CIVIL REVOLUTION: SPEAK WITH LOVE PART 2

Jesus says if you love those who love you, big wow (which I believe is the original Greek). He doesn’t suggest that we cease to love those who love us when he nudges us to love our enemies. Nor does Jesus think the harder thing is the better thing. He knows it’s just the harder thing. Compassion isn’t just about feeling the pain of others; it’s about bringing them in toward yourself. If we love what God loves, then, in compassion, margins get erased. “Be compassionate as God is compassionate” means the dismantling of barriers that exclude.*

But we have to be honest. Do we want to dismantle barriers and make a level playing field, or just take the place of those we feel have it better than we do? Do we want to open our arms wide and bring into our circles those who aren’t like us in order to bring about new varieties of humanity through the cross-pollination of ideas and cultures? Are we willing to take heat from those who may not want that? Consider how Father Boyle’s congregation spoke love into their community. May it be a challenge to all of us:

Once, while I turn the corner in front of the church, heading to a CEB [small faith-sharing and service groups in the parish] meeting in the projects, I am startled by letters spray-painted crudely across the front steps: WETBACK CHURCH. The chill of it momentarily stops me. In an instant, you begin to doubt and question the price of things. I acknowledge how much better everything is when there is no cost and how I prefer being hoisted on shoulders in acclaim to the disdain of anonymous spray cans. I arrive at the meeting and tell the gathered women about our hostile visitor during the night. “I guess I’ll get one of the homies to clean it up later.” Petra Saldana, a normally quiet member of the group, takes charge. “You will not clean that up.” Now, I was new at the parish and my Spanish was spotty. I understood the words she spoke but had difficulty circling in on the sense of it. “You will not clean this up. If there are people in our community who are disparaged and hated and left out because they are mojados (wetbacks) . . .” Then she poises herself on the edge of the couch, practically ready to leap to her feet. “Then we shall be proud to call ourselves a wetback church.” These women didn’t just want to serve the less fortunate, they were anchored in some profound oneness with them and became them.**

Video: Schindler's List Closing Scene 

 

The greatest force to bring about open, honest, life-altering communication is love. “The world is starving for a yearning love, a love that remembers instead of forsakes. A love that isn’t tied to our loveliness. A love that gets down underneath our messiness. A love that is bigger than the enveloping darkness we might be walking through even today.”* If most people are honest, they rarely feel like they are loved simply because of who they are. We live in a world where transactional relationships are more the norm – “If you do this, then I will love you.” 

You may even concede, “God loves us,” and yet there is this lurking sense that perhaps you aren’t fully part of the “us.” The arms of God reach to embrace, and somehow you feel yourself just outside God’s fingertips…“God . . .thinks . . . I’m . . . firme.” To the homies, firme means, “could not be one bit better.” Not only does God think we’re firme, it is God’s joy to have us marinate in that.**

Again, whether you believe in God or not, don’t you want that kind of love and joy to bask in? We have the ability to help each other get a taste of that through the way we communicate with each other. “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”*** When we look at each other with fresh eyes, with hearts that desire for everyone to know they are valued, we will find our kinship circle ever-enlarging. We will choose our words more carefully in order to help others see that we truly are all in this together. “Throughout history, when people focus on a self-transcending purpose, or a purpose greater than themselves, they become capable of more than they ever thought was possible… by focusing on helping others.”**** The greater the purpose, the greater the sacrifices we will be able to make.

Music: Speak Love 


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*Father Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart, Detroit, MI: Free Press, 2011, Kindle – location 996

**Father Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart, Detroit, MI: Free Press, 2011, Kindle – location 953

 ______________

*Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly, Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020, Kindle – location 2124

** Father Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart, Detroit, MI: Free Press, 2011, Kindle – location 389, 383

***Proverbs 16:24

****Steve Magness & Brad Stulberg, Peak Performance, Pennsylvania, Rodale Press, 162

 


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