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Is it Possible to Love One Another as Jesus Loves Us?

by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Jan 26, 2022

Lenten Practices

During Lent, we remember Jesus’ command: “Love one another as I have loved you.” My question is: is it still possible to love one another as Jesus loved us? We live in a world of us versus them, a culture of contempt. We are broken into camps around politics, theology, and understandings of race. Don’t forget human sexuality, biblical authority, and denominational structures. Did I mention the pandemic? Frankly, some of us are too tired to even be patient, let alone loving. Even with all that said, I promise you we don’t have to give up on love. In this article, I want to share the top four ways to practice love this Lent.

Does Love Equal Approval?

First, I want to share one common concern. That’s the concern that love means approval. If I am called to love you, but we disagree about fundamental understandings of the world, am I compromising my faith? Am I sending the signal that I approve of what I believe is sinful or unjust behavior?

Here’s what I have found. Loving as Jesus loved does not mean acceptance of behaviors or beliefs. It does however equal acceptance of the other person’s humanity, and their inner divinity. No matter how misguided you think their beliefs and behaviors are. In the end, judgement is God’s domain, not ours.

Now, on to the problem and the solutions: the four ways to practice love this Lent.

Why Loving as Christ Loved is Hard

Polarization tends to beget polarization and it takes us farther and farther from Jesus’ command. Polarization is built on fear and judgement. “I am right, and you are wrong. In fact, you are so wrong that I can’t trust you, talk with you, or even be me when you are here.”

These victim stances have no place in the consciousness of Christ. He ate with sinners. He interacted with Pilate. He did not try to winnow out the “other.” He allowed Judas to remain. He set personal differences aside and, in their place, created community amongst his people.

Four Ways to Practice Love This Lent

1) Practice Looking for Common Value Polarizing constructs are only given life when we act on them. By letting go of “us versus them,” you take the first steps toward loving as Jesus loved, and to creating community. Instead, let polarization dissolve by embracing the opposites, or by finding, identifying, and focusing on common underlying values.

2) Practice Listening When you are with someone you don’t love, listen for their humanity. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask: how has your personal journey brought you to this place? How has it shaped your perspectives?

3) Practice Extending Grace The person you can’t stand to love may look at you the same way you look at them. Surprise them by extending grace. Give them grace to make a mistake, to be on a different journey, to grow in their own timeline, and to be recipients of God’s love, and yours.

4) Practice Praying If you can’t find love within you, ask God to show you how, to teach you how to love them. If that doesn’t work, keep praying.

It’s Possible to Love One Another as Jesus Loves Us

The pandemic has shown us that there is no us versus them. There is only us. People from every walk of life and every country on earth have been impacted by the pandemic. If we hope to come through it with any sense of unity, we have to practice loving one another as Jesus loved us. It’s not automatic; it takes intention. I invite you to take on these four practices this Lent: looking for common values, listening, extending grace, and praying.

We don’t know everything the post-pandemic future holds, but the more we trust God in our approach, the more that we can live by Jesus’ command. Then, the more confident we’ll be knowing that we can survive and even thrive once again.

Excerpted and adapted from Rebekah Simon-Peter’s upcoming book(Market Square Publishers, 2022)

Walk the Path of Healing through Lent

by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Jan 19, 2022

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a world of change. Many congregations have been weighed down with grief, resentment, and fear, unable to move forward. This year, I want to show you how to walk the path of healing through Lent. In this article, I’ll share how to move through the stages of repentance, remembrance, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, and embracing on each of the six Sundays of Lent.

A Day of Repentance

Repentance means to turn back to God. Recognize how you may have played a part in harming another. Did you push people away with acts of injustice or ignore a neighbor? Did you contribute to acts of polarization or lose the way of hope? Congregational acts of repentance include sending out the prayer of confession and pardon from the United Methodist service of Holy Communion, asking your congregation to read and reflect on it, and bring their contemplations to worship. Read the prayer slowly and deliberately to truly grasp the depth of each line.

A Day of Remembrance

Spend time as a congregation in active remembrance. Remember those who have passed and the gifts that they brought. Remember the ones you could not visit and their seat in the sanctuary. Remember your family members, neighbors, and loved ones who have died because of Covid or other causes. Acknowledge human loss, offer thanksgiving for their legacy, and joy that death is not the end of life. Celebrate Holy Communion as a congregational act of remembering, that at this sacred table we gather together with those on the journey of life and with those who are in our great cloud of witnesses.

A Day of Acceptance

Acceptance tends to be a touchy subject. We saw this on the national stage as the country debated the existence of Covid and the legitimacy of the election process. In the church, acceptance is deeply connected with faith. Degrees of faith tend to be used as a measuring stick for whom we accept and whom we do not. The truth is, acceptance does not mean approval. Acceptance is simply the willingness to recognize what is so, whether you personally believe it is good or not. It is an act of surrender, a way to release control over what we never had control of in the first place. Congregational acts of acceptance include creating a personal or communal “bulletin” board that represents all the changes that have taken place during the pandemic: what has been gained and what has been lost. This “bulletin” board can then become a point for reflective prayer.

A Day of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is necessary when harm has been done. The pandemic has evoked many strong opinions and reactions among us. Whether it is the issue of vaccines and masks, politics and the presidential election, or social distancing and working from home, it feels like a thousand different harms pulled us further away from each other. I’ve spoken to many friends, family members, and colleagues whose sorrow has led to resentment, blame, and judgement. While blame and judgement seem understandable in extreme circumstances, the rancor that lives within is poisonous to your body, mind, and spirit. Forgiveness opens the way for healing to begin. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you condone someone else’s behavior. It means that you are willing to stop carrying the harm within yourself. Congregational acts of forgiveness include prayer for oneself, friends, and enemies, and the surrender of resentment and rancor to God’s loving care.

A Day of Gratitude

Gratitude is the heart’s response to the gifts of God. Although much has been lost during the pandemic, much has also been gained. Amplify the feelings of gratitude within your heart by counting your blessings. Take time to reflect on and recognize all that you can be thankful for, and what you have learned from the changes that have taken place. Congregational acts of gratitude include hymn sings, sharing of testimonies, and acts of service for others.

A Day of Embracing

Embracing is a positive, proactive act that allows one to move forward into a new future. It’s an open heart that can both pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” and “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” This kind of embracing embodies the unconditional love of God that flows outward to all, no strings attached. Congregational acts of embracing include reciting affirmations of faith, anointing, and speaking new visions into life.

As we approach Lent, which of these congregational acts will prepare your people to receive the gifts of resurrection? Which will bring healing, wholeness, and a renewed awe on this gift we call life? Even though the pandemic is not over, it’s time to look ahead for what new plans God is unfolding. We won’t be ready to receive them unless we repent, remember, accept, forgive, express gratitude, and embrace.

While we can’t rush the process, once we walk the path through these six stages, we can be ready once again to co-create miracles with God.

If you’re ready to take the next step, please join me for Jesus-Sized Dreams for Small-Sized Churches, a three-session workshop where you’ll learn how to Dream Like Jesus and bring renewal to your congregation and community.

Six Steps to Getting Your Church Past Polarization

by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Nov 2, 2021

At a time when polarization seems to be at an all-time high, most churches are not able to bridge the gap. Instead, they are caught up in divisiveness, too. This polarization limits the church’s ability to lead or to distinguish itself as a spiritual institution. That’s why I want to share six steps to getting your church past polarization.

These six steps are important to take. In some ways, churches now resemble the US House of Representatives more than the house of prayer that Jesus envisioned. It’s not that your church shouldn’t wrestle with important issues. By all means, it should.

But when the voice of the church is framed more by politics than ethics, or by who it stands against instead of the love of God that embraces all, this is bad news for your church and the community you serve.

The Lure of Polarization

We know we are supposed to love God, love others, and love ourselves. We know we are supposed to turn the other cheek and do good to those who hate us. Yet we find that hard to do with fellow church folk, let alone the people “out there.”

Unconditional love is hard to muster when news headlines play on fear, outrage, and worst-case scenarios. Or when social media feeds reinforce your perspective on the world. It takes true effort to get past these views of the world and believe that something else is even possible.

When churches try to speak to issues like the pandemic, immigration, or even school shootings from a political perspective, they get caught in either/or choices popularized by right- and left-wing media. This creates a lose-lose situation with no room for nuanced disagreement. Either/or choices are destined to polarize, and to pit people against each other.

I’d like to offer an alternative for getting your church past polarization. It comes from prioritizing ethics over politics.

ethics over politics

Prioritize Ethics Over Politics

I suggest this 6-step process for ethical thinking. It’s not perfect or complete, but it will give you a starting point. United Methodists will recognize elements of the process as it engages the Wesleyan quadrilateral, the four sources by which we live out their faith.

Step 1 When it comes to thinking ethically, the first and most important step is to get the facts. That means looking beyond Facebook memes and polarizing talking heads. It means digging deeper to find out what’s really going on. “Some moral issues create controversies simply because we do not bother to check the facts,” observe the authors of Thinking Ethically.

Step 2. Turn to the scriptures. Discover the biblical stories or principles that might apply. This means thinking deeply and widely about meta messages of the Bible. Resist the temptation to pluck one or two scriptures out of context that seem to fit the situation. Many of the ethical dilemmas we face today were never mentioned in scripture. Similarly, the scriptures themselves were written over centuries in response to situations that are far from our post-modern context.

Step 3 Look to other commentaries or sources of your faith. United Methodist will want to consult the Book of Discipline, the Social Principles, and the Book of Resolutions to see how other informed persons of faith have approached these issues.

Step 4 Look at the history of the issue. How has it been dealt with in the past? What has worked? What hasn’t? As thinking persons of faith, we engage our faculties of reason.

Step 5 Engage in prayer. A word of caution here. I wouldn’t necessarily ask for specific answers to your specific questions; this prayer may lead to confusing our own solutions with God’s divine guidance. Rather, I suggest praying for guidance and wisdom as you discern together.

Step 6 Engage in respectful, patient discussion about the resources at hand. To do so, first decide on ground rules and boundaries, so that your discussions don’t become polarized or violent. At this point, don’t try to come to final solutions or absolute positions. Rather, keep an open mind. Keep prayer present even in the discussion. Over time, discuss possible ethics-based approaches to addressing the problem at hand.

Don’t worry if you don’t all come to the same conclusion. You probably won’t. That’s okay. Here’s what you will have done: you will have thought faithfully and ethically about the issues at hand. This ethics-based process creates trust, loosens polarization, and increases your skill at diving deep as a community of faith. It might even get you loving one another, differences and all.

In Creating a Culture of Renewal®, we empower church leaders to bring out the best in those who frustrate them the most. Not an easy task. But it is doable.