The Tenderness of the People

 “We love because he first loved us. Those who say ‘I love God’ and hate their brothers and sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

The early Jesus movement—a movement of people who were largely forgotten, largely poor, largely outcast— became known as a group that loved each other and cared for each other. In a world that told them they were worthless, in a world that robbed them of rights, in a world that targeted them, they instead created a world where they protected each other and cared for each other.

This is not always a warm, fuzzy thing. It is not always a comfortable thing.

It can involve great risk. It can involve great danger.

Love means fighting for each other. It means standing up for each other. It means taking risks for each other.

Often there is a high cost to love.

In our first reading, we read the story of the Ethiopian eunuch. This is the first conversion story in the book of Acts. The first conversion story in the NT. The spirit sends Philip to meet with someone that the world of the Romans had no use for. He was an African man, likely a slave, a man with no rights under political or religious law. He was a eunuch. Sometimes this was physical but sometimes eunuchs were men who would now be considered gay. Queer. Or Transgender. The first conversion story in the NT is of a black man who did not live up to, did not conform to society’s definition of gender or sexuality. An outcast. A transgressor. A queer.

And the early Jesus community took him in as one of their own. And stood with him.

“We love because he first loved us… for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

You have all been following to some extent what has been happening in Aberdeen. The largest encampment of folks who are homeless was given eviction notices in March and have been fighting for a place to stay ever since. We have tried to do anything we can to stand with them—going to city council, petitioning the city, gaining support, trying to work with churches to open up their property for campers to use.  

But the most powerful witness has been the folks in the camp who have stood up for each other. Some of you were there when the mayor and city officials met with campers. A group of campers went to that meeting and stood up for themselves and the people they were in community with.

People took great risk to show up to a meeting like that. People took great risk for their friends.

I don’t think we always realize that to live on the streets in the US is to live in the shadows. It is to live in constant fear of arrest. It is to be called names to your face by people in power.

The streets of the harbor are a rough place, a difficult place, as over half our population struggles to survive. The brightest moments of hope are those moments when people find ways to take care of each other. By checking in on people who are sick. By supporting each other in hard times.

And by taking a stand when people have nowhere else to go. In Aberdeen, people on the streets and in poverty are learning to claim their own leadership.

They tell their stories so that they and their neighbors can have somewhere to live. They risk being called names to speak out to city council and beg city leaders to make sure people are not thrown away. They are my heroes.

 

There is a saying, used often in Latin America, that “Solidarity is the tenderness of the people”. I like that.

As rough as the streets of the harbor are for people who are struggling, I stand in awe of the tenderness of the people wherever I see it. I consider myself honored beyond measure to witness it.

“We love because he first loved us… for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

If you haven’t noticed, this is a sermon of stories. Stories of love that I have witnessed.

A few weeks ago, I went to a meeting in Olympia, where a group of parents from Guerrero, Mexico were touring.  Last September, at a teacher’s training school for poor students called Ayotzinapa, 43 students were kidnapped and disappeared. Their parents have spent months looking for them. There is little doubt that these students’ disappearance was connected to the Mexican police. Over the past few months, citizens of Guerrero have taken the streets by the thousands to stand with these parents and their disappeared sons. Moms and dads of these disappeared students, most small farmers, have been touring the US, telling their story and issuing their demands that the Mexican government return their children and they know what happened to them.

As they spoke with us, I thought again of the great love, not only of parents for their children, but the great love of the people around them, people who stood with them as they searched for their lost children, often at very great cost. I got a glimpse of a whole city, a whole people coming together. I wondered what that would look like here, on the harbor.

It’s a terrible and a beautiful thing to witness love.

“We love because he first loved us… for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”