Spirit of the Heartland
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour

"You are not supposed to love her." Ruth, the good Maobite girl, loves Naomi, her foreign mother-in-law. Her love is not acceptable by those around her.

But it's not just Ruth loving Naomi. It's all those loves that step over presumed boundaries and shatter our neat, little worlds:

• the white woman kissing the black man,
• the banker's son inviting migrant worker's kid to his birthday party,
• the woman married to a man twenty years younger than she,
• the missouri synod lutheran receiving communion from the roman priest,
• the man in love with another man,
• the tall, elegant rabbi's daughter asking to the prom the Buddhist dishboy from the Thai restaurant.

"What is truth?" It is, of course, not Ruth's question. The word's belong to Pontius Pilate. It is his response, probably bitter and sarcastic, to Jesus' statement, "Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

We ask Pilate's question when we hear things proclaimed as truth that don't match our experience of truth. How are we to know, in the midst of controversy, "What is truth?"

• Do we listen to our parish priest?
• To the scientists?
• To our bishop?
• To our parents?
• To the "greater church"?
• To the television?
• To scripture? And if so, which translation?

So, did you listen? Listen again:

"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; . . . This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Jesus, the truth, is telling us something about love. That's no small thing to ask, "to love as Jesus has loved."

Think about it. Jesus seems to have loved in all the wrong places. Not only has he got that beloved disciple lounging around on his breast, but he takes one look at some rich young ruler and loves him. At the same time, he seems rather too fond of low life: smelly fishermen, tax collectors, and prostitutes. He touches the untouchables, heals the crazies and foreigners, and rudely steps over every boundary that the world tries to put on his love.

Jesus' love seems boundless. Love as unlimited, in fact, as God. That's just how Jesus himself describes it: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you." And he asks us to "abide" in that love.

What on earth can Jesus mean by that? –"Abide in"? "Remain in, stay in"-- Maybe it has something to do with the other thing he keeps saying: "Follow me."? Perhaps Ruth's response to Naomi is the response Jesus hoped for when he said to his friends, "Follow me."

"Yes, Jesus, wherever you go, I will go Wherever you stay, I'll stay there, too. Your people will be my people. And your God will be my God."

Fortunately, when Jesus commands us to "love as he loved us," we're not alone. Jesus says to us, "Abide in MY love." That's the only way we can begin to keep his commandment to love.

Abide in Christ. Where the love is Christ's love in us, there are no boundaries and no outcasts. And like a vine and branches it grows and spreads. That's a way to recognize that it is God's love rather than our own: the growth can't be stopped. It overflows all around it.

When God's love steps over our boundaries, we are shocked, frightened, and finally blessed. Many of us here have seen the love between Cedar and Johanna. And we have been blessed because they have the courage to live that love and to share it.

That's the way hearts are changed. Love that comes out and steps over boundaries. Love that, in spite of the shock and fear, abides -- that is the love that changes hearts. Love changes hearts in a way that no scientist, sermon, or tv news special will ever do.

That love speaks the truth of Jesus' scandalous love in our lives. That love is where we are called to stay and grow. Abide in Christ. It's a safe place to stay; there is no more need to wander. The love has come home; the branches recognize the vine. Jesus' Father is our Father; we abide together in Christ. Welcome home, my sisters and brothers.