Love is Radical

Love is Radical John 15:9-17 Sunday May 17

9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. 12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

When we think of love we remember all those diamond commercials we see on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s day. Many of us brought our Mom’s out to dinner for Mother’s day last Saturday. When we think of love we remember all the songs on our airwaves. When we ponder such deep topics we can feel like we are at a coffee shop on the West bank of Paris with berets on. Do we really know what it means to love one another as Christ loves us? Let’s pull up a chair, order another cup of coffee and engage this deep question. Is Christ’s love too radical for us?
Yes, Christ’s love is radical. This notion of compassion, solidarity and sacrifice takes us out of ourselves. We are stretched to love the stranger among us, not just our family and small circle of friends. As Christians, we are called to love as Christ loves us. This can seem like a really tall order! Surely we can never measure up to what the Son of God is capable of. We want to do our best to approximate, but sometimes we feel like it is too pie in the sky for us to live this out in our daily lives. These Hallmark card slogans are nice and all, but is this really realistic in our daily lives?
Jesus’ life and ministry challenges us to love our neighbors, near and far. Jesus meant it when he told us to turn the other cheek and to love our enemies. We are branches of the true vine, who sends us out to our communities to bear the fruit of his love. God’s vineyard is always expanding to reach out to our brothers and sisters who live on the margins. We are not called to merely love the holy huddle of the few. We too are called to lay down our life for our friends, and embrace the strangers among us. Our sense of family and parish are to be ever expanding. In spite of the barriers and prejudgments that society too often creates, we reach beyond the fences to open our hearts and hands to our brothers and sisters who feel isolated and misunderstood.
If we are to embrace the least among us, then we will need to deconstruct some of the social barriers that continue to divide us. As American Christians, we have inherited many of the race and class issues that continue to burden us. It can be hard and sobering for us to be students of history. We can grow depressed and dejected when we see how often we have failed to live up to the radical love that Christ calls us to.
The good news is that we can always transcend the past, and reconnect with God’s vine of love. Our branches have always been there. For every painful chapter, we can find the faithful few who understood how radical God’s love is. Instead of dwelling on how many ways have we failed, we can seek out the beacons of hope who stayed true to our calling as disciples of Christ. There will always be a remnant who get it. They have the courage to live out the gospel of love and grace. They can endure the social isolation, and the hammer of public opinion.
Growing up here in the Western suburbs of the Twin Cities in the 70s and 80s, race relations were framed in the black-white paradigm. The new neighbors, “the strangers” among us were the new black families moving into the neighbourhood. My eyes were opened to their journey when I became friends with my new classmates who lived down the street. I saw how they endured life on the margins of our community. Did they experience the radical love that Christ calls us to in our community?
Several years later, my eyes were opened wider in college when I spent a semester as an exchange student in San Antonio. I began to see America in new terms. I had never seen so many Latinos before. As a wet-behind-the ears Yankee, this was a new learning for me. San Antonio is often called little Mexico. I began to understand that is was not only blacks who endured racism and discrimination in America.
This was a learning for me that our nation as a melting pot was broader and wider than the black and white paradigm of my childhood. As Christians living in one of the most diverse nations, we remember our call to love our neighbours as ourselves. We are called to open our hearts and minds to the journeys and the dreams that our new neighbours have to share with us.
For generations, the Eastside of St Paul has been an Ellis Island for waves of immigrants, the Swedes, the Italians, the Poles. This heritage continues today. Every day I drive Payne Ave and see that many of the shops and signs are Latino. The main drag of the Eastside has been transformed by our new Latino neighbours. How has this been received in the wider community? Are we ready and willing to embrace our new neighbours with the radical love of Christ? Yes there are language and cultural barriers, but Christ’s love transcends any and every obstacle!
As many of you know the Latino community is very religious, the vast majority are Catholic. There is also a growing store front Pentecostal presence. As mainline Protestants, have we fully embraced this sacred connection we have with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ?
As disciples of Christ’s radical love, we need to take to the time to learn the stories of our brothers and sisters who have travelled north. What did they experience in the Americas before they made the journey? We can’t lose Christ’s grace and compassion in the midst of the immigration debate.
We have something to learn from our Hebrew Bible. The Jewish people have long understood what it means to be a stranger in another land. The Ancient prophets in the Bible remind us that we too were once strangers in Egypt. Therefore, we are to embrace the stranger among us, and extend hospitality and treat them as one of us. This is the radical love Christ is pointing us to.
The next time we see a Latino family, I want us to take the time to look for the face of Christ in their lives. I was moved by a story in the current issue of Christian Century of the Fortin De las Flores, a small town at the foot of mountains in Vera Cruz. They see the Central American migrants making their way north on the freight trains. Many people have lost limbs and some have lost their very lives trying to making it to better life. The local residents in Fortin de Las Flores have established a home for the victims of these rail road accidents. The residents also extend radical love, by breaking their loaves and fishes to share with the pilgrims. They have opened their hearts and minds to the stories of what people have endured on this journey north. Are we too willing to keep our hearts and minds open to their stories?
In recent months we have seen the raids in the Iowa. We have 12 million people in our midst who live out of status, and endure the fear and anxiety that ICE will come knocking and separate their families. What does Christ’s radical love call us to do in these difficult times? Our eyes and ears are to remain open to their story and their journey.
How will we embrace the stranger among us? How will the branches of Christ’s love envelope our brothers and sisters from the south seeking their daily bread? As branches from the true vine, we bear the fruit of Christ’s love. When new neighbours join us in St Paul, let us listen with grace and compassion to their testimonies. We remember our prophetic calling to embrace the stranger among us.
We remember the miracle of the loaves and fishes. God is still with us. The manna from heaven will fall again and again. Many of our new neighbours are pilgrims coming out of their own journey through the wilderness. They have joined us in search of a promised land, a land of milk and honey.
With radical love, we will embrace our brothers and sisters in their quest for their daily bread. We will take the time to hear their story. With radical love, we set aside prejudgments and prejudices. We remember how our ancestors came here with similar hopes and dreams. We share this common dream for our children and grandchildren. With Christ’s radical love flowing in and through us, we lift up the common loaf and trust that it will divide again and again. God’s abundant grace and compassion will provide for us all.
As a fellowship of Christ’s radical love on the Eastside, may our community know the fruit of the Spirit flowing through us. This is the radical love that we are called to share with every child of God.