Love - Monday Musing, June 22, 2020

Dear Church,

Love. I have been thinking about love lately. Not because I received my first request to officiate a wedding later this summer, but rather words of a prayer I read last week have stayed with me: “Love without justice is no love at all.”

I subscribe to “Gifts in Open Hands” blog, authored by Rev. Maren Tirabassi, a retired UCC minister who lives in New Hampshire. Last Tuesday’s blog was written by Rev. Gayanne Frater, a hospital chaplain in Aotearo, New Zealand.

Frater prays,

God of infinite mercy,

We weep when holy text is used to deny others’ breath.

open our eyes, our ears, our hearts

to the truth that for you,

love without justice, is not love at all.

You are undoubted familiar with the chant “No Justice, No Peace” at the Black Lives Matter protests that have been going on around the country. But did you know that the chant is not a repeat of the same phrase, but rather the complete chant is this: “No Justice, No Peace, Know Justice, Know Peace.”

Words from The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. continue to inspire us today. King has said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice” and “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

So, if love without justice is not love at all, then love = justice. And since justice = peace, we can presume that love = justice = peace. Therefore, love = peace.

In his book, Strength to Love, Dr. King wrote, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

Love. Now you can think about love this week.

Faithfully,

Darren