Love in the Chalk

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6 ESV).

I have been watching more of the news lately. I don’t have a lot of patience of the political “spin” on either the right or the left, but I have noticed some incredible messages of hope in the mix. This picture today comes from Greensboro News and Record in, Greensboro, North Carolina. Cameron Cobb, an off duty EMT, is writing encouraging messages at the Employee Entrance of the Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital located there. Images like this have been reported from all over our country, in neighborhoods and downtown locations alike. It took me to our reading today. The Apostle Paul says our “calling” is to “bear with one another in love” (v. 2). Think with me for a moment how much easier this has become as the days of shelter in place have stretched into weeks and now creeping into months. Jesus sent out his disciples to do his work (cf. Mark 6). Not wanting them to be loaded down, he told them to take along only what they were wearing. Things seemed to be urgent. Jesus wanted them to live by faith, trusting in God to supply their needs. As they ministered from place to place, they would find both hospitality and hostility, both friends and enemies. Jesus told them to lodge at only one house in each community. And if a place did not welcome or listen to them, they should leave and “shake the dust off” their feet, a cultural statement reflecting the rejection they had been shown. This would imply that the townspeople needed a change of heart. In my own narrow experience these last few weeks I have seen some of that. Of course, there has been plenty of finger-pointing and refusal to take responsibility. Well, let me take a moment and let everybody off the hook. Have mistakes been made… sure. Could we all have done better… of course. There will be plenty of time later when we’ve overcome this virus with a workable vaccine, when the sick have recovered, and the dead have been properly buried for us to deal with those questions. We will have learned many valuable lessons. I’m convinced that God has a much greater principle at work in these perilous times. Perhaps He merely wants us to remember we are all called from death to life so that we might really understand that we really are all “in this together”! Be kinder than ever! Love more deeply than ever!