The Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent: The incredible lightness of Love has lifted all the rocks that were thrown

The Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent

Exodus 3:7-12; Luke 6:27-36; Psalm 77:11-20 or Psalm 98:1-4

I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn't popular to talk about it in some circles today. I'm not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love, I'm talking about a strong, demanding love. And I have seen too much hate. I've seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I've seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we are moving against wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who has love has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When I think of how I would integrate the Gospel lesson for the day and the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. into a simple phrase, I have to borrow the words of a contemporary musician, Lenny Kravitz, and simply say, “Let Love rule.” We so rarely think of Love in terms of its power, its potency, and its ability to drive change, because what we see in the world is so opposite from those ideas.

Can Love be larger than the will to power? Can Love be larger than the desire to be right? Can Love really overcome violence, degradation, and even death? Love, which sometimes seems so mild, so cavity-inducingly sweet, so meek, so gentle, can it tear down walls, overthrow injustice, and bring us to a new day?

The answer must be yes, every single time. Not yes with caveats. Not yes with calculated augmentation. Not yes with any additions. Yes. Yes, love can do all those things.

When we look at the Gospel lesson through the lens of our own experiences with injustice, hatred, powerlessness, hopelessness, and marginalization, we realize that the very things which are mean to tear us down, keep us down, and strip us of our humanity are the very things which free us to love more freely. The opportunity to do the right thing is never more apparent than in the face of what wrong is being done at that very moment. The contrast is stark, and it should be. Jesus asks us to be merciful and kind and loving, not because of any reward we might have, but because it’s what God does, what God is, and how we would wish to be treated ourselves. We are reminded that returning hurt for hurt is not appropriate for someone who is called to Love. The right thing is the right thing, irrespective of the reward offered at the end of the day. And Love is always the right thing.

Love is the only thing that has lasted in the grand sweep of human experience. As we remember our mortality today, as we remember the cross of ashes we bore on our foreheads a few short weeks ago, I would invite us to remember that small but powerful fact. Athens crumbled. Rome burned. The Temple itself was torn down, save for one wall. And under the weight of all that knowledge, all that order, all that dedication to religion over relationship, the incredible lightness of Love has lifted all the rocks that were thrown, all the timbers that were singed, all the books that were annihilated, and redeemed all of it.

Imagine what Love still has to do in the world…and imagine the Kingdom that is coming. Let Love rule.

--Rachel