by Marcia Mount Shoop
Luke 6:27-38
“If Christians had been following Jesus, love wouldn’t have gotten lost in the list of priorities. Love got replaced with wealth–the love of money is what got us here, America. And we’re not going to heal as a nation until we heal that wound, that idolatry, that lost part of us that thinks we can buy our peace or our prosperity and our happiness and our comfort.
Love is willing to lose what’s causing the harm. Love is willing to have less, to reclaim our shared humanity.
At many turns, America has made a different choice about what’s important collectively. We do it again and again, we say it’s about the economy–but it’s not about God’s economy, it’s about the extractive economy and hoarding resources no matter who gets hurt in the process. It’s about slicing and dicing up communities so that we don’t really know each other. It’s about not really loving ourselves, but covering up our self loathing with nice things and the appearance of being fine, and with the falseness of store-bought agency.
Our true agency as human beings lives in these words of Jesus–love your enemies. That is where our power lies. In these horrifying times in America, hate is not going to get us where we need to go. Love is the only thing that can really get us to the promised land where humans are not pitted against each other with such murderous consequences.”
Watch the full GCPC service on 2/23/25 here
(Scripture and sermon begin at 53:50)