- CCEJ
I'm not going to talk long this morning. We have a wonderful workshop after worship, led by Mayra Serna from CCEJ, the California Conference on Equality and Justice, which I am really excited about.
Once upon a time, I was invited to help lead the opening prayer at CCEJ's annual intercultural/interfaith breakfast. So I did, and I stayed for breakfast and the program, and was so impressed, I’ve gone back every year since.
I was impressed by the incredible feeling of love and friendship among the hundreds of people in attendance. There’s a lot of negativity in our world, but here were people from all different faiths and so many different cultures, lifting each other up, and joining together in support of peace and justice and equality and understanding.
And, I was impressed by what I learned that day about CCEJ, what it stands for, and the amazing programs it offers. It always makes me smile when I'm teaching and I see students wearing their Building Bridges sweatshirts.
So for Bixby Knolls Christian Church to partner with CCEJ is truly exciting for me. I hope we can continue working together, doing what we can to promote and build justice and equality in our community and in our world. And I do hope that you are able to stay and join us for what I know is going to be a very enlightening workshop.
The kind of love and friendship that I experience through CCEJ, and the kind of love and friendship that we experience here at Bixby Knolls Christian Church, is a powerful kind of love. It’s a love we have for one another, a love that lifts us up… but it’s also a love that, together, we direct outward, to those around us, to those we don’t even know.
It’s the kind of love that can change the world. And it is nothing less than a miracle.
- Miracles
We live in a world of miracles. Miracles are all around us. My phone, for example. It’s a miracle.
Look! Right now, through this little phone, someone is watching me preach from hundreds of miles away...I’m going to let them see all of you… probably make them a little dizzy...but how amazing is that?
We're surrounded by miracles… We can control the weather with a little box on the wall… we can travel to almost any part of the world in less than a day... Modern medicine has found ways to make once-deadly diseases and conditions - things like appendicitis or diabetes - easily treated, cured, or managed.
No wonder it's harder for people to be impressed by the miraculous power of God and God’s love.
Walking on water doesn’t seem quite as exciting when we can fly through the air. Maybe if God could do things with a little more showmanship, a little more pizzazz...more fireworks, more shooting stars…I don’t know.
But I do know that part of my job as a minister is to help people see the miracle in each moment. And most of these miracles are powered by love.
- Holy Love
So much of what I know about God and religion is love. In the OT Hebrew, it's hesed. In NT Greek, agape. Love is central to Islam, Judaism, and just about every religion. Buddhists teach kindness, which is how we show love to a neighbor.
And every act of love is holy. Every act of love is sacred. Every act of love is a miracle.
When we recognize love, it stops us in our tracks. A simple act of kindness may be overlooked, but when we do look, we recognize it as extraordinary.
Love is extraordinary.
Even in this world of everyday miracles, we celebrate and honor love that is expressed in a marriage commitment. Marriage even gets special legal recognition, because we understand that the love that is expressed in marriage is beneficial to society.
And in this throwaway world, where everything is measured by how much pleasure it brings you in the moment, a married couple that manages to stay together, through better and worse, learning how to forgive each other and carry on… that is a miracle of love.
And nearly every movie that draws us to the theater has a story that revolves around love. It may be romantic love. It may be friendship love. It may be love for society, for the neighbors known and unknown with whom we share a community or a world.
4. Superpowers
Superhero movies are particularly popular these days, and maybe you’re thinking, where’s the love in that? But a hero who willingly sacrifices their own peace & comfort for the sake of others…shows great love for humanity…
Sometimes the plot involves a hero who has decided to step back from being a superhero and hide away from the world and all its troubles. They just don’t want to deal with it anymore. They’re done fighting for what’s right.
But then they wrestle with that decision, and eventually they come back, to fight the villain and save the world one more time.
Because it's not really their superpowers that make them super, that make them a hero; it's their love. Their love for humanity. That's really what the story is about. A person with superpowers but without love would not be a superhero that we'd admire.
Sometimes that love is hidden beneath a rough exterior. Sometimes the hero will deny that it's there. The hero may say he or she doesn't care. But that love for humanity burns within them like the word that burned within Jeremiah, and they find that they can’t hold it in. And then their story becomes one in which they must find or rediscover the love that's there, and find a way to express it.
Because it's always there.
And every single one of us - though we don't have superpowers - we do have love.
And sometimes we, also, need to find it or rediscover it. And sometimes it is hidden (even from us) beneath a rough, bitter exterior.
But love is always there.
And where love is, there is God.
Because God is love.
Last week I preached about the questions and struggles that are a part of a life of faith...
But this week’s sermon is about the one thing I know without a doubt, the one thing that I am more certain of than anything else:
That love is the most powerful force in the universe.
And that God is love.
5. What Would Love Do?
God is love. So whenever I am faced with a moral dilemma, and I wonder: “What should I do?” or, “What does God want me to do?”...
I ask myself, “What would love do?”
Because whatever love would do is what I should do. Whatever love would do is what God would want me to do.
And sometimes I think to myself, “What will people think if I do this or if I do that?” And maybe pride or fear of embarrassment gets in the way of me doing the right thing.
Which is why I need to ask myself again: What would love do? The answer to that question - when I remember to ask it - always puts me back on the right track.
Whether we verbalize it or not, I think this question has been at the heart of many of the decisions we make here at Bixby Knolls Christian Church. After many years of quietly welcoming the LGBTQ community into our church, six years ago we voted to be more vocal and open about this when we voted to become an Open and Affirming congregation.
We did this because of love. Love told us that it was the right thing to do. Love told us that it would be helpful to others who need to know that God is not a God of condemnation, but a God of love.
And our being an Open and Affirming church is not a one-time decision. It is an ongoing commitment, to constantly re-examine our ministry and the welcome we offer, searching for barriers to inclusion, and constantly tearing down those walls.
And our workshop after worship is a part of that process. It will help us better share God’s love with those who need it.
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