Love At Work
Romans 13: 8-14
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church

I was listening to a workout music mix my 19 year old niece, Rose, made for me: Jack Johnson, Missy Elliot, Green Day. It was quite a mix and I was surprised to hear in that mix the reggae beat and spirit of Bob Marley:

One love, one heart
Let's get together and feel all right
Hear the children crying (One love)
Hear the children crying (One heart)
"Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right."

Later, I heard the news about the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the broken levees. Names and faces of friends in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and the words of Marley’s song filled my prayers, followed by an urgent desire and decision to take action. Each day I listen, watch and read the news seeking the strange comfort of information.

J.P. McGuire, our annual conference coordinator of United Methodist Volunteers In Mission shared on Wednesday, just before he left for Louisiana, that the number of displaced persons from this storm and crisis may reach 3 million. I got word from Alabama just yesterday from Kristen Satchen, a friend on the staff of UMCOR: the number of people they will need to help resettle in Alabama alone is 300,000.

One love. One heart. And that heart is breaking.

Anne LaMott in her new book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith retells the Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, “Why on our hearts, and not in them?” The rabbi answered, “Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.” (p. 73)

This communion Sunday as we take bread, bless and break it, may our hearts break and the holy words fall inside. For love of neighbor, one love, one heart, God’s heart… broken and breaking, may we find new life….new community…

We come to this small table surrounded … by images … of lives swept away by wind and water, whole communities destroyed… images of the poor, the sick, abandoned… unfolding horrors which call our hearts to break and re-call the tsunami of less than one year ago.

TV evangelists claim this devastation is the work of the devil or God’s judgment, progressives claim it is consequence of poor global and regional environmental and economic policy.

At times of great suffering, our first question of God and one another may well be “why?” but our first response must be “what?”

What is happening? What can we do for those who suffer?

Pray. Give. Grieve. Serve. Share.
One love. One heart. Together.

While we pray and grieve … and give and serve, and share … we will keep other questions alive in the weeks and months ahead:
Questions of who.

“Who suffers?”

A garage shuttle driver said to me on Friday, “I don’t want to say what question come to me bout Louisiana.” I waited. Then he asked, “If those were rich white folks, what do you think would happen?”

One lead article in this morning’s New York Times says, “What a shocked world saw exposed in New Orleans last week wasn’t just a broken levee. It was a cleavage of race and class …” Sociologist Christopher Jencks said, “This is a pretty graphic illustration of who gets left behind in this society – in a literal way.”

One blogger wrote … “the relatively slow response to bring aid to the mostly impoverished minorities who were unable to leave New Orleans has given rise to significant questions of justice.”

Who suffers and why? And who are we as a human family?

Such questions are humbling. But the humility of a breaking heart is empowering. Humility draws us to God and to one another. Humility leads us to remember that we can't control the wind. But we can determine how we order our common life. Humility leads us to compassionate community. In the Bible, the heart is not the seat of emotion, it is center of the will.

The census bureau reported last week that the U.S. poverty rate has grown, and for the first time on record household incomes have failed to increase for five straight years. Income inequality rose to all-time highs last year. And census numbers do not include gains from stock holdings, which would further increase inequality.

Here in northern California full time workers struggle every day to survive without basic medical care, adequate food, transportation, and shelter. Poverty is an unnatural disaster that forces the poor to live in a perpetual state of emergency. It is not wind or waves but the lack of will and leadership that devastates families and communities around the world and across this country.

In a week of incredible human suffering and loss … and on a day when we remember the contributions as well as struggles of those who labor … we gather to break open our hearts … that the holy words might fall inside.

Our Scripture this morning from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome reminds us how to order our lives, “Owe no one anything – except to love one another… Love your neighbor as yourself… Love does no wrong to a neighbor;… now is the moment for you to wake from sleep… Let us then lay aside the words of darkness and put on the armor of light…

Jesus is that light. Jesus is the holy word that fall inside our hearts.

When we Put on the Lord Jesus Christ … Our hearts will be broken open … and we will be changed … and redeemed. We will be the body of Christ, love at work, from the core of God’s hurting, healing heart. May it be so.