John 15:9-17
I watched a video on Facebook about a month ago. It can be found on You Tube at (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqGPa84jM2M&list=RDoqGPa84jM2M). A young male person of color was sitting on what was the front steps of a completely wrecked house. He opened with “the world is coming to an end” and for the next 3 minutes he listed everything from environment to discrimination, assaults and violence to sexual exploitation, consumerism to greed. The list was long (he was talking fast) – long, discouraging and overwhelming. When my brain would not accept another word, he finally stopped, stood us and said, “the only solution is Love… the kind of love that is mindful, forgiving and an act of kindness. Love that changes our hearts so that anger becomes sympathy, hatred becomes compassion and cruelty becomes kindness.” He closed by saying, “The world is coming to an end. The Path to a new beginning starts within you”
How can we accept the invitation from both today’s gospel and this young man to see all of our relationships transformed in the image of that love -- a love in which no one is anonymous or dispensable, no one is cast aside as irredeemable, and everyone exercises the kind of relaxed and joyful generosity that happens when nobody is keeping score in any arena.
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