Love in the Ruins

AM Psalm 1, 2, 3 • PM Psalm 4, 7
1 Kings 1:5-31 • Acts 26:1-23 • Mark 13:14-27

From the gospel: “Flee… the one on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat… Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days!”

As I read the horrifying descriptions of the time of trial in today’s passage from Mark, I remembered my friend Fred Burnham’s story. Fred was just a few feet away from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. In the darkness and smoke, surrounded by percussive sounds, Fred and the group with him in a nearby building were certain that they would die that morning.

At one point, huddled in a dark, smoky stairwell, Fred had an experience of bonding love with a circle of people who believed that they were all about to die together. He said that moment expanded into a transforming experience of the presence of God, the Source of love. He had no fear of death. Instead he was overwhelmed by the interrelatedness of Being, transforming this experience of terror into an experience of infinite love.

Out of the ashes of 9-11, Fred experienced an expansive sense of relationship and empathy for all humanity. It is on this foundation, he says, that Jesus invites us to live in the Kingdom of God, participating in what God is doing in the world. The whole story of the Bible, culminating in the Incarnation, is the story of God’s empathic relationship with humanity, in all its brokenness and glory. Insofar as we live, we live in relationship to this fundamental reality—loving God, loving neighbor and loving self.

Written by Lowell Grisham

Lowell is enjoying online church until this latest crisis passes. He is eager to see what new forms of love come from the ashes of Covid.