So, 

How are you doing with resurrection power? 

Are you feeling fired up or depleted?

After Easter and especially after Pentecost I think, we all assume that we as individuals, and as a church, we ought to be raring to go to make a difference in our world on behalf of Jesus Christ. 

We should be Energizer Bunny Christians!

But the reality is sometimes pretty different. 

A friend of mine was lamenting the other day that he had been sleeping a lot, recently. Part of it of course was the gray rainy days, but part of it he realized maybe was the impact on him as a black male of the stories of the Tulsa Race Massacre, and perhaps even the story of Juneteenth.

Because while Juneteenth is a great story of the news of emancipation finally coming to Texas and the celebrations it engendered, it is also a story of slave owners and others who simply weren’t willing to let black people be emancipated.

It’s the story of black men, women, and children who had for two and half years labored on unknowing that they didn’t have to be slaves any more. I simply can’t imagine the twist of joy and grief.

Did you know that a consequence of not being loved, or a consequence of the realization that people you thought loved you don’t, can be depression? It really can be quite difficult.

Now the reality is that God loves us, and for that we give praise and glory and honor to him was dead but is now alive forever more!

But another reality is this, God’s people are supposed to love us too! 
Because one of the evidences of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives is love. 

Paul says in Galatians 5:22 & 23 says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control….”

So, love is an important and essential attribute of the spirit-filled Christian. So, what is that love supposed to look like? 

Well, both Paul in Galatians and John in 1 John are pretty clear. 

It not just brotherly love or family love! It is a more Christ-like love, self-sacrificial love, the kind of love that would move someone to offer up themselves up on behalf of another, even when that other may not be worthy, or at least worth in our eyes.

The Greek word that is used in both places is ‘agape’, the very word used to describe God’s love for us. 

The fruit of the spirit is ‘agape’, according to the Apostle Paul. And 1 John says, “My dear friends, we must ‘agape’ each other”. That is, love each other sacrificially, offering ourselves, what we have and what we are, on another’s behalf.
And Jesus makes clear in Matthew 22:39 that a good understanding of the Law of Moses requires us to “agape” God and “agape” our neighbors as well. Give until it hurts – give until it thrills! 

And in John 3:16, where it says, for God so loved the world, read “agaped” the world – loved it so much that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

So, for those who want to live out the resurrection every day and consistently reveal God’s presence in us through the fruit of the spirit, we need to love each other with Christ like love!!

But, let’s be clear - that’s hard. 

Why? Because we are all different!

Did you ever notice that it is easier to love the people close to you than folks you don’t know? 

Perhaps that is because the folks you don’t know are different! Their educational background, their color, their ethnicity, their country of origin might be different.

Perhaps even the way they talk. To get to know them takes time and energy. Of course, if you do, you may discover wonderful people who can make your life richer and more interesting.

Loving God appears easy compared to our crazy neighbors.

Growing up my neighbors were the Zowitowski’s, the Smolinski’s and the Kapsiacks, well and Mrs. Cook, though her name had been shortened from something much more Polish.
It was a window into the joy of differences, and an opportunity to learn that loving your neighbors can not only grow you as a follower of Christ, but also be a lot of fun.

Your neighbors might have been raised in a family that did things differently. Maybe you could try a new dish, or learn a few choice words.  

Once we open up, we discover a world of joy, made just for us by God’s own hand when he made us all in his image.

As the book study “How to Fight Racism” was going I shared the story of the first Black Heritage Sunday here at the church more years ago than I can rightly remember.

Sam Tucker and Adam Battles and some others had worked to start a service that celebrated the joy of this congregation’s racial history as well as the joy of Black American history.

As part of it, after the service there was food, wonderful food, not only from the African American tradition, but all kinds of ethnic foods. Fried chicken and greens and okra and grits, and there might have been Ellie Busser’s rice pudding.

But the one that absolutely threw me was Annie Battle’s huge tray of macaroni and cheese. It looks so amazingly good. 

But I had to ask, “Annie, why is macaroni and cheese an African American dish?” and she simply said, “government surplus cheese and cheap macaroni” feeds a lot of hungry mouths!

The Spirit is revealed in you, when you sacrificially love others. Amen.