Risking Love
I Corinthians 13:1–13 Luke 4:21–30 Jeremiah 1:4–10 Psalm 71:1–6
Preached by the Reverend Kathy Peters
January 31, 2010
Our second scripture this morning comes from the gospel of Luke in the 4th chapter. Let us first remember the scripture from Isaiah that Jesus quoted in the passage from last week  
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me 
        to bring good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to proclaim 
        release to the captives 
     and recovery of sight to the blind, 
        to let the oppressed go free, 
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”   (Luke 4: 18-19)
Here now our lesson for this morning:   Luke 4:21-30
Everyone speaks well of Jesus initially and they were amazed at the gracious words that came out of his mouth……one has to wonder why he doesn’t stop there while he’s ahead. Instead, Jesus interprets the Isaiah text in a provocative and prophetic way by suggesting that outsiders such as a gentile widow and a foreign leper may be blessed by God. And then the people run him out of town. We have our standards you know.  This love your neighbor stuff should only go so far. The NIMBY (not in my backyard) principle was alive and well even in the time of Jesus.
Our scripture lessons this morning (as scripture does always!) challenge us to see not only what God is like….extravagantly loving and accepting…  but also challenging us to take very seriously how God expects us to live in community.  Paul makes some serious claims as to what love ought to look like and Jesus asks us to widen the circle of who we include in that love. These words about love that are so pleasant and comforting to hear at a wedding call us to a high standard in all of our dealings with one another………family, friends and strangers!  Jesus pushes the limits of an ancient scripture that those in the temple that day had heard over and over again to say you need to open your heart to those whom you have always considered to be outside God’s circle of love. How often are we open to hearing the message of love and care and acceptance that our two readings remind us about this morning until it involves some sort of sacrifice on our part? Who has God put in our path this day that we need to risk loving?

 In a recent series of articles about the homeless in our state, Hartford Courant reporter Monica Polanco (Harford Courant Dec. 8, 2009) quoted Jeffery Freiser executive director of the CT Housing Coalition as he spoke about the lack of affordable housing in our state. “At its worst, some people see their town lines as an immigration border. And they use zoning to keep certain people out. Therefore we fight against hyper-segregation of CT residential patterns.”  Not in my backyard because affordable housing means more kids and that might affect my taxes. Not in my back yard because that type of housing (which BTW according to Freiser is no longer large stark cheaply constructed buildings but rather designed to be smaller, well built structures that fit into their neighborhoods)…that type of housing  will run down my property values. Not in my back yard because really I am afraid of “those” people.   Are the homeless of our region the folks we are being called to risk loving?  What might that mean?  Getting involved with the Eddy shelter or St Vincent DePaul in Middletown? Being an active part of the project to end homelessness in Middlesex County in the next ten years? Working on a Habitat for Humanity build? Working to get affordable housing here in Chester? What are we willing to risk doing?

And if not the homeless……who are we being asked to risk loving?  

In the recent hit movie Avatar, the 10 foot tall blue skinned residents of Pandora use the expression “I see you” to convey (I think) an awareness that what is visible to the eye is not all that a person is. “I see you” is awareness of the depth and potential for love and goodness of each living being. Who are we being asked to “see”? How are we being asked to widen our circle of those we risk interacting with?  Who are the poor, the blind, the oppressed that we need to see? The homeless, the hungry, the people of Haiti, the differently abled, the under employed, those without adequate health care? 
As I listened to the undercurrent of what I thought bordered on heckling and disrespect during the State of Union address this week, I was disturbed as I have often been in the last year as to the level of the us and them rhetoric that seems to be preventing us as a nation from solving any problem. If it is a Republican idea…no Democrat can support it….it is a Democrat’s idea no Republican can support it….we have stopped listening to one another. What are we afraid of losing? How do we as a church community fail to risk loving the “them” that God puts in our path?  How might we say “I see you”?
Parker Palmer a Quaker theologian wrote: 
[T]he mission of the church is not to enlarge its membership, not to bring outsiders to accept its terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way - to love the world as God did and does.…If we are able to love the world, that will be the best demonstration of the truth which the church has been given. (as quoted in S.A.M.U.E.L. ucc.org 1/31/10)
Yep it is the same old message again.  God loves us!  God has gifted us with plenty! So what does that mean?  Who do we need to risk loving?
As I ended my sermon last week…I end it this week…….may God grant us the courage to strive to an even more excellent way of risking  love, of showing and sharing God’s love, both in our individual lives and in the ministries of this community of faith.  Amen