Love With A Backbone

[Note: Today’s guest blogger is Krista Vardabash. Krista co-leads the pilgrimages to Chiapas, Mexico, for the Chiapas Mission at Spiritus. She works at ESL and lives with her husband, Lou, in Fairport. They were married at Corpus Christi in 1998 and have been a part of Spiritus Christi ‘from the beginning.’ Thank you, Krista!]

Today’s daily readings feature passages from Ezekiel 37 and John 11. In Ezekiel, a future time is spoken of when divisions will cease and Israel will be one again. In the gospel, however, the Pharisees continue plotting against Jesus and see that he could bring down the whole system that holds their power in place. Because of what he is doing and teaching, they considered him their enemy. From that time on, Jesus needed to move more carefully. And yet he maintained a commitment to love.

So if the #1 commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart, then #1a is to extend that love to our neighbors and, sigh, that includes to our enemies. But what does it look like when that love hits the pavement? These days, I find love laying there frequently – on the pavement.

Thankfully, through a social media post, I was directed to a presentation given locally on MLK Day by Bishop William Barber. Bishop Barber leads a movement in North Carolina called “Repairers of the Breach”. Their call to action is “Love Forward Together”. I found his message about the movement to be like a decoder ring of sorts to what it means to love our enemies in a world that too often feels divided.

Here are three lessons from Repairers of the Breach. I hope they serve as something of a decoder for you during this season of hope….

Love is Not a Feeling; It’s a “Backbone”
Bishop Barber makes a vital distinction that we all need to hear: the love of the Gospel is not a “sentimental” or “convenient” love. Instead, it is “love with a backbone”—a love that shows up, tells the truth, and refuses to abandon people when the headlines in the news change. He shared a story about his grandmother that captures this. He once told her, “Grandmama, I love you,” and she responded, “If you do, go pick up that hoe and chop my garden”. For us as a church, this means our love for our community and our “enemies” isn’t just found in a handshake or a hug alone; it’s found in the hard work of seeking justice, feeding the hungry, and standing up for the “least of these”.

The Hard Command: Praying for Our Enemies
As followers of the Gospel, we are required to pray for our enemies. The Bishop admitted that this is “not easy,” especially when facing those who “despitefully use” or oppose us. However, there is a deep strategy in this divine requirement. When we choose to love our enemies, we are holding out hope that they can change, even if they never do. The sources remind us that “meanness can go too far,” and it creates a “heaviness” on people’s hearts that only love and truth can eventually break. By refusing to meet hate with hate, we prevent the world from becoming a world of selfishness and scarcity and instead build a “universe” where everyone belongs and everyone is cared for. Love begets love.

Solidarity: “I’m Not Going to Let You Go”
The Love Forward movement has at its core a beautiful call to solidarity. During a recent 51- mile march from Wilson to Raleigh, marchers were encouraged to grab a neighbor and say, “I’m not going to let you go”. We are all “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,” tied together in a “single garment of destiny”.

Whether it is fighting for living wages, healthcare for all, or the rights of our immigrant neighbors, we do so because we believe that “perfect love casts out all fear”. We choose to “voice our love” and “vote our love” because the ballot is a tool to protect the vulnerable and establish justice. Next time you’re out advocating justice, give your neighbor a hug and say “I’m not going to let you go”.

Love Forward Together
Spiritus, let’s remember that we come from a great line of ‘lovers’—from St. Valentine, whom Bishop Barber reminds us believed that love was more powerful than an empire, to MLK who ignited a generation to use love and peace as a weapon, to Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, who chose love to fight against the chains of slavery, to our own enduring ‘lover of love’, our Yellow Rose, Fr. Jim Callan.

If the idea of loving your enemies feels confounding, look into the ‘Love Forward’ message fueling the movement led by Bishop William Barber and the Repairers of the Breach. There’s a lot of love to compel us to defy division and move forward together.