Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, August 4, 2020
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
This isn’t some namby pamby feel-good sentiment. Love is action, not sentiment. The other day I passed a business in south Minneapolis with a whole bunch of signs posted in the grassy area along the sidewalk. They said things like: “You matter,” “You can do this,” “Take a deep breath,” etc. While those are nice sentiments, they just rang false to me a scant half mile from where George Floyd was murdered by police officers. If I were one of the oppressed and marginalized in my community, I would be wondering what good those signs were actually doing. Where was the action behind the words? How can you counsel people to “take a deep breath” when so many black people’s last words at the hands of the police are “I can’t breathe?”
What does it mean for us to “clothe ourselves with love?” At the moment, I feel like such clothing needs to be armor—a willingness to step into difficult and even dangerous situations on behalf of those whose voices are not heard, whose bodies are denigrated and destroyed by our socioeconomic, political, and civic systems. If love is to bind everything together in perfect harmony, then that love has its work cut out for it, and if we are to clothe ourselves in that love, that work is ours to do.
What does it mean to me to “clothe myself in love?”
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