GENUINE LOVE - A Homily

“Let love be genuine.”

Romans 12:9a

When I start preparing a homily that has a smorgasbord of topics to choose from this morning’s readings, I began by identifying a line or two from each of our lessons that grab my immediate attention and then start writing. About a page into this homily, I realized a strong tug to stick with just one very short statement from today’s reading of Paul’s Letter to the Romans:  “Let love be genuine.” 

What struck me with the entire passage from Romans was how relevant its message is for us today.  There is so much happening in our nation and in our world that can be described as disingenuous that it is hard to see anything as genuine, much less, experience genuine love.

So the question I pose for our consideration this morning is what is genuine love and how do we express it in a world so divided and so desperately in need of it?  

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To explore an answer to that question, I want to share with you a story that I believe exemplifies genuine love in our divisive times.  After the events in Charlottesville Virginia, several news outlets interviewed a young man by the name of Arno Michaelis – You may have seen his interviews or heard him talk on the radio.

At age 17 Arno became involved in White Power movement that included skinheads and neo-Nazis. Arno knows something of genuine love because he experienced it from the very people he hated; people who showed him unbelievable compassion, in spite of knowing what he identified himself as, what he stood for, and what he believed at the core of his being at the time.  Today, Arno is a contributor to “The Forgiveness Project,” a project started in the United Kingdom that is devoted to making peacemakers in our world.  He is also the author a book, “Life after Hate.”   

On the Forgiveness Project Website, Arno recalled the singular moment that cracked open his hate-filled heart to shed some light on his made-in-the-image-of-God origins.  It was an encounter with a black lady tending the cash register at a McDonald’s who noticing a swastika tattooed on his finger said to him, “You’re a better person than that.  I know that’s not who you are.”  Arno said of that moment, “Powerless against such compassion, I fled from her steady smile and authentic presence, never to return to that McDonald’s again.” [1]  From there he experienced a continuing flow of compassionate forgiveness from the very people he hated until he his hatred melted away and he became a zealot for forgiveness and peace.

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We don’t know the name of that black woman, but we know who she is – a child of God who I believe knows she’s a child of God.   And if you know you’re a child of God, you consequently know all of God’s children, including a white supremacist with swastika tattooed on his finger. 

This unnamed child of God is the one who can teach us something about genuine love and I want us to spend some time with her this morning.  Her two simple, straightforward, and heart-felt remarks to Arno exemplify what Paul means by genuine love.  So using Arno’s experience with her, we can examine what Paul gives as applicable advice for life in our times.

I think it safe to assume some things about this woman that can be garnered from Arno’s description of her; by what he described as her steady smile and her authentic presence. 

What can be assumed is a person who holds a lot of love in her heart, who values goodness over resentment, who knows what it is to be loved deeply loved by others and who feels the depth of God’s love in her life.  I do not doubt that her life is lived as a constant prayer which comes through as a subtext in her comments to Arno.  The warmth of her presence reveals her as the embodiment of hospitality.  

I think it safe to say that what lies at the core of her being is a burning light – the light we would identify as the light of Christ – a light that melts the darkness away. I can say that even though I don’t know if she identifies as a Christian, she certainly exudes the Christ I know.  She is a follower of Christ by virtue of who she is.

I also do not doubt she knows deep pain and suffering because she could so easily pick it out in Arno, but she has come at it from different place than Arno had because of the love she has experienced in her life – an experience Arno didn’t have or had forgotten about.   In two sentences, she was able to become a blessing to person who would harm and persecute her. 

In her simple approach she both rejoiced and wept with Arno through the warmth of her knowing smile that wiped away the tears he had forgotten about. She was the personification of harmony; being at peace with her true self and the world we share. 

Above all she made room for God, including God’s wrath.  

It sounds harsh, doesn’t it – God’s wrath –  but I  maintain that Arno felt the heat of God’s wrath in that short encounter with this woman because he turned and fled the scene never to return to that McDonald’s again.

As Arno said he was “Powerless against such compassion.”  Making room for God’s wrath allows us the room to be compassionate. 

Her compassion literally scared the hell out of him.  

So he ran because he was faced with a force greater than any he had ever encountered – the force of genuine love.

We must remember that God’s ways are not are ways, neither is God’s wrath our wrath. [2] The wrath of God is meted out in God’s flaming love (some might say purgatorial love) for those who incur it; a loving mercy that burns away the darkness from a soul.[3] We mortals have no such restorative wrath available in us – our wrath only knows and ends in destruction.

Scripture reminds us to never let the sun set on our anger, because our anger will consume us and those around us if allowed to continue.[4]  There comes a time, and it comes quickly for the faithfully aware, when we must stand aside and let God be God, for only God’s wrath has the capacity to restore.

In our third reading from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells us that if we are to be his disciples, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him.[5]   It is the emptying of one’s self of who we think we are – as Arno did –  and recognizing our true selves as the made-in-the-image-of-God beings we are – embracing our human roots as God’s on-going creation, as works of divine art shaped from the cosmic dust found in the very humus of the earth that God shaped us from. 

This is why Paul tells us to associate with the lowly – to those nearest our common origins – to those who have no use for pretense – who know best that life is a gift not to be squandered on the glitter of the moment – to experience with them the divine image we bear which is best expressed in the humility of our common forgivable humanity.

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We would do well to hold in our hearts this black woman who stood behind the register of a McDonald’s and cracked open the hate filled heart of person who lost his true made-in-the image-of-God self.  It is she who teaches us the power of genuine love.  In our troubled times, we need to emulate her steady smile and authentic presence and compassionately confront  those seeking to divide and infest our world with hatred:

“You’re better than that!  We know that’s not who you are! 

Come and experience the genuine love that awaits the genuine you. 

Come, taste and see the goodness of the God.[6]”

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Until next time, stay faithful.

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[1] http://theforgivenessproject.com/stories/arno-michaels-usa/

[2] See Isaiah 55:8

[3] See Malachi 3:2. 

[4] See Ephesians 4:26

[5] See Matthew 16 - 28

[6] See Psalm 34:8