The Beloved Community

“Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that. Yes, love—which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the solution to the race problem.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957

As day two of the FTE Conference comes to a close I find myself spiritually exhausted. If you’ve ever preached a sermon you know what I am talking about. Spiritual exhaustion is that moment when you have given or received your limit of spiritual food for the day. I mean we all get “full” when we eat right? It’s the same concept. Currently I am suffering from a severe case of spiritual “fullness.”

Today was our first day to dive right in and explore the in’s and out’s of The Beloved Community - a radical vision inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King. It was a vision grounded in the promises of grace, love, mercy, compassion, and healing - promises that, he hoped, would alleviate the race problem and bring healing and justice to our society. It was a heavenly vision inspired by his interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.

Today we talked a lot about building and understanding what a Beloved Community really is. After day two I think I am understanding just what Dr. King envisioned.

This conference is a Beloved Community. We are a community of believers gathered together under the auspices of grace and love for one another working toward a common purpose and goal - spreading the love of Jesus, living in intentional relationships with those around us, being accepting - not tolerant of people around us (I don’t believe in tolerance - tolerance creates a binary of “us” tolerating “them”), and working towards the common good of humanity.

This morning in Opening Worship Becca Stephens, founder of Thistle Farms, said, “in the end, grace and love are the most powerful elements of social change we have” echoing the words of Dr. King. “Love is creative and redemptive,” he said. Love is a way to redeem things that are broken and create new ways of being among struggle and strife.

Though all of us gathered here at this conference may not agree on doctrine, polity, or policy of our churches or communities we can agree on love and grace being expressions of right action and not simply right belief.

A theologian by the name of Bruce Epperly once said,

“We have too often proclaimed the equality of humankind and defined some persons as non-human, unworthy of self-determination, equality, or loving relationships. We have affirmed the quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and condemned some persons, based on the accidents of economics, ethnicity, or sexuality, to lives of misery, duplicity, and limitation.”

The promise and hope that can be gathered from this is that change is possible and has happened. The church is equipped with leaders, much like those at this conference, who will change how we experience church and how the world perceives of the church. Leaders who have different gifts, but all these gifts when combined, manifests into a mighty and powerful ministry for the glory of God.

We can do it, I promise… but only through grace and love of God, neighbor, and self. Change is happening, equality is possible, and God still sits on the throne!

Glory to God, Amen.

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