Do We Love?

Gospel: John 15: 9-17

Love is the entirety of Christianity.  It is its sole command; it is the every essence and being of God.  It is the entire life of Jesus.  If we are experiencing a decline in Christianity, it is due not to any change or decline in God but in us.  God's love remains ever constant like the rays of the sun and the tide of the oceans.  It is our love that grows dim, our love that ebbs and flows.  

When Christianity is more about self-promotion on bombastic media empires, when it is more about the overtly political organizations it creates for its own self-interest, then it has failed to love.  Then it drives people away.  When, however, it is about people serving the hungry in soup kitchens and refugee shelters, when it is about providing clothing and hospitality to those who are cold and strangers and the sick - when it is concrete care of those in need as Jesus did, then that love attracts others and leads them to love as well.

Christians need not leave because they feel driven out by the media empires and political machines falsely branded as Christian.  Christians need only to reorganize and go out to extend love to the world in caring for those who are marginalized and poor, those who are sick and in prison, those who are without shelter and homeland.  Don't let the false voices and sham examples silence your voice and obscure your love.