real love always involves risk

Loving your enemy and forgiving those who hate you, for instance, will not necessarily make you many friends. There will be many, including family, for whom such a way of living will be alien and strange.

When you advocate a love that turns slaves into equals and asylum seekers into people with the same rights as the rest of us, regardless of the cost, you are not going to be admired and applauded. The letters pages of the newspapers and the talk back airwaves will not fill up with voices saying “you can tell they are Christians by their love.” Instead the voices will say that we are failing in our duty to love those closest to us. That we are putting at risk the interests of those for whom we have the greatest responsibility, those closest to us. They’ll say that we are failing to love our country, our families. They’ll say we are a bunch of bleeding hearts that don’t care enough about our children’s welfare. They’ll say we are advocating the destruction of everything our society holds dear, and that such an attitude has more to do with hate than love.

And that’s exactly what Jesus warned us about. He said that if we are not willing to risk being accused of hating our families, then we haven’t got what it takes to follow him. The fact is though, that real love always involves risks. Real love always lies beyond our comfort zones. And a new community founded on risky, socially controversial, deep love is well and truly worth whatever discomfort and disrepute it takes. Jesus has gone that way before us, and as we gather around this table we are reminded that he was broken for it. But we are also reminded that on the other side of the deep waters of disrepute, scandal and death lies the promised land where the new wine of love and mercy and peace is poured. And with the bread and wine of scandalous love, we are nourished for the unpopular journey into the ultimate love.

http://www.laughingbird.net/SermonTexts/0228.html