One truth about living in these increasingly hateful and violent times is that it makes things very clear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The world needs love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The world needs the radical kind of love that we see in the life and teachings of Jesus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fred Rogers famously said<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I was a boy, and I would see scary things on the news, my mother would say to me, \u2018Look for the helpers. You will always find people helping,\u2019 she\u2019d say. And I\u2019ve found that that\u2019s true. In fact, it\u2019s one of the best things about our wonderful world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the world we live in is scary \u2013 is too full of hatred and violence and apathy \u2013 it is stories of people helping one another that break through the darkness. It is the examples of people choosing to love one another that prove to us that another world really is possible \u2013 even in the midst of this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a recent podcast\/article<\/a>, theologian Tripp Fuller wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c…[We] may find hope, not in the political fray itself, overwhelmed by crisis upon crisis, but in an alternative community bound by a higher allegiance. We may need to form communities that embody<\/em> an alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus embodied that alternative for us in his life of compassion, his self-sacrifice, his care and advocacy for the people who were trapped in suffering. Now it is our turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you attended worship this past Sunday in a congregation that follows the Revised Common Lectionary, you heard a passage from Isaiah 58. Those words give us a clear example of how we may, like Jesus, embody a way of living that shines the love of God into the dark corners of the world:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you get rid of unfair practices, \u2026You\u2019ll be like a well-watered garden, [Isaiah 58:9-12, The Message<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n With God\u2019s help, may we be that alternative community for our world right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2013 Pastor Kate<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rev. Katherine Museu<\/a>s<\/em> and Rev. James A. Wetzstein<\/a> serve as university pastors at the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University and take turns writing weekly devotions<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One truth about living in these increasingly hateful and violent times is that it makes things very clear: The world needs love. 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quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people\u2019s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You\u2019ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You\u2019ll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n