Loving Over Distances--December 29, 2020
"In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints..." [Colossians 1:3-4]
It's hard to love folks if you can't see their faces.
That is true whether you can't see others because they are far away, or there is a worldwide pandemic going on (you know, hypothetically), or because it is either inconvenient or uncomfortable to acknowledge them and it feels easier somehow to choose not to see their faces.
I was just talking with a church person not long ago, and she said the same just out of the blue--"I miss seeing faces." That's part of the challenge we are living in right now, the days of a pandemic that includes on-and-off stay-at-home orders and business closures, with winter keeping people indoors on top of that, and the memories of a Christmas just last week when many of us didn't get to see loved ones in person. We miss not getting to see faces, and we know it is harder to make the effort to love when we don't see people's faces.
It's not that we stop feeling care or concern for others when we aren't in the same room, so much as it's hard to put that emotion into action. "Love," after all, is a verb before it is a feeling, and we are called to act, speak, and make choices in ways that seek the good of others, whether we "feel" like it or not. And it's just harder to do good for others when we can't be in the same places with them, you know? That's just a limitation of being physical beings who live on a planet that, for all our technology, is still a very big place. These days we are challenged to find ways to love others--not merely to feel nicely toward them at a distance, but to act in ways that do good--when we don't get to see their faces.
I don't think I had ever realized until this very moment, though, how much of the early church was in the very same predicament. No, they didn't have a pandemic, and no, they didn't have to learn phrases like "social distancing" or "mask policy" or "vaccination protocol," but they did find themselves challenged to love others whose faces they couldn't see--often for a very long time. We sometimes forget that more than half of the New Testament was written in letter form; in other words, these are communications sent long distance to people who weren't in the same place and didn't get to see each other's faces in person for a very long time. Sometimes they were writing back and forth between people whom they had never met in person, but still dared to believe they were connected to. Paul wrote Romans (the longest letter we have from him), for example, before he had ever been to Rome! And here in the opening verses of Colossians we get the sense that word is getting around in the ancient Christian grapevine that these Christians care for others far beyond their own little community. They love people whom they haven't met. They care about people whose faces they have never laid eyes on. They are committed to the well-being of others who might never cross their path, this side of glory. It's hard, but they do it anyway.
And of all the things that the apostle can be thankful for, that's what he zeroes in on. Curious, isn't it? Not, "You all have doctrinal purity and perfectly precise theology," as much as Paul cares about good theology. Not, "I'm glad you don't let the riff-raff in to your church," as much as sometimes Respectable Religious people can be fussy about who belongs. And not even a whiff at all of, "I'm so thankful you have leveraged your situation to get some political influence by endorsing the Empire," because is never something that happens in the Bible, despite all the ways that modern religious folks often sell their souls for a cushy perch with the powerful. Nope, none of those. Instead, the folks in Colossae are recognized for doing the hard work, day by day, of loving people whose faces they don't get to see.
I want to suggest that we can learn something important as we listen in on this ancient conversation. Maybe what we are called to do in this moment, our moment in time, is to seek ways to show love to folks when we aren't in the same room with them. We know how to do good for people we share a house with--you wash the dishes for them, you fold their laundry, you spend time with them, you work to provide clothing and shelter for them, and so on. We probably even know how to make the effort to show care for people we interact with at the grocery store, through the drive-up window at the bank, or people you see at work. But for folks we are feeling disconnected from--whether because of distance, or the pandemic, or struggles in our relationship, or whatever else--it's hard to make the effort.
It's hard, too, to make the effort to show love to people who are far away, or whose stories are different from our own. It's hard to take the time to get to know someone else's situation, to hear their perspective (even when it causes friction with your own), to consider that their well-being and yours are tied up together, no matter how far away they are. These are difficult things to do, yes, and it's worth saying out loud that it is difficult. But being a follower of Jesus--like being just a decent human--includes being willing to do hard things sometimes. We aren't given a pass from the difficult work of loving people just because it is difficult--we are called to be creative, persistent, and dedicated enough to keep on trying to do the difficult thing.
So today, that may mean we each go out of our way to reach out to someone you haven't seen for a while, but whom you had previously been closer to. Maybe it's a phone call or text message. Maybe it's going deeper than small talk and the weather when you speak. Maybe it's trying to extend an olive branch to someone you've grown distant or estranged from. Maybe it's a moment of time thinking of who might really feel alone right now and need a reminder that they are cared for. Maybe it's making a donation that will help someone who will never know your name or what you did--the homeless ministry in your community, the relief organization across the ocean, or somewhere in between. Maybe the distance to overcome isn't physical at all, but of perspective--and maybe part of loving someone else is seeking to understand where they are coming from rather than unleashing meanness in the comments section on social media. We are so used to isolating ourselves from people whose stories, situations, perspectives, and needs are different from our own--maybe for us the difficult work of love means learning to see those faces and hear those stories rather than treating others as an anonymous "them" that can be ignored.
It seems to me that we have a good deal to learn from our older brothers and sisters in the faith in Colossae. They have gone ahead of us and taught us both the importance and the need for learning how to love across distance. And their example tell us that it can be done. Today, take the time, and make the effort. Love someone across a distance today. Let someone else's love reach you, too.
O God, you who hold all creation in your hand, help us to love not only the faces we see right in front of us, but those whose faces are far away but still always on your mind.
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