What Love Looks Like
Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
Pastor, First Congregational UCC
Manhattan, KS
KO Conference Vice President
Happy Easter, KO Beloveds!
As we enter into a new season of the church year, I find myself contemplating what it looks like to live as Easter People - both as individuals and as a Church. This time last year, as we all scrambled to adjust to some kind of “new normal” in a pandemic world, we spent a lot of time in our congregation talking about the essentials as followers of Jesus. And the thing that kept coming back to me over and over again was that Jesus was very clear about what the most important things are: love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves.
When you put it like that, it sounds so simple. But the reality of choosing to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves day in and day out isn’t so easy, is it? It’s easy to love when things are going well or when we’re surrounded with people we like. It’s harder when we rub up against people we don’t understand or when we are forced to be apart from one another. When I start to get tangled up in the challenging aspects of love, I turn to great teachers to help me.
I am reminded that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called love “the most durable power.” And I am forever grateful to him for his insistence on pulling apart the different types of love in Greek (philio, eros, agape). The love that Jesus commands us to is agape, which Dr. King defines as an unconditional love for every person. Now if you’re like me, you’re probably thinking, “Woah, there, pastor. Unconditional love for EVERY person? You’ve got to be kidding.” Well, Dr. King wasn’t. And it doesn’t seem that Jesus was, either, I’m sorry to report.
This is where I’ve also found the work of bell hooks in All About Love to be immensely helpful. hooks notes that love is often defined as a feeling, an affection for others. But she reminds us that love is actually about actions and behavior. It’s not about whether we like someone or how we feel at all. Rather, she borrows the language of M. Scott Peck and defines love as “the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.” And that is something that can be done even in the absence of affection.
It seems to me that one of the things this world desperately needs is people who are willing to extend themselves for the purpose of nurturing each other. As they say at Mayflower UCC in Oklahoma City, that means “Every. Single. Other.” I know this work isn’t easy. Friends, to be totally honest, I’m still a little annoyed that the Spirit won’t leave me alone about this.
But I am awfully glad that if I am called to do this work of loving, I have companions on the journey. And that means I’m grateful for all of you in the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the United Church of Christ. This Easter, thank you for the ways you love - wastefully, foolishly, extravagantly - in your homes, your work, with your friends (and enemies!), and in your congregations and communities.