Be Love.

Proper 10, Year C, Tuesday

1 John 3:11-17

The age-old cry of Jesus’s teachings, “Love one another,” preached, recited, memorized… but lived out?

When I was very young, I remember I liked the Jesus introduced to me in Sunday School. He was kind and generous. He helped people who were hurting and said he would protect us like a Good Shepherd. But as I grew older, the world grew more complicated, more confusing, more dangerous.

I came out in 1995 and while I was still scared and nervous initially, it felt as if a great weight had lifted. I could speak with friends more honestly and began to really imagine what my life would be like when I grew up—having other gay friends, maybe even, eventually, sharing a life with someone. There were new possibilities where none had existed before, and it gave me a greater sense of purpose—of dignity and belonging.

A few years later, there was even the first real, openly gay program on TV. It seems silly, but Will & Grace really was a huge turning point for queer people culturally, and I felt more seen and safer. Yet, mere weeks after the premiere, a young, gay, college student in Wyoming was beaten, robbed, and tied to a fence—left to die, and, in an instant those possibilities seemed eviscerated. It was too late to go back into hiding and as I learned who Matthew Shepherd was the world became terrifying and deadly, all because I had said, “I … will … love.”

“Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you.” (1 John 3:13 NRSV)

I think that must be one of the most heart-breaking lines in all of Scripture—and it’s true. Recent events and energies in this world have awakened a fear at the gut of me that I thought I had left behind long ago, and I realize I’m experiencing a taste of the kind of generational trauma that others have known far too well. A poem I read recently described this pain as walking while carrying a grenade of fear in my stomach that could go off at any moment. But I remember being nurtured when I was that scared younger self, by older queer and straight allies who, whether they intended to or not, showed me how to keep loving amid my fear. They taught me with their actions what resilience looked like: refusing to give in and go back. They were the first saints who showed me what it meant to walk vulnerably—with strength and courage for myself and for others.

I believe that God is love and that God has illustrated a model of divine love to creation in countless ways throughout the ages—perhaps, most keenly, in the actions of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. A Christ that walked the truth—even in his own struggles—he, like those saints from my youth, showed me how to keep going … how to keep loving.

“We know love by this – that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” (1 John 3:16 NRSV)

We can talk about love, but we also must find the strength to live it. We can theorize about the problems and challenges in our world, but we must also find the courage to touch and change it. We can preach about the suffering of others, but we must also summon compassion to stand in solidarity with them and be love.

The very next verse that follows this passage we read today is, “let us love, not in words or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:18 NRSV)

Let that be our mission and rallying cry.

When a government enacts life-threatening policies, we will be love.

When a community grapples with the sting and grief of gun violence, we will be love.

When a symbol of safety and welcome is stolen from the doorway to God’s house, we will be love.

And when those who proclaim their love are reviled and harmed by hate and fear, we will be love.

Love demands action—on behalf of anyone in need. I believe in love, and I believe God’s unfolding plan always leads to goodness, so I pray for the strength and the courage to be love.