Are you infected? Wanna be?

But imagine showing love to a group bent on bringing harm to you, your family and your friends — simply because of the color of your skin.

The civil rights movement in America can teach us a lot about loving our neighbor — and loving our enemies.

“The black freedom struggle is the best example of bringing together the quest for unarmed truth and unconditional love in the face of American Terrorism for 400 years. Instead of a Black al-Qaeda you get Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther.” – Dr Cornel West

Kevin Hendricks shares an even more personal look at how love defeated the KKK through one Rev. Wade Watts.

When Oklahoma State Sen. Gene Stipe and civil rights activist Wade Watts walked into a restaurant in the late 1950s, a waitress confronted them at the door and told Watts, an African American, that the restaurant did not serve Negroes.

With a smile, Watts replied, “I don’t eat Negroes. I just came to get some ham and eggs.”

And as Kevin writes, that’s tame compared to Watts’ reactions to Clary as detailed in this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

May we all have the power to love in the face of adversity. May we all have the courage to face our enemies with a smile and love. May we give sacrificial love to everyone within our sphere of influence. And may our lives exhibit the love that has changed our lives — so that it may change the lives of others as well.

I’m reading the new book “We Get to Carry Each Other – The Gospel According to U2″ (by Greg Garrett) right now and it talks a lot about community and how the band has always emphasized helping those around us and the privilege we have to actually GET to carry each other. Yet for some reason we seem to think its a burden to build community, to open up to others, to share and serve.

How different our outlook and lives could be if we saw serving and loving others is actually a privilege – a calling – a purpose in our lives…

Imagine if you could find your purpose in serving your neighbors? Imagine if you could find your purpose in loving your spouse unconditionally? Imagine if you could find your purpose in serving your kids?

Imagine if we built ekklesia all around us – being the hands and feet of Christ in our own sphere of influence?

Wow!

Chewing on these ideas, I was struck by some great questions that Ryan asks on his blog…

1. Am I okay with having surface-level relationships with everyone?
2. Outside of my family, who can I really trust?
3. Do I have people in my life that I can call at 3am when everything is falling apart?
4. Are there people around me who can strengthen me when I’m weak?
5. Am I using my God-given gifts, talents, or abilities to serve my friends?
6. Am I investing MORE or LESS into the relationship than the person I’m trying to build a relationship with?

Ryan also shares some suggested steps towards authentic community:

1. Choose wisely. You don’t need to be friends with everyone.
2. Get coffee, have someone over for dinner, go play golf, etc..
3. Be intentional. Ask a deeper question // reciprocate.
4. Work at it. Don’t assume a relationship is fine.
5. Be transparent and authentic yourself.

What about you? What do you imagine would change if we really saw the privilege in carrying one another? Is there anything missing from either list?

(song of solomon 7:10)

Imagine if this was your story… an alcoholic, Catholic, ex-Catholic, and then Catholic again, former priest, divorcee and a sinner saved by grace.

What would you write about?

I’d hope no matter how many stories you told and no matter how many books you wrote, you’d always go back to reminding folks about God’s Amazing Grace. It’s “the larger and more important story. Only God, in His fury, knows the whole of it.”

Brennan Manning writes in his latest offering:

In my forty-four years of ministry, the furious love of God has been the dominant theme of my life. I’ve varied with titles such as Ragamuffin Gospel, Abba’s Child and The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, but they are all facets of the same gem: that the shattering truth of the transcendent God seeking intimacy with us is not well served by gauzy sentimentality, schmaltz, or a naked appeal to emotion, but rather in the boiling bouillabaisse of shock bordering on disbelief, wonder akin to incredulity, and the affectionate awe tinged by doubt.

I’ve been surprised to read some of the reviews of Manning’s latest book, “The Furious Longing of God.” Many seem to think its a book just for the downtrodden, those with low self-esteem, those who need a pick-me-up. But I’m certain we all need reminders of God’s furious love for each of us – each and every day.

We all need to be reminded that the living God is passionate and furious longing to have an intimate loving relationship with each of us. It’s no wonder that Jesus and Scripture often refer to the relationship between God and man as similar to the relationship between a groom and his bride. It’s a union.

A union that “not only transcends every political, social, cultural and religious consideration and not only infuses them with ultimate meaning, but defines the very purpose of life itself.”

We need to be reminded that not only does God have this furious longing for us, but also “for real sinners, thieves, adulterers and terrorists, for those caught up in squalid choices and failed dreams.”

When we realize how passionate God is about us — and that that same passion extends to the far reaches of man-kind — how can we ever choose to ignore those around us?

“The Kingdom of God is not a subdivision for the self-righteous or for those who lay claim to private visions of doubtful authenticity and boast they possess the state secret of their salvation. No, as Eugene Kennedy notes, “it is for a larger, homelier, and less self-conscious people who know they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle.”

We can claim to be missional, loving Christians all day long, but until we put together the ideas that it is no longer us, but Christ living in us and that “the living acts of a Christian somehow become the living acts of Christ” alongside with the idea that God has a furious longing for each of us — we’re missing out on so much.

“For His love is never, never, never based on our performance, never conditioned by our moods — of elation or depression. The furious love of God knows no shadow of alteration or change. It is reliable. And always tender.”

And thus our love for others should be the same. We should have the same love for our spouses, our kids, our parents, our siblings, our extended family, our neighbors, our co-workers, those who are easy to love and those who are not so easy to love.

The book itself is full of great examples of the deep, deep, reckless, fury that we call the love of God. I want you all to read it and want to pass my copy off to so many others – but selfishly I want to hold on to it and refer back to it over and over again.

Say what you will about my “lack of self-worth” or my “need for affirmation” but I still need those daily reminders in my life — of the deep, deep love of God — not just for me — but for all mankind.

See a preview of the book via Amazon.

Photo/design by ministrygrowers

Last week Peter Rollins wrote (in the spirit of the Apostle Paul)::

You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither high church nor low church, Fox nor CNN, citizen not alien, capitalist nor communist, gay nor straight, beautiful nor ugly, East nor West, theist nor atheist, Israel nor Palestine, hawk nor dove, American nor Iraqi, married nor divorced, uptown nor downtown, terrorist nor freedom fighter, paedophile nor loving parent, priest nor prophet, fame nor obscurity, Christian nor non-Christian, for all are made one in Christ Jesus. (ht: Existentialpunk)

Today, Thomas shared thoughts on Unity vs Uniformity in our tribes and communities of faith.

I believe wholeheartedly in the “ones” in this passage (Eph 4:1-16):

• one body
• one Spirit
• one hope
• one Lord
• one faith
• one baptism
• one God and Father of all… who is over all and through all and in all.

This is unity… but this doesn’t demand uniformity. The very passage speaks of having different giftings… we are gifted with different things so that we can make a stronger WHOLE than the SUM OF OUR PARTS.

We are all different. We all have different experiences… different baggage… different tastes and preferences and worldviews. This diversity makes the collective whole stronger.

He continued, saying that our communities of faith should not be melting pots where everything is thrown out and the end result is goop, but instead we should be salads — where everything is put together to add value and unique flavor and nutrition.

A carrot by itself is OK but add it with spinach or lettuce and tomatoes and you get a tasty salad. Throw in a few nuts (like most of our communities of faith have ) and you have WOW! All the flavors blend together as one.

Perhaps this is why Jesus prayed for the generations of Christ followers that would come after him ::

I’m praying not only for them
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
The same glory you gave me, I gave them,
So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—
I in them and you in me.
Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,
And give the godless world evidence
That you’ve sent me and loved them
In the same way you’ve loved me. – John 17:20-23

I hope that in all my communities of faith I offer spaces of grace. Where the labels are shed at the door and a space is created where everyone is equal, regardless of where they are in their walk, regardless of what bounded set they find themselves in, regardless how far they are from the center point as long as we’re all helping draw one another to the True Center Point.