Love, Choice and Moral Agency

“What does love look like now?”

We’ve been asking this question while moving through the liturgical calendar this year. The lectionary passage for this past Sunday is found in John 13, the account of Jesus’ last supper with the disciples. The chapter shows that Divine Love in this text looks like One who serves, speaks truth, shows compassion, and builds community.

An equally important question to ask after, “What does love look like now?” is “Will I choose love?” ie. Will I exercise my own moral agency, at this moment, by choosing love?

Each day, we choose to serve, speak the truth, show compassion, build community, or we choose not to. Each day, we choose where we give our time, money and attention. We have the power to choose systems, websites, businesses, and institutions that have moral imagination and care about the common good. We have the power to withhold our time, attention, and money from systems that undermine wholeness, dehumanize people, and exploit creation. When we choose systems designed with love that have moral imagination and work for the common good, we strengthen our own moral agency and amplify love.

We can’t control everything. But we can choose our part in the story. Here are some questions to ask ourselves to help us be more accountable in developing our own moral agency:

Does this action I am about to choose make people feel more seen, heard, respected, and valued?

Would I want someone I love to be treated this way? 

Would I want to be treated this way?

Are the systems I support with my time, money, and attention reducing or reinforcing harm? Who is benefiting from it, and who might be harmed?

Repentance is also a way of renewing our moral imagination and strengthening our moral agency. That deep sorrow you feel when you make choices that do not align with love—that sorrow is a gift. It is like the first flush of warmth in spring. It is an invitation from God to return home.

As we come to God and to each other, celebrating the love we have managed to share, naming and taking responsibility for our mistakes, asking for forgiveness, and realigning our lives back to Love, we are amplifying love. Even our mistakes can be a place where we choose love.

Deep peace,

Anne

Rev. Anne Baxter Smith
Pastor, Southpoint Church

New to Southpoint?

At Southpoint, it all begins with God’s love. Just as a plant grows, it receives sunshine, so we grow as we receive God’s love. At Southpoint, we are growing in our capacity to love God, ourselves, one another, and Creation.

We seek to be a community of grace that is intentional yet organic, spacious yet authentic, grace-filled yet accountable. * We are fully welcoming. *

We encourage relationships rather than run programs, yet we recognize the importance of intentionality and structure as we nurture life together.

As a community, we seek to put our love in action. We value helping out on Sunday mornings, sharing food, and showing up in hard times. We keep our church life simple so folk have time to build relationships with family, friends, and neighbours. We encourage folk to serve in tangible ways within the wider community. We rent space rather than own a building, allowing us to do more with less, supporting missions at home and abroad.

Curious to know more?

These six slides express what motivates our ministry (best viewed on a monitor). Here’s the bio of our Pastor, Rev. Anne Baxter Smith.

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