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Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Lectionary C

In the gospel for this seventh Sunday of Epiphany, Jesus is speaking about love. If we are keen Bible readers, we know that love is Jesus’s favorite topic. Whether we frame some of His actions into humility, unselfishness, compassion or pure friendship, we know His actions are undergirded by love.

One of the struggles we have when trying to unpack Jesus’s way of loving is the fact that we oftentimes segment love into bias love and unbiased love. We want to love those whom we like different from others who we may not like or know.

The gospel before us today makes clear that Jesus’s love is boundless. It is not for one more than the other. It is for the saint and the sinner, it is for those with whom we cast judgement as undeserving of love.

Jesus is using extreme examples to show us that love is the way. Clearly, Jesus is teaching in this portion of Luke’s Gospel that “if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?”

Pure love is first recognized in the human person that all are created in the image of God and God loves us equally. We experience that love through our baptism. It is the witness we make when we say to a baby you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. It is when we are so captivated by love that we see the eyes of Jesus in our brothers’ eyes.

Brathwaite

We see our deserving self-wanting and waiting to lend that helping hand to the other as we retort the proverbial saying, “but for the grace of God go I.” God made us for love and in His wisdom sent Jesus to show us how to love. He came to show us love is the way.

– The Rev. Chris Brathwaite is assisting Bishop Brewer with pastoral care to the clergy.