Love, Belief, Fruit, and the Garden.

I have some deep thoughts this morning.

I've been thinking about HOW the Church is called to LOVE.

Is that how non-members know us best?

I mean, if they were going to say ONE THING, would it be about how radically we love one another?

There's now fear within the Institution that even in the "growing" segments of the Institution for the past 30 years, we have discovered that we've, for the most part, only "recycled and retreaded" those souls from the institution and perhaps, for the first time in a LONG time we actually have to GO instead of being "talking heads" to a captive audience. (Is my ego-self wounded that many don't care what I have to SAY? Am I offended that some won't listen to me? Losers.)

What is it about love that seems to scare some of us who are called by our God to love?
Doesn't perfect love cast our fear?

Jesus gave his disciples a NEW commandment: Love one another AS I have loved you.
Agape one another AS I have agaped you.

Do we not believe this?

Jesus told his students to go and create more students in his manner of life. The one command he gave his students was to love each other in the manner of the Teacher and his Parent loved each other. he taught that this is the way others would know.

It seems that the Teacher wasn't interested in creating a large attendance of potential students, but more so interested in what the students could accomplish if they were willing to do what he taught-- love.

Perhaps it's we don't trust; we don't have faith in Jesus' instruction to GO... that love really isn't the higher way. It is easier and far more self-serving to focus on beliefs and differences than it is to love.

Love seems to cost something.
Self.
Love is humble.
I am not.
Love is patient.
I am not.
Love is kind.
I am not.
Perhaps my God is against everything I oppose.
I self-preserve.
God empties.
God gives.

My teacher is the way, truth and life. I believe this. Just ask me.
Do I trust my teacher enough to walk in his way, truth, and life?
I guess you'd have to watch me.

Do I have the faith to walk in my Teacher's way, truth, and life.
Look at what is growing in the garden of my heart.
Look what is produced by my life.
I can read all the books in a library about growing fruit.
I can learn about soil, minerals, and climate that produces ripe fruit
I can even quote authors who have written about how to grow fruit,
but until I am willing to put my hands in the dirt to plant a seed you
will never see fruit in my garden.

THE church is called to LOVE.
Rather than allowing beliefs about God to divide;
it is the LOVE of and for God and each other that can unite us as the church;
to help make us ONE as Jesus prayed to his Father.

Church "beliefs"have often been a source of separation and division, perhaps even an instrument in the hands of crafty evil,but it is only by surrendering to Jesus' command to love that can help usher in the Kingdom of God. Maybe Jesus' call to love is the ONE THING we can agree on???

Jesus said that folks will know what we believe, not by our words, but by the fruit that grows in our garden. Perhaps Jesus was more interested in growing His Garden in us, than he was was about telling us about some garden in the distant future while watching us starve to death now.

I'm hungry.
Others are starving.

Perhaps once I am willing to allow those who are hungry
to feed-off the fruit in my garden
that they too will want to know who taught me to grow
such life giving fruit.
They will want to meet the Source of my fruit.
They might just want to invite the Source to be the Source of their garden as well.

"You see, I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become a community organizer after I graduated college. And a group of Catholic churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had been devastated when the local steel plant closed.

And it was quite an eclectic crew -- Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish and African American organizers, working-class black, white, and Hispanic residents -- all of us with different experiences, all of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help -- to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

And something else happened during the time I spent in these neighborhoods -- perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I was really broke and they fed me. Perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to perform, I found myself drawn not just to the work with the church; I was drawn to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ."