Love [ ] Without Limits:
Reflections on the First Leg of Our Journey…
Loving People of All Abilities Without Limits
As we said goodbye to long days and summer vacations and hello to changing light and the first day of school, we began a yearlong journey called Love Without Limits. The idea behind this theme is to explore how we, who understand ourselves as recipients of God’s limitless love, might in turn live into that way of love as we reach out to our neighbors. In particular, we are challenging ourselves to reach out to those individuals and groups of people for whom the whole Christian church could do a better job of loving. The current climate in our culture promotes division, shaming and blaming, even scapegoating of people who don’t exactly fit into an arbitrary definition of what is normal. There is less and less safe space for people who are ‘different’ because of their ethnicity, faith tradition, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class, age, income, etc. I am reminded of a line from the old camp song (at least that’s where I remember hearing it), “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” And I wonder, is this true today? In this country, in the year 2016, do people know the church by our love? Perhaps it is time for us to rethink our message… can we reclaim the good news that, in Christ, God’s unconditional, limitless love for all people has been revealed?
I am so pleased with the way we began this Love Without Limits journey. The theme for the last three Sundays has been Love People of All Abilities Without Limits. I am so thankful for the wonderful people who joined us for this conversation. Pastor Mike De Witt, ministry consultant for Bethesda Lutheran Communities, along with residents and caregivers from one of the nearby Bethesda Community homes, Pastor Bruce Strade and Cindy Wilkins from the Interfaith Disabilities Network of Oregon, and Pastor Mary Peterson, chaplain for Providence Hospice. When I set out to put this series together, I had no idea I would get three pastors in a row to join us! I think all three of them did an amazing job of connecting the ancient Old Testaments texts with our theme of loving people of all abilities without limits. Their messages were faithful, challenging and relevant to the issues we face in our world today. I am also thankful for all the people that hung around after worship to engage in conversation with our guests about what it meant to be a welcoming church to people who are different from us.
The next leg of the journey will begin on Sunday, October 9th… Love Our Muslim Neighbors Without Limits.Combining study resources, written and on DVD, with presentation and interactions with folks from Bilal Masjid mosque in Beaverton, we will spend seven weeks learning about Islam. The majority of this work will take place after worship during our 10:45am Faith Conversation hour. We are also working with leaders at Bilal Masjid to plan additional opportunities for fellowship and community building. This is a work in progress and we will keep you posted as events emerge. I hope all of you will take advantage of this opportunity to gain more understanding about Islam and make some new Muslim friends!
God’s peace,
Pastor David
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