It is Still About Love. Always.

It is still about love. Always.
We are in a time when stress and fear try to cloud our divine lens, the lens which sees everything with the eyes of love. Just as we sanitize and wash our hands with soap and water, we need to keep checking our love lenses for germs of selfishness and greed.

I am reminded constantly in this new time that things are not just on hold. We are not supposed to hold our breath. We are breathing in and breathing out the cleansing breath of God, the Holy Spirit breathes in us. We are to breathe that breath more deeply and touch that place which cares for others, that place of divine agape.

Instead of being on hold and waiting for things to get back to normal we might be called to imagine new normals. Instead of holding our breath we might breathe so deeply and broadly that we draw into our souls all who are at risk, all who are suffering, all who not only never knew our normal but may never know what we call normal. What might the other want or need?

My guess is that the new normal is as close as we can get to loving our neighbor as ourselves. My guess is that the new normal is to conceive of ways to reach out and across physical boundaries and to deploy resources of love.

We can still pray. We can still call or write. We can still listen. We can still gaze.

As a priest my greatest challenge right now is how to love without gathering physically at our church building. How to pastor? As difficult as it is I am convinced that this is an opportunity for us to shed old ways of being church and to restore and reconcile the Body of Christ. It is quite simple really: to live in this time with these limitations into our fullest incarnation.

As I listen this morning to a soft rain falling I hear God in the silence. I hear God whispering love to me and I feel strengthened and encouraged. I don't know exactly how I will return that love today but I do know I will take a very deep breath and as I let it out imagine it traveling with messages of care and concern to loved ones and friends, as well as to strangers by the side of the road. I also know that love is about following the rules of engagement in order to protect not just myself but others at risk.

In many ways this becomes public liturgy or worship as we find visible ways to demonstrate our love of God and each other. Conversations become so important. Gestures new and embodied ways of reaching across the divide. So I close with the offertory words that we might today find new ways of returning to God and God's creation what has so generously been given to us. Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God. May you know God's love for you and may you find creative ways to love one another as Christ loved us.