Loving Like Love is Never Status Quo

How many of us love food? Lasagna, enchiladas, wood fired pizza, chips and salsa, Pico de Gallo, basically my diet. But here’s the thing—have you ever had food with zero salt in it? You take a bite, and suddenly you're chewing, praying for flavor like you're in the middle of a fast. That’s how bland love can be when we settle for status quo love—love that’s polite, convenient, and comfortable. But that’s not how the Sacred loves, and it is not how we're called to love.

Jesus said, “Love one another… as I have loved you.” Friends, that’s dangerous love. That’s socially unsafe love. The way Jesus loved was not a "smile and wave at your neighbor" kind of love. It wasn’t a "press the heart emoji on a Facebook post" kind of love. The love of the Holy expressed in Jesus is a love that shows up, speaks truth, forgives enemies, and flips tables when necessary.

The way our Creator loves is never comfortable—so why should ours be?

Jesus loved lepers when society said, “Avoid them.” He loved women when culture said, “Silence them.” He loved sinners when religion said, “Condemn them.” He even loved Peter—after Peter denied Him three times! Now, I don’t know about you, but if someone denied me three times, I would want to delete their number and block them on all my social media platforms.

But Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” My first thought is, “Okay Jesus, I’ll feed your sheep. But so and so doesn’t get invited to my table, or no way am I going to be courageous enough to be vulnerable to you know who… you know, the person who keeps projecting their critical energy onto me. I’ll meet that person out for coffee, but not at my table. That kind of love is asking too much of me.” Maybe I’m the only one in this room who has ever felt that way.

Caring for others, even critical sheep, requires love above and beyond the status quo. Jesus’ way of loving breaks the rules of pride, position, and pettiness. Still, if we’re loving like Holy Mystery loves each one of us, people will be a little uncomfortable. And we will be a little uncomfortable too! Because loving others like the Spirit loves us calls us out of our human comfort zones.

We have been created to love like salt…salt changes everything.

One of the lessons Jesus infused into his disciples and wanted them to remember in every circumstance, especially when others were undermining their ministry was, “Remember, no matter what is going on, you are the salt of the earth.”

Salt doesn't ask permission before it seasons. It doesn’t wait until it’s convenient to do its job. It doesn’t wait until someone appreciates them to offer life giving nourishment. The salt of loving like Jesus just shows up and changes the whole flavor.

Lean in on this next truth. Jesus did not start the church. He didn’t instruct the people of “The Way”  - the seventy or so men and women who were his disciples and financial underwriters of his ministry to become an institution. The church and its creeds, doctrines and ways of being in the world are human inventions that have scarred more people than it has loved. We have been created and called to love like Jesus, not like any church or denomination expounds.

Imagine walking into our sanctuary and your presence, your loving energy, salts the air with radical acceptance, gratitude for diversity, and unconditional love. Suddenly bitterness simmering in someone begins tasting like grace, unmerited favor and the whispered negative comments after the service during coffee and fellowship dwindle because love is stronger than selfishness. Imagine being loving encouraging salt in the face of negativity…in the face of someone you invited to your table.

Folks, we are called to offer the best we have at our tables. We can invite everyone to join us, but we cannot make them appreciate or even try and eat what we have prepared. Some people may not like what we serve, and that’s okay. Our table is not the only table in the world. People are free to seek other tables while we remain people who love wastefully, serving the best we have to offer, because we are SALT. We are the flavor of the HOLY. And this being true, our responsibility is making sure the energy we are offering is loving.

When we are salt, when we are authentic, safe, open, and encouraging love, we change the environment for the better. The love of Jesus, the love of the Divine, is eternally alive and present to change the inner environment of our hearts and minds so we can be the loving presence and safe place others need. We are not here to be a community of faith where people survive. In December, you voted to be a community of faith where every person courageous enough to walk through our door can sense and feel that they are free to be authentically who they are and thrive as they connect, grow, love, and serve.

Some of us have been on spiritual diets that have caused spiritual malnutrition for way too long. We have not been created and called to this time and place to be bland, to blend in and keep the church going with status quo love and ways of being.

Let me lovingly say: Our Creator did not create us to be unseasoned chickens. Love, like seasoning, does not hide. Darkness hides…our shadows hide, and only the light can reveal our shadows. When we address our egos, when we let go of wanting things our way, space is created for the light to shine in us and out from us, and when it does, it will warm those who are seeking authentic warmth, and at the same time, it will reveal the shadows among us as well. Because, love, like salt and light, refuses to hide.

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.” Folks, being an affirming community does not mean we have to agree on everything. In fact, being affirming means we embrace diversity, we welcome questions and difficult conversations while remaining committed to our values, vision, and mission as we serve together. We do not have to agree with one another person to support their highest good. Loving with a love that reflects how the Spirit loves us… by its very nature this kind of love cannot hide, even when it’s costly. When Light walks into a room, it does not say, “Well, it’s a little too dark in here for me so I’ll just turn off for a while.” No. When Loving Light encounters darkness, it shines brighter.

Last week, we all felt the heaviness of the world. We experienced a week of darkness being spewed around the world, spewing in relationships, homes, pulpits and sanctuaries, and we are tired of feeling all of it. On Wednesday, I had a conversation with a Turtle Bay Clinic doctor and he shared that “the medical community has not recovered from everything Covid demanded from them and stole from humanity. He went onto to say that the heart wrenching and energy demanding services and treatments doctors, nurses, and hospital staff offered with smiles on their faces, broke something in us, and we are trying to figure out how to be human and practice medicine and patient care in a new reality. We are looking for who we need to be, not who we were and lost in ourselves during that time. Because as you know, (I told him one of my daughters was a NICU RN and I am her sounding board), more pandemics are coming, and we need to love ourselves and others better through them, even when we cannot touch the people we love inside or outside hospital walls. It’s funny, we could cut into someone, ventilate them, stitch up this and cut out that, but we couldn’t hug anyone, not even when they were dying.”

I asked him what he learned from the pandemic. He put his head down for a few seconds and then looked at me, both of us teary, our souls talking without words, and we said to one another, “Everyone is dying to be loved.” Then he said, “No matter the colour, the language, gay, straight, trans, young, old, rich or poor, abled or disabled, atheist or follower of some God, humans are here to deeply connect, and while surgical knives can cut and save, only love can cut out the disease of self-centeredness, fear, and greed. Without connection, our energy and will to live and love dies.”

I replied, “You should preach my reflection next Sunday” to which he said, “I wouldn’t want your job for all the money in the world. I watched minister after minister day after day exhaust themselves in full PPE to be with dying people, take pictures of them and videos of them talking to their loved ones, sending the pics and videos to their families who could not come into the hospital. These ministers, these women and men, would sit on the hallway floors crying, holding their knees, only to become targets of the families’ grief that spewed to them that all they gave was not good enough, they were not giving enough, they were never saying or doing something the way they, the family, would have done it had they been there. It was like watching a genocide of human spirits.

I witnessed this happen to my friend who is a minister, and no matter what was thrown at him, no matter how tired he was, no matter the grief he felt in his own life, he showed up like a bright light and loved people anyway and in all the ways that he possibly could. Nope, you are a surgeon of another kind, and every human on the planet needs the surgery you are offering. Love cuts” and I joined his last words, “to the marrow”. We stood up, shook hands, and as he walked out the door, he held up some paperwork and said, “Expect a call for your x-ray.” 

Some of us are waiting for the world to get better before we love better.

We say, “I’ll forgive when they apologize.” “I’ll serve when I have more time.” “I’ll show love once they stop talking behind my back. I’ll be loving when they stop acting ridiculous, or when they share the same values that I uphold.”

Salt and Light do not wait for people to change or be kind before they offer their gifts. And the love of God, by whatever name you know and understand God, is always on the table for us, whether we are aware of it or not. Folks, we cannot be the light of LOVE and stay switched off.

Imagine if our community of faith was loving in intentional and radical ways like Jesus that the community and world around us became curious and began asking questions. What if this morning, each one of us committed to love profoundly this week, offering the kind of love that makes people stop and ask:

“Why are you helping that person who wronged you?” “Why are you hanging out with someone no one else wants to be around?” “Why are you serving that neighbor who never says thank you?” “Why do you keep showing up when others walk away?”

“Why are hanging out with a queer or trans person? Or why are you buying a coffee for tired sex worker in Tim Hortons and then sitting with them?

“Why are trans kids and social outliers hanging out with your minister and other straight kids, eating pizza and hot wings, playing their live music and talking about whatever they want to talk about?”

I hope we would answer, “Because that’s how God loves me.”

If our love never offends us, never challenges us, and never stretches us, then need to question if we are loving like the Holy’s love. What we may be offering is the safe status quo kind if love and we are not here to be status quo love. I have zero energy for hate. I either love you, wish you well, or hope you heal. What someone hates in you is missing in them. Keep shining! We were called to be salt—so let's season the world. We were called to be light—so let’s shine in the dark. We were called to love like Jesus—and that means loving in ways that make people say, “Who the heck loves like that?” May it be so, amen.