You know that social media catch phrase “all the feels?” I intended to never use it, but it seems appropriate in reflection of “The Church Reimagined” sermon. When we moved here, I had “all the feels” for Albuquerque: beautiful vistas, mountains to hike, sun, earthy colors, and an easy attitude… what a honeymoon of a place! Admittedly, now the “feels” are little less warm and fuzzy and a little more like that feeling you get from going downhill on a rollercoaster. I know things now. Someone got shot at a house down the street from us. Another neighbor’s camper was robbed in broad-daylight. Undoubtedly you’ve heard lots of other stories in the news as well that make you feel like “ick.”

“Can we know and still love?” That’s the question.

This is a tough one! On my own right, sure! I can know and still love my family…. at least most of the time… er, sometimes, I guess. Yet Jesus challenged his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount by saying, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that…?” (Luke 6:32-33)

If it is hard to love the people we share a name and DNA with, how can we truly love our neighbors, this city we live in, the Southwest, the US, or the World?

The gospel, the good news that God extends His grace and mercy to sinful men through Jesus Christ, changes things. It changes us, the Church, and God uses the Church to manifest His grace in the world.

The HELPS Word Studies explains the Greek word for grace, “xáris,” more fully: “…xáris is preeminently used of the Lord’s favor – freely extended to give Himself away to people (because He is always leaning toward them.)” Apparently, its Old Testament kin “kaná” also implies God reaching and inclining toward men “because He is disposed to bless (be near) them.” Emphasis added.

Our natural tendency is to criticize what we don’t like, to close our eyes to ugliness, to turn away from hard things, and retreat when things get uncomfortable. We don’t like all those “feels.”

Yet we are just as messy and hard to love as the world around us. If God is always leaning toward us, giving us grace, then we’ve been given more than enough xáris to freely extend it to a world that needs it desperately. May it be said of the Church that we readily give ourselves away to our neighbors, our city, our nation, and that we are always leaning in and striving to be near them to bless them.