Love is the Way: Desmond Tutu, Dolly Parton, and You
The Rev. Zachary S. Sasser
Over the last two weeks, we’ve asked and answered questions about loving in the way that we have been loved. First, we asked, “How do I find the energy to keep loving when the world seems to be going the other way?” The answer we received was, to be honest about our history, to be guided by our traditions as we honor God, to recognize that we have been and are loved by God, and then respond to the world out of the love we have received.
Hearing the call to love, we realized that loving as God loves requires us to give up some things. We give ourselves over to others – and we give up some measure of control – and so we asked, “Will loving everyone sacrificially make us all doormats?” The answer we received was, “No.”
As we looked into that further, we came to the realization that loving sacrificially helps us understand more fully who we were created to be in the first place as God’s agents of change in the world. We also explored the way that not only the sacrifices we make for others but even the brokenness that comes from refusing to love (and from the refusal of others to love us) can be transformed by God’s love for us. It is then that we see that the opportunity to love becomes an ongoing invitation to be a part of what God chooses to do through us.
Today we’re going to look into that invitation a little more deeply. Today we will wrestle with the question, “Can love really change the world?” In his book, Love is the Way, Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry lifts up two examples of people who have changed the world by love, and they are two people I never would have imagined putting in the same category. It’s Desmond Tutu and Dolly Parton. What in the world could these two have in common, and what makes him so bold to claim that they have changed the world?
First off, it’s important to say that each of them is deeply committed to their faith in Christ. Right now is a time in which we cannot overstate the importance of lifting up and holding tight to the central proclamation that God has demonstrated love and offered salvation through Jesus. Full stop.
Whether we agree with one another or not, we who follow him must remember that everything we do and say is in response to what God has done through Christ. When we change our worship practices it is in order to honor God and partner with God as faithfully as we can. Meanwhile, when the church down the road from my house sends out fliers inviting everyone to play flag football on their lawn in the middle of a pandemic, I have to remember to see them as brothers and sisters in Christ even as I see them as engaging in behavior that will risk the lives of others – including those I love.
Truthfully, we don’t even have to go to the church down the street to find ourselves in conflict over how to respond to the Gospel of Jesus, and that is actually one of the things that I love about this congregation. Regardless of our conflicts and disagreements, we choose to love one another. This is, as I’ve heard said before, a family of choice.
Thanksgiving is coming up, and it can be one of those times in which it is truly undeniable that you do not choose your relatives. Of course, many are missing their loved ones this year, as travel advisories are limiting our traditions, but many are also finding new traditions and new ways to connect and give thanks. In this congregation, it has always been a time to remember that we are a family of choice.
That choice is one that we make, but it is in response to the one that God made to love us and to involve us in what God is doing in the world. That brings us back to Desmond Tutu and Dolly Parton. Desmond Tutu, as you may know, was a minister who was integral in the overthrow of the racially oppressive apartheid government in South Africa. He was imprisoned for his belief in a free South Africa, and he endured much for the gospel. Through it all, he never lost his sense of purpose, and his sense of purpose was driven by an understanding of the Bible that anticipated God’s desire for equality among all of God’s children.
It’s easy for us to see it now – in fact, we just added a new confession to our Book of Confessions which denounces governments for co-opting the Gospel of Christ that is based on the experience of the church in South Africa – but for Tutu, it was only his anticipation of what God was doing that kept him going. It was his belief in God’s dream of a free South Africa that kept him going.
Here’s why that matters, and how it connects to Dolly Parton and to you and to me in Bishop Curry’s own words:
“The language of a dream is the language of hope. It is the language of reality being changed by a new possibility. It is the miracle progeny of “making do.” It is Dolly Parton, as a little girl caring for her siblings in desperate poverty, imagining another reality; being quickened to rise to the top and live fully despite what life has thrown at her. And it is Dolly Parton, later in life, dedicating herself to fighting illiteracy and helping children learn to read and love books to help them, too, dream a better life. [It should also be noted that she donated 1 million dollars back in March to vaccine research for COVID 19.]
Dreaming—impractical, foolish, impossible dreaming—gave us the very real civil rights movement. Dreaming gave us a South Africa freed from apartheid. Dreaming, as I see it, has saved me and many others from turning to despair and destruction in the darkest days when evil seems to be winning. ”
What, then, is your dream? Better yet, what is God’s dream for us? Is it more of the same? Is it getting back to what makes us feel good and comfortable, or is it something bigger than us?
I know that we are all hurting in our own way, but listen to the Psalmist ask us why we are sad when we have the love of God in our hearts?
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise the Lord, my help and my God.”
Great. How do we do it? In the letter to the church in Rome, we’re told to let our love be sincere. In the letter to the church in Corinth, we’re told that without love we are uselessly noisy and that the purpose of faith and hope is that they lead us to love for the sake of loving.
Then, in 1 John, we’re reminded what love looks like in the example of Jesus, and we’re invited once again to be a part of what God is doing. This invitation is a little confronting at first. “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”
What a confronting question in a city with what seems to have a growing population of people on street corners asking for spare change. According to the Acadiana Regional Coalition for Homelessness and Housing, many of these people are neighbors who have lost jobs due to the pandemic. While it may or may not help them to give them the change they ask for, we must remain focused on the changes that we can effect; changes that will help us to offer jobs and function in new ways – regardless of vaccines – that are entirely grounded in God’s love.
To quote the letter that went out from the LPSS Superintendent this week, “Collectively, we can make a positive impact on students by coming together, doing our part, and practicing mitigation efforts...Please continue to wear masks, limit large gatherings, wash hands, and practice social distancing. These efforts, while they may seem small, are significant.”
I know you must be tired of hearing that drumbeat about social distancing, but all I hear is John pleading with the church and saying, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
Love that is done in truth and action is the kind of love that can and will change the world – even when our efforts seem insignificant, and maybe especially when they seem that way! I know they can change the world because I’ve seen it. Sometimes it happens with small gestures like congregation members reaching out online to offer meals when someone is hurt. Sometimes it looks like a call or a card or a visit to someone who is homebound. Sometimes it looks like a person who has suffered, and they want to make sure no one else suffers in the same way.
You see, in the words of the folk singer and activist, David LaMotte, “You can’t be in the world without changing it in some small way. Just by breathing, you are changing the composition of the air around you.” In better days, we can think of that as living in relationship with plants as we exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. Here and now we can think of it as an opportunity to care for one another and demonstrate grace and mercy and concern. At the center of it is the hope that we have in the love of Jesus. “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of Jesus Christ and love one another.”
In some ways, it is harder to do that than ever before, in these days of constant change. In some ways, it is easier than it ever has been. It may be a bit much to expect yourself to be a Desmond Tutu or a Dolly Parton, but you can be moved by the same faith. You can share their dream of a world that is awakened by the dream of God.
You may not change and challenge every injustice, but you cannot help but change the world. Maybe it’s time to stop asking if love can change the world. Maybe it’s time to start expecting it to change the world, but not necessarily in the ways that we want it to change. Maybe it’s time to get more focused on God’s dream for a world where no one can walk by a person in need without being moved to help in some way. Maybe it’s time we start with gratitude for what God has done and we let that move us toward what God is doing.
I pray that it may be so with me and that it may be so with you, and to God be the glory – now and always. Amen!
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