What Does Love Look Like, Now?

Credit Jim Cummings. Link.

This is a question I asked myself a lot while parenting. When your kids are younger, loving them looks like doing things for them—brushing their teeth, picking out their clothes, and later, packing them lunches… but then as they grow, love looks like the opposite—not doing those very things so they learn to do them for themselves. 

What Love looked like was also very different for my two children. Loving Jo meant making space for her need to process her big feels and explore her inner world. Loving Adam was learning he did not want to process his big feels very often, but rather needed space to explore his inner world.

Asking not just, “what does love look like?”, but “what does love look like, now?” in this context, within this relationship, is a clarifying question. 

This year, the lectionary texts for the gospel are almost solely in Luke, with a few in John. As I look ahead, I see that we can literally hop, stone by stone, across the river of this entire liturgical year by landing on these gospel readings. There is something about this that feels very enticing to me. What would it be like to spend a year together, just hopping, stone by stone, step by step, through the gospel of Luke, with a bit of John added now and then?

If Jesus is indeed the revelation of Divine Love, by doing this, we can ask ourselves for a whole year “What Does Love Look Like Now?”: in this text? and in this text,? and this text?

By the end of the year, we would have created a patchwork quilt made up of little squares of revelation of Divine Love, with each passage giving us a uniquely coloured square to add to the quilt. 

These passages won’t be new to us, and that makes me nervous. It feels like a lot of pressure to try and see these passages freshly, to feel them freshly, to get a felt sense of Divine Love showing up freshly in each passage. What if I can’t do the gospels justice? What if I run out of steam? And what about you? I know some of you are struggling with what to make of Jesus, while others of you love him with great certitude. What will it be like to make this journey together?

Then I think, well, what do we have to lose? After all, we are a church that has placed the image of the welcoming Christ at the very centre of our core images. We are a church that places the table of Christ at the very centre of our worship. We are a church that places the very presence of Christ at the centre of our community. Perhaps it is time to gather the quilt pieces from these texts and recreate a new vision of what Love looks like now at Southpoint, and spend some time asking ourselves, each individually, who Jesus is? 

So, that is what we are going to do. A whole year with Jesus, in the gospels, asking ourselves, “What Does Love Look like Now?”

Deep peace and warm blessings,

Anne

Rev Anne Baxter Smith
Pastor, Southpoint Church

Catch up on our Advent Meditations

(1) You Are a Blessing
(2) We Don’t Go it Alone 
(3) Do the Good That’s Yours To Do
(4) Hope Is Worth The Risk

Worship Calendar

Location & Zoom. We meet on Sundays at 10:00 am, at 15639 24 Avenue, Surrey. Zoom is offered if you cannot attend in person. Zoom link. Meeting ID: 831 1690 9977 password: 753319

Listen to Sermons
Follow “Meditations from Southpoint Church” on Spotify and Apple.

Blogs
Catch up on Anne’s recent blogs under “News” on our website, southpoint.ca

Sun Jan 19
Rev Anne Baxter Smith
Luke 4:14-21

Sun Jan 26 ALL IN Intergenerational Service
Rev Anne Baxter Smith
John 2:1-11

Sun Feb 2
Rev Anne Baxter Smith
ke 4:21-30

Sun Feb 9
Rev Anne Baxter Smith
Luke 5:1-11

Sun Feb 16
Rev Anne Baxter Smith
Luke 6:17-26

Sun Feb 25 All OUT
No service in the Sunnyside building

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.

If you’d like to really peek inside, sign up for our weekly Southpoint News (scroll to brown footer at bottom of page). The Southpoint News is a MailChimp distributed email—you can unsubscribe anytime and will not be added to our contacts list. Email us at office@southpoint.ca. Website: southpoint.ca.

Progress Pride Flag by Daniel Quasar (link)

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