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Justice-Making Love

On May 6th, I was invited to preach at University Baptist Church in Dinkytown, a partner with University Lutheran Church of Hope in the University Area Sanctuary Coalition.


“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” – John 15:12-19

For those of you who I haven’t met, my name is Nicholas Tangen and I am the Minister of Faith in Community at University Lutheran Church of Hope, just down the street. I live in NE with my wife Kristin, and I am currently a student at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton. In fact, in about 4 hours I will be walking at my commencement, wrapping up classes and getting ready to spend the summer finishing up my practicum and my final project. My focus at United is on Social Transformation. I am interested in how and why people of faith become involved in movements for societal, structural, and institutional change. What is it about this gift of faith that draws us into communities where we engage in the work of social justice? Furthermore, how do we do this work effectively, intentionally, and with integrity?

I am convinced that both the why and the how of Social Transformation are here delineated by Jesus in John’s Gospel. Jesus’ ethic of social transformation is defined by Love. Now that sounds all well and good, but as we know love is a difficult thing to define. It looks different depending on our context, our personalities, and our capacities. This word is often used in such trite and banal ways that we render it utterly impotent and without meaning. However, John’s gospel helpfully gives us some context clues about what Jesus means when he says, “love one another”.

First, Jesus instructs the disciples to love one another as Jesus has loved them. This immediately gives us a vision for this love in action. Think back on Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels. Jesus’ love is modeled in his ability to fully see and hear his followers like Zacchaeus, to know them by name, and to seek their best interest. Jesus’ love speaks truth to power and to his friends, especially when it is risky and uncomfortable to do so, I’m thinking of Jesus’ tussles with the religious authorities and later with Pilate, and his rebuke of Peter when he seeks to prevent Jesus’ path to the cross. Jesus’ love seeks healing, repentance, and reconciliation. It is grounded in our shared identity as children of God. This is the love of Jesus that seeks the fullness of God’s justice. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, a professor of Christian ethics at Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, writes:

“Love that seeks justice is the counterpoint of structural evil. The magnificent call to love is heard in many tongues through many faith traditions and other schools of wisdom. From a theological perspective, all of creation is beloved by a love that will not cease and is more powerful than any force on Earth or beyond. Although embedded in systemic evil, we humans are nevertheless charged with seeking the widespread good, abundant life for all, through ways of justice-making love. For fulfilling this calling, we are bearers of that divine and indomitable love.”

We are bearers of this love, this justice-making love. And Moe-Lobeda argues that this love stands in opposition to structural or systemic evil. Jesus’ command to love one another as I have loved you, transforms us into bearers of God’s justice-making love in service of resisting and overcoming systemic evil.

Secondly, Jesus explains that there is no greater love than to lay one’s life down for one’s friends. Jesus’ model of love is sacrificial and centered on the other. Jesus’ model of love is self-emptying. I would argue that this self-emptying nature of Jesus’ love for us, and his command for us to practice the same, is the most radical implication of the Gospel for our modern ears. We live in a culture that is devoted to the supremacy of the individual self. Our economic, political, and social structures are designed to prop up and appeal to individuals. There is a consistent narrative that we are in this thing alone. We may let some others in from time to time, but ultimately our lives are our own. We are selves swimming in a sea of otherness. But, Jesus’ model of love reminds us that not only are we not alone, but we are counting on one another. And that self, that safety and comfort and security that we treasure so dearly are the very things we must be willing to risk as disciples of Jesus in service of God’s justice-making love. And we can take comfort knowing that in the cross, God risks God’s very being to stand with and among creation, to reconcile and redeem the entire cosmos, and to empower us to be bearers of God’s love.

The critical piece here, is that the two elements of Jesus’ command to love one another cannot work separate from one another. We can not engage in justice-making love as egoic, individual selves, and we cannot practice kenotic self-emptying apart from love that seeks justice. This doesn’t mean that we reject our unique gifts, or that we ignore those everyday acts of love and kindness in favor of large spectacles of political action. It means that we begin to understand the ways in which our unique and particular gifts can be shared with one another, and that we understand those everyday acts of love and kindness in their proper context; as the rich and fertile soil for the ever-expanding expression of God’s justice-making love.

Love that seeks justice and engages in the practice of self-emptying is called solidarity. Solidarity is only possible in relationship and in the messiness of real encounter. Often, especially in predominately white churches, we think about justice in terms of charity. We give money and we give time, but we maintain a safe distance between ourselves and those we seek to serve. I would argue that ultimately charity benefits the status quo, and actually limits our ability to enter into meaningful relationship. Solidarity, and I argue Jesus’ command to love, risks our vulnerability and our safety, to enter into relationship with one another across those false and sinister divisions that we experience so often. It requires those with power, to lay it down, and it requires those without power, to pick it up. It asks us to use our unique gifts to seek the well being and the flourishing of our neighbor, sometimes at the expense of our comfort and security. It requires us to lay down our lives for our friends. It reveals the ways in which our own liberation is wrapped up in the liberation or our neighbors.

University Lutheran Church of Hope, and University Baptist Church are members of ISAIAH’s Sanctuary Network and have been working together as part of the University Area Sanctuary Coalition for nearly two years. And in these relationships, we have found new and creative ways to engage in the work of justice on behalf of immigrants in MN. The most profound moments of this work together have come when we have been able to set aside the safety and protection of our status and our privilege, and to enter into the lives of immigrants who have been directly impacted by the corrupt and evil laws in our state and in our nation. In these relationships we have learned about ourselves, and we have learned about the experiences of people who live each and every day in fear of detainment and deportation. Last Thursday we hosted a Hennepin County Commissioner Candidate Forum and asked the candidates how they planned to protect immigrants, and how they planned to limit ICE’s power in Hennepin County. A leader in ISAIAH, who is herself an immigrant from Mexico, was present to ask the candidates these questions directly, and was able to speak to the impact of Hennepin County policies on her life and on the life of her family. These questions take on an entirely different power in the context of meaningful and intentional relationship with those who are most impacted. Those of us with power and privilege begin to understand our own skin in the game. We are able to truly see and hear those in our communities who are crying out for justice, not as anecdotes or numbers, but as fellow Beloveds, and we are able to rise in power, in solidarity with our neighbors and embrace our identity as those who are bearers of God’s justice-making love.

This is how God transforms the world. In Jesus, God has entered into the messiness of human existence and relationship. He embodied, and through us embodies, that love that seeks justice and mercy. In standing with us in solidarity, he was led to the cross, was crucified, died, and was buried. He emptied himself, and risked God’s very being to be in relationship with each of us, and with all of us, to suffer and to die. And in his resurrection, Jesus has overcome death and evil, and declared us free to love God and one another. May we hear God’s command to love one another as Jesus has loved us. May we risk it all to stand with one another through suffering and oppression and into hopefulness and joy. And may we live into our identity as bearers of God’s justice-making love. Amen.



This post first appeared on Nicholas Tangen, please read the originial post: here

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