others, he commands us to do the same; as Christ brings healing and peace into the lives of those he meets, he commands us to find our life’s purpose in bringing his healing and peace into the lives we touch; on the streets of America. In refugee camps.
It’s simple acts of love, lighting a candle for others to bring hope and love in a world so often empty of each. For Christ reveals to the world a God who loves his children, he commands us to love one another as brothers and sisters. Such love can be overwhelmingly demanding – but such love can be the source of incredible joy and fulfillment, no less than an experience of Easter resurrection.
Love heals. Love welcomes. Love will transform this world.
That is the fruit that will last, God says, and that is the fruit that we are to bring forth in our lives.
In the poetic words of Malcolm Guite…
Today the gospel crosses every border
All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace
Today the lost are found in His translation.
Whose mother-tongue is Love, in every nation.
"If you can't be with the one you love, (honey) love the one you're with" Amen.
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