Love

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Rev 7:9-10 ; see also Rev 5:9-10 ) Since our hope is in the age to come, we should seek to be that church now. We must strive to be the unity-in-diversity church, alerting everyone everywhere to the universal reign of God in Christ through our courageous, distinct, countercultural, new-humanity life together. One love. How will people recognize the new humanity in Christ? They will know we are his people by our love for our enemies and by our love for one another (Mt 5:43-48; Jn 13:34-35 ). What does this love look like? Pray for those who persecute you. Forgive those who have wronged you. Seek the welfare of your city and neighborhood, including those who oppose you. Welcome the stranger. Offer refuge, shelter, and hospitality to the undocumented immigrant, the asylum seeker, and the refugee. (This is now becoming more necessary in the United States.) Care for creation. Give away your time, goods, money, and gifts. Stop judging others. Imitate Christ’s humility. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:3-5 ). Those are just a few of the ways we express love. We were baptized by the Spirit into one body in Christ, to the glory of God (1 Cor 12:13 ). As one body with many members, God calls us to prefer each other over ourselves. God calls us to honor and respect our weaker members, to care for each other, to seek unity in our diversity, and to suffer and rejoice together. We use our gifts to serve and build each other up. Finally, we express the gift of love (1 Cor 12:14-31 ). We are told what new-humanity love looks like. It is patient, humble, polite, hospitable, warm, forgiving, patient, hopeful, trusting, and persistent. It has no place for sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, greed, pride, prejudice, manipulation, animosity, or fear. “Love never fails” (1 Cor 13:8 ). “Perfect love drives out fear” (1 Jn 4:18 ). John puts it succinctly: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 Jn 4:16 ). New-humanity churches know that as one body they have one Messiah, one Spirit, one life, one table, one politic, one righteousness, one peace, one mission, one faith, one hope, and one love. Practices, Challenges, and Activities for Small GroupsHere are some practices and activities for your small group. These will help you reimagine the new humanity in Christ.20 Serve with other groups in your community. As a small group, find practical and tangible ways to collaborate with Christians from a variety of backgrounds. Do this in your local community.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  We Gentiles (Americans, Australians, British, Asians, Latin Americans, Africans, etc.) join the story of Jesus. Our particular histories and cultures (personal and group and ethnic) are still important. The story of Jesus gives some parts of those stories more and fresh meaning. And other parts are revealed as destructive or divisive. But, now, in Jesus Christ, all our personal and corporate stories are situated and framed within the story of biblical Israel, the Jewish Jesus, the new humanity, the new creation, and the age to come. We express this in grace, love, forgiveness, lament, fellowship, hospitality, welcome, and a commitment to human flourishing. This unified identity is not the opposite of diversity. The church is intended to be diverse, and it has work to do in terms of becoming less monocultural and more intercultural. As Scot McKnight says, we are a “fellowship of differents.” This means we understand Christian life as a fellowship, as a social revolution, as life together, and as transcending and honoring and enjoying difference. We understand Christian life “to be about love, justice, and reconciliation.”2 We must be a community of diverse races, languages, cultures, marital statuses, political views, genders, professions, experiences, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, and much more. It’s not enough to talk about unity in diversity. Diversity without theological substance is shallow and secularized. We need a vision of unity in diversity under Christ that is rooted in Scripture and theology. This new humanity embraces distinct qualities and convictions. The Qualities and Convictions of New-Humanity ChurchesWhat are the qualities and convictions of new-humanity churches? These churches know that they are one body, with one Messiah, one Spirit, one life, one table, one politic, one righteousness, one peace, one mission, one faith, one hope, and one love. Let’s unpack each of these. One body. Jesus Christ calls his church to be one unified and diverse body. “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Rom 12:4-5 ). As one body, our unity in diversity is under Christ and witnesses to him. It witnesses to his redemption and to his restorative future for all creation and humanity. Too often diversity is co-opted by pragmatists for the sake of cultural relevance (or for “political correctness”). Too often diversity is just about reflecting the concerns or values of society. Diversity is often a code word for black and brown, which neglects Asians and Native Americans. But the church needs to do better than that. We must incarnate the value of diversity and implement it for biblical, theological, and missional reasons. We must build a theology of unity in diversity under Christ that shapes our life together and in the world.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  At one stage all who are Gentiles were “foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12 ). But now the Messiah has redeemed us by his blood, regardless of our gender, age, language, culture, or race. He is our peace. He has abolished division, enmity, conflict, fear, discrimination, and prejudice. He has made us one new people—a new humanity in Christ—reconciling us to God and each other through the cross and abolishing enmity. Together as one new people we are fellow citizens, God’s household, built on Christ Jesus and the prophets and apostles. This new humanity is also a holy temple, again built on Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, and “built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph 2:22 ). How can we allow any disunity or division to continue when the Messiah calls us to be reconciled and unified in him? One Spirit. The Messiah unifies a diverse church in the power of his Spirit. The Spirit establishes, fills, empowers, and renews the church as his ongoing and dynamic creation. The Spirit forms the community into a countercultural community embodying the redemptive reign of God, helping it to be faithful, indwelling it with its power and presence. The Spirit works in the church so that it is holy and unified and gives it the ministry of reconciliation. Jürgen Moltmann describes how the church enjoys “fellowship with Christ” as the Spirit reveals Christ, unites the church with Christ, glorifies Christ, and forms the church for the sake of Christ’s messianic mission. “Faith in Christ and hope for the kingdom are due to the presence of God in the Spirit.”5 The presence of the Spirit forms the church as the “messianic fellowship of service for the kingdom of God.” And the Spirit helps the church see itself “as the messianic fellowship in the world and for the world.”6 The Spirit creates the church and fills it with his grace. He empowers the church for the coming realm of God. The Spirit is present in and forms the church’s sacraments, ministries, missions, and structures. Moreover, all these aspects of the church are “conceived in the movement and presence of the Spirit.” The Spirit takes up the church’s “gifts and the tasks assigned to it.” The Spirit works in the church for the sake of the messianic mission and the eschatological realm of God.7 The church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic in the power of the Spirit. And the Spirit uses these four attributes for the glory of Christ, for the unity of the church, and for the extension of the realm of God.8 He works through them to bring liberation, healing, justice, mercy, and hope to a broken world.9 In doing so the Spirit empowers the church to witness to divine love and reconciliation.10 This is the work and fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-26 ). One life.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  Revealing the justice of God, Jesus welcomed the stranger, rejected social discrimination, confronted economic injustice, spoke against institutional power, and repudiated war and violence. Standing in the tradition of the prophets, he showed a justice that was at once righteous and loving, ferocious and compassionate, uncompromising and gracious, visionary and personal, truth telling and forgiving, resolute and hospitable.3 Jesus continues to show us today what justice means and how we can work toward justice. Carol Dempsey says that the spirit of justice is “hospitality of heart.” When we open our hearts to hospitality, we feel compelled to seek justice. When we embrace creation, the poor, our enemies, strangers, foreigners, outcasts, and others, we desire justice for them. We welcome without judging. We love our neighbors as ourselves. We reflect the justice, love, and hospitality of God. This hospitality leads us to desire and work for the flourishing, well-being, and good of others. Under President Trump, sanctuary churches are emerging to offer a safe place for immigrants who are in the country illegally. Rather than facing deportation, people are staying at sanctuary churches for protection. Providing such sanctuary is what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. Dempsey says that since “hospitality of heart” is the spirit of justice, then love for creation, the marginalized, the wronged, the poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled, the stranger, and the other is the work of justice. She says that compassion is the heart of justice; love and relationship are the wellsprings of justice; and peace is the flower (or fruit) of justice. Finally, Dempsey says, justice is both an invitation and a vocation. It is God’s invitation to hospitality, compassion, and peace. It is an invitation “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8 ). And it is a profound, lifelong, and communal vocation—a calling to be a just people who reflect the love and hospitality of a just God.4 Danielle Strickland speaks of the biblical triangle of faith, mercy, and justice. She writes, Our relationship with God could be described as a triangle of faith, mercy (or peace) and justice. Scripture does not present them as competing aspects, or suggest that one flows out of the other; rather, they are a triangle that forms the basis of our relationship with God. Each text [Mic 6:8; Mt 23:23; Rom 14:17] places justice or righteousness first on the list. Justice is not an optional extra. It is our first activity. Justice is the first and primary demand that God places on his people. As a God of justice (or righteousness), he expects that we, his community, be his agents for bringing justice to bear in the world; to usher in a just society without discrimination and with fair treatment and equality for all.5 We have seen that God is a just God who hates injustice. Injustice is a contagious sin that breaks and angers the heart of God.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  Jesus’ family was in fact a refugee family who fled into Egypt as Herod ordered the slaughter of young children. By definition Jesus was in fact the other who was pushed to the margins of society. As a poor Jewish peasant teacher from Nazareth, Jesus was marginalized by the leaders in Jerusalem. He stood in solidarity with the marginalized lower classes. Jesus incarnated life, practiced kin-dom teaching, and was crucified on a criminal’s cross, revealing God’s transformative love working for justice, peace, and liberation. The healing of divisions in this world happens through God’s transformative Spirit of love. With restless hearts, we often long to connect with God, the other, and the community that is in touch with God’s creation. Through the practice of prayer our longing is transformed into a Spirit of love. The Spirit gives us strength to love God and our neighbor. As we accept our differences and work out tensions between peoples, we understand that it is the Spirit God who can bring us together. Being in connection with one another is a formative power that can strengthen our very existence. Everything that exists comes into being by virtue of connectedness. The Spirit-led life helps us to stay connected to God and each other in deep solidarity. This is especially the case as we serve together in the work of social transformation. The Spirit is the true source of restoring right relationships and enabling respect and love for others, even others who are completely different from us. Spirit God energizes us for the work of healing in the world. Spirit God emboldens and enables us to respect and welcome the other. All people are made in the image of God, and we are called to love our neighbor just as we love ourselves. Since we are all created in the image of a God who loves us completely and eternally—no matter who we are or what we do—we are called to love all people with that same extravagant and inclusive love. Hospitality and the Future of the ChurchAs we have noted already, the world is becoming increasingly diverse. We are living in a multicultural, multiethnic, multi-everything world. Some who realize this are gripped by fear, anxiety, and longing for the past. But this global change is not to be feared or resisted. Instead this is a wonderful opportunity to show the world what redeemed and transformed humanity looks like. This is a chance to show the power of faith, welcome, hospitality, reconciliation, and hope. This is a time to fully embrace love and to welcome the dynamic, enriching life together that diversity enables. This is an opportunity to truly be the new humanity in Jesus Christ. This is a chance to reactivate hospitality so that it infuses every part of the church’s witness and life together. Practices, Challenges, and Activities for Small GroupsHere are some practices and activities for your small group. These will help you embrace the practice of hospitality.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  We always welcomed neighborhood kids and friends to drop by anytime to eat, as there was always room at the table. This is a powerful symbol of hospitality and embrace. Ruth Padilla DeBorst says: Hospitality means conversion from individualism to community, from autonomy to interdependence, from idolatry to true worship, from grasping to receiving, from oppressive dominion over creation to loving care of it, from indifference to passionate, prayerful action, from Western definitions of “development” to loving participation, from competition to collaboration, from protagonism to service.11 The new people that Jesus had in mind are a hospitable, welcoming, open, and generous people. We have responded to Jesus’ welcome at the table, as we are recipients of Jesus’ divine hospitality. We invite people of all nations, languages, cultures, and colors to our tables. We offer this hospitality to each other and to the world, sometimes while we ourselves are foreigners or displaced or sojourners. More often we welcome outsiders to our local culture. When I was growing up as an immigrant in Canada, there seemed to be continual immigration from Korea. Every time a new immigrant family came to our neighborhood, my dad would invite them over. So we had strangers constantly coming to our home. When the Vietnam War broke out, there were lots of refugees; some people called them “boat people.” When they came to Canada and into our neighborhood, our family opened our house to them. Friendships developed as we welcomed them and ate together and shared our stories of living in a new country. Hospitality includes our relationship to our home, to the earth, and to a local place. It involves our connections to local relationships and local generosity. It includes the gifts that the earth offers to us as we place them thankfully at our tables. Are we connected enough with these to be hospitable? Are we willing to offer strangers welcome into those places and relationships and lands we love the most? Are we willing to allow others to call our land their land and our homes their homes? Are we open to immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and others? Sometimes it is much easier said than done. Hospitality makes us fuller, richer, more Christlike people. It’s one of the signs that we are a new humanity in Christ. We welcome people into our homes and lives and families and lands in anticipation of the home and the age to come. In doing so we are a foretaste of our ultimate home and of the age to come in Christ Jesus. One politic. God calls God’s church to be a distinct people, with a distinct ethic, a distinct story, a distinct peace, a distinct community, a distinct diversity, and a distinct witness. As Stanley Hauerwas says, “The first responsibility of the church is to be the church. . . .

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  Love for enemies is the hallmark of discipleship: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Mt 5:44-45 ). God not only calls us to be peacemakers who love our enemies, but God also “reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18 ). God reconciles the world to Godself through Christ. God calls us to be ambassadors of Spirit-empowered reconciliation—calling women and men to be reconciled to God and to each other. One mission. Taking our cue from David Bosch and Michael Frost, we’re convinced that being missional means alerting everyone everywhere to the universal reign of God through Jesus Christ.18 We do this together, in word, sign, and deed. The new humanity in Christ integrates proclamation, evangelism, church planting, and social transformation in a seamless whole. We do this best as we learn from each other through multicultural, multiethnic, and global-local conversations. We engage in mission together, locally and globally, alerting people “to the universal reign of God in Christ.”19 Much of the missional conversation in the West is white, male, and privileged. Such authors have a place, of course, and they have important things to say. But white, male, privileged voices must not dominate our understanding of missional theology and practice. This does the conversation a disservice and doesn’t reflect new-humanity church. More than that: it limits, distorts, and even corrupts missional conversations and practices. We’re very hopeful and excited about diverse, multicultural, multiethnic, multivoiced, female-male, global-local missional conversations. These conversations are happening more and more, all over the globe, and it’s thrilling. Missional conversations and practices will only be worthwhile if we embrace diversity, multiethnicity, and global voices. We need the perspectives of the Majority World (Third World), First Nations, indigenous, African American, and diaspora (immigrant) voices. After all, this is where most of the global growth and mission of the church is happening today. A global missional conversation needs voices from all over the planet. It needs the contributions of both genders and of many cultures and ethnicities. One faith. Our faith is in Jesus the Messiah and his gospel of salvation. This new people—formed as Christ joins Jew and Gentile together as one in him—embraces confident faith in him and his gospel. We say with conviction, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Rom 1:16 ). Christians are passionate about many things, which is a good thing. Many issues deserve our passionate and courageous response—politics, race, gender, sexuality, poverty, the environment, and more. But our first passion must be for Jesus and for his gospel—all our other passions must flow out of this first and essential passion. The gospel is astonishing. The gospel is the story of the triune God working through the story of Israel to save all humanity.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  Then you will be an ethical, compassionate, and humble community. Then you will be a righteous, just, and God-pleasing people. The Reconciled and Reconciling Community (Matthew 5:21-26 )Jesus challenges his disciples to take conflict and resolution seriously. God will judge those who embrace and foster anger, division, conflict, and hatred. Jesus demands that we replace conflict, sexism, classism, violence, and racism with peace, forgiveness, love, and reconciliation. Remember that political, social, religious, racial, and gender enmity was as strong in Jesus’ day as today. Jesus was speaking to a culture soaked in conflict and animosity—much like our age. Jesus says to his disciples, “You must be different!” Earlier he tells them, “Blessed are the merciful. . . . Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:7, 9 ). The part of Sydney that I (Graham) live in is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse parts of my country. I teach at Morling College. Our Morling Residential College welcomes local university students to live on our campus. We have close to one hundred students living in this residential college, and they come from thirty-four different countries. Our aim is to be a safe and welcoming place for international university students of many countries, religions, languages, and backgrounds. Additionally, 60 percent of those who live in my suburb, Epping, were born outside Australia. Close to 60 percent of the families in my suburb are bilingual. There are many religions represented in my suburb, and 36 percent of people say they have no religion. On my street alone there are new arrivals from Korea, China, Iran, Malaysia, England, Nepal, Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines, and more. If I think about the houses immediately surrounding mine, there are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Baha’i, pagans, agnostics, and atheists. My family and I are committed to bringing love, peace, and reconciliation into this diverse community. We do that by having many families from the neighborhood over for lunches and dinners (and in doing so enjoying the cuisines and cultures of the world!) and by opening our home to many children and families from the neighborhood. As we stated in a previous chapter , without justice, hospitality, and reconciliation the church will never be the new humanity in Jesus Christ. Through God’s peace and reconciliation, we can be this peaceable and reconciling people. God has reconciled humanity to Godself in Jesus Christ, and God reconciles people to each other. Jesus says that if you are about to perform an act of worship and there remember that you are in conflict with someone else, then first go and be reconciled. Peace and reconciliation are spiritual acts of worship. Notice again the movements in this drama: God reconciles us to Godself, and then God reconciles us with each other and gives us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-20 ).

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  Jesus says that when someone attacks, offends, or insults you, you should forgive them, bless them, and act graciously and generously toward them. Embrace forgiveness and nonviolence. Loving friends and the loveable is easy. Loving and forgiving enemies is a sign of discipleship and maturity. “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kin-dom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you” (Mt 5:48 The Message ). The Generous and Compassionate Community (Matthew 6:1-4 )The crowd who gathered around Jesus on the hillside to listen to him speak were a broken, marginalized, undignified, fringe, shabby group of people. But Jesus says something shocking to this group. The kin-dom of God is among you ! Blessed are you ! Why is Jesus’ church welcoming and compassionate? Why does it give to the needy? First God is generous, loving, and inclusive. Second, this church is itself a mixed bag of people. These people gather around common meals as a symbol of their common life together and of their solidarity, hope, and transformed social relationships. Nothing shaped the theology, community, and mission of the early church more than the people at its heart. These people were women, the poor, the sick, the outcast, the powerless, and the marginalized.19 These groups weren’t just a part of the early church community, and they didn’t just heavily influence the early church community. They were at the heart of the community. They shaped the theology, fellowship, service, discipleship, and mission of the early church in immense and incalculable ways. Jesus says to these people, and to us, care deeply and practically for those in need. But don’t turn it into a performance. Don’t play to the crowds or seek recognition for your actions. Do it quietly and without need for recognition. Just be a compassionate people. Live a generous life together in the world in such a way that people see God and not you. When we think about compassionate churches, we often think of the Homeless Church. The mission of the Homeless Church in San Francisco is to bring the saving, life-changing power of Jesus Christ to the hurting people in that city. They believe that there is a solution for homelessness that does not lie in just outer changes but, more importantly, in inner transformation. They believe God can bring hope to the hopeless, healing to the sick, and confidence to those who have none left. They rely not on their own strength but in the power of God to transform lives through his church. Evan and April Prosser received the vision for the Homeless Church while Evan was pastoring in a church (with four walls!) in Orland, California. They moved out of their comfortable home, bought a motor home, and use it as a base for mission among the homeless in San Francisco.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  The Meeting House is part of the Brethren in Christ (BIC), which focuses on “heart-felt devotion to Jesus, the Wesleyan pursuit of personal holiness, and the Anabaptist emphasis on simplicity, peace-making, and living out the teachings of Jesus in everyday life.”12 They seek to follow Jesus through a distinct way of life together. Their churches emphasize peacemaking, simplicity, justice, and love. Here’s what The Meeting House says about itself: Rules, Rituals, Religion—Really? We think Jesus came to show us a different way, a better way. At The Meeting House we believe that when you see Jesus without the religious baggage we’ve historically put around him, you’ll find someone undeniably life-changing and worth following. Everything we read about Jesus in the Bible paints a clear picture of a revolutionary and radical who intended on turning our ways of thinking upside down and inside out. Jesus wasn’t interested in creating a new religious system of do’s and don’ts, wrongs and rights, rites and rules. Rather, Jesus’ irreligious message is that we can only find true peace and wholeness when we embrace a love-based relationship with God, others, and even our enemies. We believe that in order to truly see Jesus, grasp his message, and follow him, we need to reject the lens given to us by religion, even the Christian religion, and become a community who opens our Bibles regularly with fresh eyes and re-live the accounts of those who first followed Jesus. Join us as we do our best to discover Jesus for who he truly is.13 Bringing out the God-colors in the world isn’t always easy. But we follow the way of Jesus and become a distinct and life-giving church as we see and love him for who he truly is. The Righteous and Just Community (Matthew 5:17-20 )Jesus doesn’t abolish the law and the prophets; he fulfills them. The heavens and the earth will disappear, but God’s will and purpose will last forever. But self-righteous, legalistic, religious people and communities don’t inherit God’s promises or please God’s heart. That isn’t the righteousness God wants. The law and the prophets talk about a better and higher righteousness, a righteousness revealed in love of God and of neighbor, shown in justice, compassion, hospitality, service, mercy, and humility. God has shown us what is good and what God requires of us: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8 ). How do we recover this righteousness and justice in our life together? “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Lk 10:27 ). Love God with all your passion and desire and hopes and intelligence and time and money and priorities and dreams and aspirations and energy. And love your neighbor as yourself—especially your neighbor who comes from a different racial, cultural, religious, gender, social, linguistic, political, and/or economic background from you.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  Because Jesus’ life and death were the ultimate acts of reconciliation, he calls his church to be a reconciling people in their life together and in their life in the world. The Holy and Virtuous Community (Matthew 5:27-37 )Here are some alarming statistics. Research shows that 46 percent of men and 16 percent of women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-nine view pornography in any given week.14 In another study, all young men between the ages of fifteen and twenty-nine surveyed said they had viewed pornography at some time, as did the majority of young women in the same age group. The average age of a young man’s first encounter with pornography is thirteen, and for a young woman it is sixteen. Eighty percent of these young men said they watched pornography weekly, while 66 percent of the young women said they watched pornography at least monthly.15 Sexual addictions aren’t the only moral and ethical issues plaguing modern societies. Many societies struggle with corruption, including bribery, embezzlement, abuse of political and economic power, and so on. Transparency International UK offers some troubling statistics about Europe: “According to the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs an estimated €120 billion is lost to corruption each year throughout the 27 EU member states.”16 Tax cheating costs American society around $458 billion per year.17 So Jesus says to his people, “Be different in your life together in the world! Your hearts are easily corrupted. Guard your hearts and your lives. Live virtuous and holy lives, just as your God is holy” (Mt 5:27-37 , my paraphrase). Put away lust, sexual addictions, selfishness, moral failure, marital unfaithfulness, lies, corruption, deceit, false religiosity, and manipulation. Pursue integrity and moral excellence. You can’t do this in your own strength. But the grace and power of God will help you live this way personally and in your life together. The Relational and Enemy-loving Community (Matthew 5:38-48 )Relationship is at the very heart of Christian community. Just as the Father, Son, and Spirit exist in perfect loving community, so God invites the church into this loving relationship and calls us to imitate this love. We are a people transformed by love and relationship. All our practices and habits witness to the love of the God who is love. Our mission is to join with this loving God in inviting all people and all creation into restored and transformed relationship—with God, one another, and the earth. Catherine Mowry LaCugna says that being in this loving community means living from and for God, from and for others. Living Trinitarian faith means living as Jesus Christ lived, in persona Christi : preaching the gospel; relying totally on God; offering healing and reconciliation; rejecting laws, customs, conventions that place persons beneath rules; resisting temptation; praying constantly; eating with modern-day lepers and other outcasts; embracing the enemy and the sinner.18 This love is expressed most profoundly in our love for our enemies.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  A Just Care trailer equipped with barbecue facilities has been visiting local parks to contact youth and families and to share the gospel. Parkside congregants teach English to new migrants. They welcome them to Australia and into their lives, families, church, and homes. Aside from its mission within Sydney, Parkside has international mission teams serving among the world’s poorest. They especially serve in Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The church’s passion for mission among all the nations and ethnicities of Australia and the Asia-Pacific is becoming truly global as its people seek to reflect the Messiah’s love for all the peoples of the world. We need more churches like Parkside Baptist Church. This is especially the case as our cities become increasingly multicultural and multiethnic. Recently I (Graham) have been involved in discussions about a new church plant in western Sydney. A team of Africans, North Americans, and Australians are working together to set up a multicultural church plant there. The pastor of that plant will most likely be Kenyan. The leadership team will be made up of women and men from many parts of the globe. Hospitality, the Past, and a Changing WorldLondon, Paris, New York, and Sydney are astonishingly diverse cities. But other cities, regional towns, and rural areas are rapidly becoming multicultural, multiethnic, and multilingual too. Seoul, Korea, where I (Grace) was born, was relatively homogeneous until very recently. Now there are many other south Asians, east Asians, Africans, and white people living in Korea. In time Korea will become more diverse with migrant workers, intermarriages, and immigration. Diversity, of course, isn’t limited to language and ethnicity. Our cities are melting pots of religions, worldviews, sexualities, and lifestyles. The world is changing, and our cities and rural areas are changing. The world is only going to become more diverse and pluralistic due to immigration, refugees, and globalization. Climate change is now creating climate refugees, who are fleeing their countries due to loss of farmland, extreme temperatures, or unlivable conditions due to severe storms and weather patterns. This presents interesting and also wonderful opportunities for church and mission. It presents an amazing opportunity for the church to be the new humanity in Jesus Christ. Jim Wallis, Willie James Jennings, J. Kameron Carter, Brenda Salter McNeil, Christena Cleveland, and others have helped us see how the church has shaped its theological and social imagination around racism, sexism, and fear of diversity (fear of the other). They have helped us think about how to rectify this and embrace the other.2 They call us to repentance, justice, and reconciliation. They call us to a different, transformative, diverse way of being the people of God in the world. They challenge us to reactivate the practice of hospitality. The world is rapidly changing. Instead of responding with fear, we can embrace hope, love, and renewal. We can choose to be a people of every nation, and tribe, and people, and tongue.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  If you love those who love you , what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you , what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. But [you ] love your enemies, do good … Both Love Your Enemies sayings have a basic fourfold structure. It is bless, pray, fast , and love in the Didache , but love, do good, bless , and pray in the Q Gospel . And both those sayings connect to Better Than Sinners sayings, that is, to a comparison with outsiders—either pagans or sinners—as motivation. They are challenged, as Christian Jews or as Christian ex-pagans , to do better than pagans: if the latter love their friends, they must love their enemies. The third point, The Other Cheek and Give Without Return , is actually another single and fourfold saying. Here are the texts, with “you” now always singular and with the masculine to be taken inclusively (Milavec 1989:92): Didache 1:4–5a Q Gospel 6:29–30 (Matthew 5:39b–42) (1) If someone gives you a slap on your right cheek, turn the other [cheek] to him also, and you will be perfect. (1) If anyone strikes you on the [right] cheek, offer the other also; (2) if someone presses you to go one mile, go with him for two [miles]; (2) and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your tunic. (3) if someone takes your coat, give him also your tunic; (3) [and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile] (4a) if someone takes from you your goods, do not reclaim them, for you are not able [to do so]; (4b) Give to everyone who begs from you; (4b) give to every person who asks anything of you and do not make any counter-demands. (4a) and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. The square-bracketed materials under Q Gospel 6:29–30 are found only in Matthew and so are not securely from the Q Gospel . “Whether the verse belongs in Q or not could not be decided with a grade higher than D,” according to the International Q Project (Robinson et al. 1994:497). I think that it probably was in Q Gospel 6:29–30 and that Luke omitted it, but its presence or absence does not change the overall meaning. In this case the fourfold sequence is much closer in both sayings. It is cheek, mile, coat , and goods in the Didache and cheek, coat, (mile?) , and goods in the Q Gospel . Only the central two are reversed. The fourth and final injunction is doubled, but the meaning is not the same in each half. One involves not refusing those who ask (4b); the other involves not resisting those who take (4a).

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  We’ve jogged five miles around Fresh Pond and are stretching out when he says, You know what my sister noticed about you first? I cling to the fence and am bending my knee to loosen the quad, wheezing out, My rapier wit? Warren’s quick smile skids past my joke. He says, That you had really nice luggage. She warned me that a girl with such fancy luggage might expect to live higher on the hog than a poet would. The irony? It had been Lecia’s Hartmann luggage from the Rice Baron before they’d divorced—borrowed so as not to be embarrassed bringing an army duffel bag to his parents’ house. A week or so later, we unwrap our brown-papered Christmas gifts decorated with crayons and string—homemade gifts all. I’d stitched up a giant pillow to serve as a faux headboard, stars on a background of deep blue. He’ll spend Christmas with his family, because otherwise he’d never see his far- flung siblings. To me their cool exchanges mirror chatter at a bus stop. My pending visit to Daddy is an event on a par with cyanide. Warren stretches his legs in front of the red leather club chair appropriated from his parents’ attic. He picks at a moist banana muffin I’d made from scratch—black bananas being cheapest. I unwrap the small packet of audio tapes he made me—recordings of some lost lectures on the epic by an unknown prof. Some girls pine for jewelry, but for me the tapes are like an invitation into Warren’s monastery, since his devotion to poetry has a monkish quality. I’d spent way more years worrying about how to look like a poet—buying black clothes, smearing on scarlet lipstick, languidly draping myself over thrift-store furniture—than I had learning how to assemble words in some discernible order. I slide the cassette into the tape deck and press play. The old recording is scratchy enough to conjure a time before we were born. The professor’s first sentence brings me up short, for it sketches a football field-sized hole in my reading. He notes there’s as much distance between Homer and Virgil as between Chaucer and us. I press stop, saying, Isn’t that like a thousand years? Around that, Warren says. He peels the paper from the muffin. Since grad school, I’d felt as stuffed full of knowledge as a Christmas goose. Suddenly, a thousand unknown years of poetic history yawns unstudied before me. How little I know panics me. I say, I’d always figured those toga-wearing guys hung out around the same time. His smile is soft. You always know what poets wore. I say something like, Baudelaire tweezed his nose hairs and wore the floppy black satin bow. Dickinson wore white like a virgin bride. Warren Whitbread wore Brooks Brothers shirts, button-down, oxford-cloth. Jeans and khakis. He was long of limb and lean in a blue bathrobe. He says, And Mary Karr? Black black black. Plus loads of mascara. Spike heels.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  My hand cups the duck-fuzzed head—such a strong pulse against my hand, faster than my own, but they syncopate somehow like tom-toms from far off villages. The pediatric nurse says, This one’s what we call a sucky baby. I finally ask, What do you think he’s thinking? You know the static channel on the TV? she says. It’s almost like he knows you, Warren says. The nurse says, I think they can smell their mothers. I smooch his little hand, cooing, You’re my crème brûlée, my chocolate shake, my bear claw. You’re my—in a flash, I think of my daddy snuggling the white cat he once so spoiled—boon companion. With Dev tucked under my arm, I set to staring at him as if to emboss my gaze on him, to seal him in the safe bubble of it, and so also to sear into my own head every iota of him. Warren comments that he does look an awful lot like Winston Churchill. Put a cigar in his mouth… Bite your tongue, I say. At some point the woman in the next bed comes over to show us her boy, and when she peels aside the blanket to reveal his face, I have to stop my own recoil, for that is one unfortunate-looking baby. He’s cute, Warren says. This kid has a face like a caved-in squash. His full head of hair lends him a werewolf aspect. My plump, pink-cheeked, bald-as-a- bubble infant sets the standard against which all others will come up short. I sit there with a smile welded on my face till the werewolf baby starts to sputter neurasthenically, Ehh…ehhh ehhh… The woman looks up at us, saying, Time to nurse. If Dev, who wails like a freight train when hungry, made no more noise than that, he’d starve. I’m tired, Warren says, though his handsome face holds nary a crease. Bone-weary, I let him peel my clingy hand off his biceps to extract himself.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Or gliding off a shopwindow, I see Mother’s winged cheekbones and marble complexion that halt me in my tracks. But it’s only my face impersonating hers, and if ever I miss her broad, sharecropper’s hands, I have only to look at my own, growing from the ends of my own arms, which are replicas of hers. Good days, I see myself in others, and I know—in my bone marrow—nothing we truly love is ever lost, no matter what form it assumes. There are days when through fear and egoism I shake my fist at the sky, afterward feeling silly and worn out as a toddler post–temper tantrum. Every now and then we enter the presence of the numinous and deduce for an instant how we’re formed, in what detail the force that infuses every petal might specifically run through us, wishing only to lure us into our full potential. Usually, the closest we get is when we love, or when some beloved beams back, which can galvanize you like steel and make resilient what had heretofore only been soft flesh. (Dev, you gave me that.) It can start you singing as the lion pads over to you, its jaws hinging open, its hot breath on you. Even unto death. Mary Karr 2009 Pax Christi

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  “But I say to you”: Divorce is permitted only for “unchastity.” On false oaths (5:33–37): “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely.’” “But I say to you, Do not swear at all.” On vengeance (5:38–42): “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye…’” “But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer…. Turn the other cheek.” On love (5:43–48): “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” You will notice two aspects of that set of antitheses. One is that the first clause may vary a little from long—“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times”—to short—“You have heard that it was said”—to shortest—“It was also said.” But the second clause is always the same, that emphatic and absolute, “But I say to you.” The more important aspect, however, is that all those items of Jesus’s fulfilled or renewed law are so extreme that later Christianity has usually ignored them in general practice. That is not in any way to negate their power as hopes and ideals, but to recognize that their “justice” exceeded not only that of the “scribes and Pharisees” who lived then, but of most Christians who have ever lived since. For my present question on Jesus’s rhetorical violence in Matthew, I look in more detail at the first and last of those six antitheses. That first antithesis goes far beyond forbidding murder with this triple fulfillment: I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool,” you will be liable to the hell of fire. (5:22) Anger, insult, and name-calling are solemnly condemned with escalating divine judgments. In fact, the act of reconciliation takes precedence over the act of sacrifice: “Leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (5:24). The sixth and final antithesis consummates that opening vision by moving from negative to positive in its closing command: I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous…. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (5:44–45, 48) My italics emphasize that the reason and model for loving enemies is not political prudence or even ethical idealism. It is to be like, and thereby become children of, a God who acts in that way.

• From Come As You Are (2015)

  origin of loveAristophanes, in Plato’s Symposium—and for those of you who very understandably just fell asleep, replace that with the song “The Origin of Love” from John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch—offers this parable about why humans love: Human beings used to be round, with two faces, four arms, four legs, and two sets of genitals. Some of us were two men, some were two women, and some were a man and a woman. But the gods wanted to have more control over us, so Zeus cut us in half with a bolt of lightning, and from that moment, we were susceptible to a suffering that slices, as Hedwig sings it, “a straight line/down through the heart.”16 Love, according to the parable, is the pursuit of our own wholeness. We wander the earth in search of our lost half. And when two halves find each other, as Aristophanes says, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. This isn’t actually why we fall in love, but it’s closer than you might think. Why we fall in love is attachment, which is sort of a biological pursuit of wholeness. Attachment is the evolutionarily adaptive emotional mechanism that bonds infants and adult caregivers. I think human childbirth readily fits the description of pain that feels like you’re being separated from a part of yourself. And then, as Christopher Hitchens put it, when you’re a parent, “your heart is running around inside someone else’s body.”17 Babies attach, too, always seeking closeness with the adults who care for them. From birth, attachment is the pursuit of our own wholeness—being kept safe, and keeping safe that part of ourselves that lives in someone else’s body. Attachment is love. When we reach adolescence, our attachment mechanism gets co-opted from parental attachment to peer attachment, in romantic relationships. There are certain attachment behaviors we engage in that innately activate the attachment mechanism, whether between infant and caregiver or between two adults falling in love: eye contact, smiling, face stroking, hugging, that kind of thing. But with the shift at adolescence, sexual behavior is added to the repertoire of attachment behaviors. Brain imaging research has found that activity in the mesolimbic systems (wanting/liking/learning from chapter 3) during a nondistressed experience of parental attachment is extremely similar to that during the experience of romantic attachment—and they’re especially heavy on the liking activation, rather than wanting activation.18 At the same time, attachment is why we experience “heartbreak.” As infants, our lives literally depend on our adult caregivers coming when we need them. As adults, that’s no longer true, but our bodies don’t know it. Our bodies are pretty sure that if our attachment object doesn’t come back, we’ll die.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  When they had finished breakfast, (1) Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” (2) A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” (3) He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” There is a charcoal fire just after dawn, and there is a triple statement of love from Peter to Jesus and a triple statement of mandate from Jesus to Peter. The text’s apologetical overtones are quite heavy, and they are not exactly subtle. Apart from the restoration of Peter’s standing, it is clear that he is being put in charge of the entire flock—lambs and sheep—by Jesus. He loves Jesus “more than these” and is put in charge of all. Peter is a specific leader given authority over both a leadership group and the general community . Commensality and Eucharist If Jesus himself had ritualized a meal in which bread and wine were identified with his own body and blood, it would be very difficult to explain the complete absence of any such symbolization in eucharistic texts such as those of Didache 9–10. It was, therefore, open commensality during his life rather than the Last Supper before his death that was the root of any later realization. And open commensality could be ritualized into eucharists of bread and fish just as well as eucharists of bread and wine. Hence the bread-and-fish eucharists in the early tradition. For how could those have ever been created if a bread-and-wine symbolization had already officially antedated them? But, despite the eventual ascendancy of the bread-and-wine eucharist, it is impossible to emphasize too greatly the early importance of the bread-and-fish alternative. The continuity between open commensality during Jesus’ life and both forms of eucharist, that of bread and fish and that of bread and wine, after his death is preserved in the four key verbs describing Jesus’ action: took, blessed (or gave thanks ), broke , and gave . That foursome appears, for example, with the bread both at the Last Supper in Luke 22:19 and at the Emmaus meal just seen in Luke 24:30. What is their importance, and why should they have become ritualized expressions for those eucharists, whether of bread and wine or of bread and fish? Return once more for comparison to those Qumran Essenes who left us their library as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hierarchical rank rather than egalitarian commensality was emphasized symbolically in their ritual meals.

• From Come As You Are (2015)

  Treat cultural messages about sex and your body like a salad bar. Take only the things that appeal to you and ignore the rest. We’ll all end up with a different collection of stuff on our plates, but that’s how it’s supposed to work. It goes wrong only when you try to apply what you picked as right for your sexuality to someone else’s sexuality. “She shouldn’t eat those beets; beets are disgusting.” They might be disgusting to you, but maybe she likes beets. Some people do. And you never know, maybe one day you’ll try them and find you like them. Or not, that’s cool, too. You do you. “She shouldn’t have taken so many fried, breaded things—she’ll end up with a heart attack!” She might and she might not, but either way it’s her heart and her choice. You do you. Absorb what feels right for you and shake off what feels wrong. Let everybody else do everybody else, absorbing what feels right for them and shaking off what feels wrong. Laurie and Johnny’s story about “You’re beautiful,” sounds like a story about body image or disgust, but really it’s about love. Laurie’s body shame wasn’t just about the changes to her body. She had absorbed cultural beliefs about what those changes meant about her as a person. And because she believed her body was evidence that she was somehow a lesser person, she hid behind an emotional wall, so that no one could see those parts of her she felt ashamed of. But that wall also stood between her and the love she was starving for. We build walls for a lot of reasons. To protect vulnerable parts of ourselves. To hide things we don’t want others to see. To keep people out. To keep ourselves in. But a wall is a wall is a wall—it’s an indiscriminate barrier. If you hide behind a wall to protect yourself from the pain of rejection, then you also block out joy. If you never let others see the parts you want to hide, then they’ll never see the parts you want them to know. When Laurie let the wall down, the love came flooding in. No girl is born hating her body or feeling ashamed of her sexuality. You had to learn that. No girl is born worried that she’ll be judged if someone finds out what kind of sex she enjoys. You had to learn that, too. You have to learn, as well, that it is safe to be loved, safe to be your authentic self, safe to be sexual with another person, or even safe to be on your own.