Over these weeks, we have been praying for our nation and for our world in a time of too much conflict division which grieves us all. Loving our neighbors–including relatives, coworkers, acquaintances, strangers–as ourselves is no simple task. We need God. We need the love of God to show us mercy and strength to love as God loves. We need the story of Jesus–the one who loved across the lines that had been drawn in the society of his day but who also stood up for the least and the lost. We need faith that no matter the strain of differing positions, policies, and politics, we will move forward in love. Disagreeing need not be antithetical to love and grace. And indeed, our world depends on all of us working for a better world filled with more kindness, compassion, humility, respect, and love.
Malice Toward None: Love
We hear today the words of Jesus in our Gospel reading where he reminds his followers of the greatest commandment, to love God AND to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our love for God must be connected to our love for others and for our own belovedness.
Since Jesus first walked among us, we have been told that if our belief in the good news of the Gospel is not changing how we behave toward our neighbors, then we cannot call ourselves Jesus’ disciples. Those who wish to enter the kingdom of heaven are expected to reflect the character of one who has listened well to the message of Jesus and has sincerely tried to integrate it into our lives.
In recent weeks, we have been speaking of the qualities that Jesus shared about what is required of one who truly wants to be a follower of his message, what we might call “a kingdom citizen.” We have spoken about the virtue of kindness and treating even our enemies as our kin. We have reflected upon the importance compassion – having compassion for the stories of people who are different from us. We have spoken about humility, about
– talking less, listening more, and practicing curiosity. And in all of this, we consider the value of respect, acknowledging that everyone has a gift to bring to the table, even people we disagree with.
And this morning, we are invited to recommit ourselves to the virtue of love. Christians do not have a monopoly on love. But we do believe in a God who is Love and we believe that Love is at the core of our faith. Let us pray, we thank you O God for calling us to be a community of hope. We pray that you may continue to accompany us in the days ahead as we strive to build your City of Love here amongst us and imagine a day when we may live in peace. Amen.
In our readings today, we seek to listen in new ways as God’s word continues to inspire us for this time in which we live. The Rev. Amanda Nichols writes, “Love is both the motivation and the end-
product of God’s actions in history. And if we profess belief in this God, then love should also be the motivation and the end-product of our actions. Like the English language, biblical Greek has many different words for love. In our Scripture lesson, Jesus uses the word Agapē, which is typically defined as “selfless” or “self-giving” love . God’s love is commitment and action. The Old Testament word for this kind of love, hesed is a love within our relationship with God, a covenant love, steadfast love, a love that goes the distance. So, when Jesus uses that word agapē, he is commanding a kind of love that takes action – love that is committed, love that is steadfast, love that goes the distance, that makes a difference, that transforms the way we relate to each other. Because this is what God’s love has done for us.
It was 161 years ago on November 19, 1863 that Abraham Lincoln gave what is perhaps his best known the Gettysburg address. You may recall that the Union victory at Gettysburg was a key moment in the Civil War as it thwarted General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North. President Lincoln offered this brief speech in a dedication ceremony for a new national cemetery near the Gettysburg battlefield and President Lincoln spoke for a mere two minutes. In his address, he embraced once again the Declaration of Independence, recalling how the nation was “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal.”
By resurrecting these promises, Lincoln committed post-Civil War America to “a new birth of freedom.” Following the Civil War, the Reconstruction Amendments were adopted. These included the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments— which abolished slavery and inscribed the commitment to freedom and equality into the Constitution, and promised to ban racial discrimination in voting.
In the end, the Civil War would be the deadliest in our nation’s history with anywhere from 620-more than 800,000 who would die in the battles. Almost 2% of the population lost their lives. It divided our nation and caused great rifts within families and communities.
It was less than a year and a half after Gettysburg, on March 4, 1865, only 41 days before his assassination when President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for the second time. His second inaugural address previewed his plans for healing a once-divided nation. The speech is engraved on the north interior wall of the Lincoln Memorial.
He concluded his speech with these important words…”With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
“It was a remarkable statement. In the bloodiest and most tragic conflict in the history of our nation, with untold suffering, Lincoln called the Union (the people of the north) to eliminate ill will towards the South and to show charity instead. Charity, from the Latin CARITAS, is altruistic love, the Latin equivalent of the Greek agape.” (Rev. Adam Hamilton)
History is an important teacher. We pray that we never again see a civil war in this nation and yet sadly both threats and actual acts of violence have increased in recent years in our country related to politics.
Sometimes the most brilliant clarity emerges when things get the most chaotic. For Jesus and his disciples in Matthew 22, this teaching is one of the last ones that Jesus offers before he makes it clear that he knows is getting arrested and put to death soon. This passage is the distillation of Jesus’ ethical teachings. When we are wondering what the point of being Christian is, we can look to this passage: Love God. Love your neighbor.
When we are wondering how on earth we should approach this election season in 2024, with its astonishing complexity and historical firsts, we can look to this passage as well: Love God. Love your neighbor. We can look at all the chaos, and we can hear the words that are said. We can pay attention to what we say and what we do. And in the midst of all of it, we can ask ourselves: “Am I loving God here? Am I loving my neighbor here?” We might ask ourselves,
can we continue to embrace these greatest commandments, even if we feel like God has abandoned us, or that the neighbor we are being commanded to love is our enemy?
If we keep Christ at the center of our lives, if we keep the message of love and love in community at the center of our lives, we can and we must. Our communities, our nation, our world need us and those who will join us to be bold in our proclamations of love, to be bold in our words of hope, and to live from a place of peace always.
Resources:
Rev. Amanda Nichol
Rev. Adam Hamilton
Rev. Ben A. David Hensley, Worship Design Studios