Love: Easier Said Than Done
Written by Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“Let all that you do be done in love. ”
At the last Session meeting, I shared from a book I purchased based primarily on the title. I didn’t know the author, but I felt I might find meaning in his writing by looking him up. So, let’s see if the title resonates with you. If God is Love, Don’t Be a Jerk, by John Pavlovitz. The subtitle is “Finding a Faith that Makes Us Better Humans.” The title of the introduction is “You Had One Job.” Pavlovitz challenges himself and the rest of us when he asks, “As a longtime Christian by aspiration (if not always in practice), I often envision an exasperated Jesus coming back, and the first words out of his mouth to his followers as his feet hit the pavement being ‘You had one job: LOVE. So, what happened?”
The faith community is diverse in ethnicity but also in belief. I’ve struggled my entire adult life with the concept of liberal and conservative. These labels are too simplistic. Even words like inclusive and exclusive are too vague. The one word we can, or should, affirm is the word “love.” The Great Commandment is: “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And the second is like it. You should love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”
Love is a message affirmed by Jews, Christians, Muslims, and many other religions. Love of God and love of neighbor is the foundation of our faith. If love is central, then why is love so hard to experience and accomplish? Even with the support of the Holy Spirit, love has often evaded humanity throughout history. We find new ways to alienate each other, even when God calls us to reach out in compassion.
Today, pray that each one of us may find new ways of loving. Love is often complicated because we all long for it, and when it is withheld, we humans tend to respond with harsh bitterness. Yet, because we have the Holy Spirit’s unending support, we can love more than others. We can reach out a hand to another even when the other just wants to swat it away. God continues to call us to keep trying to love. God can do miraculous, making even those filled with hate experience our love.
