Faith, Hope and Love

“Pray that the Church chooses to love in a climate of fear, and fear mongering. Pray we resist “us vs. them” mentalities and realize we belong to each other.”  April 23rd, Dominique Gilliard

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. from 1 Corinthians 13

It took me forever to prepare to pray from this prompt. Days, truly. Because I believe that so many people the church refuses to love already love humans more than us Christians tend to. I believe that when the time comes, the people who place their bodies between the oppressed and the supremacist terrorists will be bold Black activists and native nations. It will be immigrants and the working poor who have been tokenized by toxic philanthropy. Victory will go to the women and children who are treated as sympathy ploys for complementarian gains. 

The last will be first. The lovers will be the unloved. And the “us” people who stand apart from them, judging them, will weep. We see it already in these days of want and woe. Who is sheltering comfortably at home (myself included) yet refusing to lift two twitter fingers in acts of kindness for the people at risk? Southern Baptists defend racist leaders. Christian thought conferences support white power evangelists. Many keep complacently silent while some of us are brave. Without love in action, we are all doomed.

Many Christians believe that we will see Jesus someday, bringing justice and peace in every place; on that day our faith will be complete and that hope will be fulfilled. These attributes of our belief have an end, a happy ending no doubt, but an end nonetheless. Love, however, is not only eternal, but it’s only maturity is in its intensity. It does not change. The affections and longing we feel for our friends and loved ones, the compassion we sense for creation and the care that we share for each other is itself a foretaste of perfection. I believe that mercy is the fruit of love, and mourning is a species of mercy. 

While the great enemies of frailty and death will end when the day of justice comes, this love that compels our actions right now will remain as the chief emotion that marks us as children of God.

Love makes living matter. It drives our sense of what is sacred. It directs our spending and sensualities. Love dictates our commitments, it shapes our values. Love marks our preferences and leads to experiences of growth or away from situations that threaten our humanity. Love is the force that leads to life. And it is better than life.

Jesus taught us, “love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  I believe that people who show indifference, apathy and outright hatred toward others are completely out of touch with their true value. The current president of the United States, for example, is so dense to what he is meant to contribute to the network of human mutuality that he is unable to add anything to our world besides torture, deceit and stupidity. For people in power, the opposite of love is not hatred; at least, not merely. The opposite of love is death. 

People of faith, we cannot shrink from the responsibility of showing love in this season of sadness. We are to show love through mourning, through sacrifice, and through fellowship. Our brother Dominique presents us with a challenging prompt. It flows so effortlessly to read! We belong to each other… choose love… resist us v them. But oh how we stumble. For the fewer neighbors we care to embrace, the less we are able to apprehend mercy for ourselves.

That is, the more narrow our view of those who deserve love, the more hatred becomes our own lens of self-knowing. We need the Author of love and unity to show up in our seasons of stress, to comfort us in sickness and silent suffering. Only the God who is Love can teach us how to love one another with the passion of the Divine.

Lord of Love, hear the prayers of your people.

Creator, Redeemer, Comforter. Master, Savior and Guide. We come to you this day, full of restless wonder, for we are impatient to be free. We are humbled to the dust by the horrors of loss, violence, neglect and abuse, for we are yearning to live in peace. How shall we move in our standstill? How then shall we live in this season of death?

Bring us the witness of your word to move us to good works in the world. O Lord, let us show love in this climate of fear. Deliver us from the evils of bigotry, sexism and racism. Deliver us from the evil of despising our neighbors. Lead us to a life of love.

Love to the anxious, love to the depressed and stressed

Love to queer and trans communities

Love to the unemployed

Love to children

Love to the aging

Love to incarcerated people

Love to sex workers

Love to essential workers

Lord bring us the witness of your unity, to move us to good works for one another. Guide us away from division. Give us the knowledge and insight to believe what is true, and to fight all deceptions that murder the innocent. Deliver us from the evil of despising each other.

Love with our time 

Love with our advocacy

Love with our resources

Love with our proximity

Love with our activism

Love with our empathy

Love with our gratitude

Show us how to love oh Lord, these people who will save us. These people whose bodies are on the line. Give us the Spirit of unity that resists the divisions our government places on income brackets and racial identities. Give us a living, active testimony that your value of life is higher than our preferences and expectations. Teach us to see ourselves more realistically. Remove the burdens of perfectionism, people pleasing, achievement and vocational success so that we can truly see each other. Teach us how to embrace each other even when our bodies must be distant. Teach us the beauty of protection that exists even when our bodies cannot be close. 

And tell us what to do with our bodies. Lord, what pains we bear as we bid our loved ones farewell over the phone, or not at all. What rage we carry into every new press conference, every news brief, every new day that brings a new death. Make us truth tellers for the sake of love.

O Lord of Truth, will you give us a mighty faith to stand sure in times of confusion. Will you show us the worth of every risk we take to tell the truth?

Your church, your children O God, we are in upheaval once again. We pray this day for every person who believes the report that the current president is your anointed messenger. We pray that faith communities would unite to share the simple message of truth - the United States is a lie. Teach us to come together to defeat white supremacy and labor in your mission of restoration.

Show us O God, where wickedness truly lies, so that we can stop blaming each other and start working to get rid of the mess that is killing us. Free us from self-flattery when we do good works. End the requisite boasting of our own charity- show us how needy we truly are. Forgive us when we accuse the poor of constructing their own poverty. Lead us by your love into a life of liberty, so that we will be known by our acts of solidarity. Lord, let our lives be a testament of love.

I have a message from God in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:

There is no fear of God before their eyes. 

In their own eyes they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin.

The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful; they fail to act wisely or do good.

Even on their beds they plot evil; they commit themselves to a sinful course and do not reject what is wrong. from Psalm 36

Lord, your church is full of wicked people who have not rejected what is wrong. The vice president claims to know you and love you, but he has committed himself to a murderous course. He has murdered the poor with his lies. Will you raise up your church to challenge his evil?

Lord, many of your children are aware of wickedness but choose to hide it. We have sinned in our thirst for success. We have flattered ourselves as so holy that we are incapable of making mistakes. Will you transform the hearts and minds of the people who despise mercy? Will you turn their hoarding into giving? Will you make these robbers into restorers? Will you teach the evil doers how to love? You have told us to love our enemies. For many of us you have made our enemies our neighbors. You must protect us, O God. For while we love these neighbors, they plot our destruction. Only your love can drive out these murderers from our midst.

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. fromPsalm 36, Matthew 7

When we love each other, when we dwell in unity, we will more faithfully reflect our source, the Author of Love. We pray for justice, O Lord. We pray for the depths of your right action to rid us of the shallow minds who lord over us. We pray today O Lord, that your love will uncover the truth, long shrouded by eras of massacre, terror and death, and hasten the joy and brightness of the garments of life.

Lord, hear the prayers of your people, Amen.

Experience: Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala

https://www.jazz.org/gala2020/?_ga=2.178044389.1118385703.1587693247-2112987205.1587693247 

Music: Love Medley, Shekinah Ministries / Love, Kirk Franklin / I Need You to Survive, Hezekiah Walker 

Artwork: Kadir Nelson

Prayer Requests: https://forms.gle/n8SXo2TbySX3T2iE6

COVID-19 Prayer Calendar by Dominique Gilliard

https://dominiquegilliard.com/2020/03/22/covid-19-prayer-calendars/