In Bible study this past Monday, we were reading through this passage from Romans and I began by asking everyone to share which parts of loving they are good at and which parts they struggle with?

“For example, are you good at showing zeal, “I asked, “but not so good at loving your enemies? Do you find it easy to be patient in suffering but hard not to be haughty? What are you good at when it comes to love and what do you struggle with?”

And our friend Paul over there said, “All of it.”

It was an honest answer, but also, the more I thought about it, an undeniably brilliant one. Because love is a tricky thing. It can come so easily under the right circumstances and feel so impossibly hard under others. It can feel undeniably right and uncomfortably wrong depending on the situation. And Paul - not our friend Paul but the Paul who wrote Romans and that beautiful passage in 1 Corinthians - Paul sets such a high standard for love.

According to him, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things… (because) love (true, pure, genuine, grade A love) never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:7).

It never fails!

But we do. Even the best of us. In part, because all too often our attempts to love in one place get in the way of our ability to love in another.

For example, we might excel at empathy, at “rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep.” But precisely because we feel the joy and pain of others so acutely, we might find it all but impossible to love our enemies - that is anyone who inflicts suffering on those we care about. Right?

We might have a real gift for hospitality and extravagant welcome and for precisely that reason have zero tolerance for those who don’t.

Or we might be so good at living in harmony with others that we enable or overlook harmful ideas and behaviors in them in order to keep the peace rather than make peace, which in the end isn’t loving or peaceful for anyone at all.

To love is the easiest, most natural thing in the world. We were created to love. Everyone loves someone, even if it’s only themselves.

But to actually love everyone, that is to love perfectly, across the board, no exceptions, can feel like the hardest most impossible thing in the world.

True, pure, genuine, grade A love is something I’m still learning to embody. Like Paul, (not the Paul who wrote this letter but our friend Paul - in case you’re keeping score at home,) I struggle to love everyone the way God loves them, and I bet you do too. Which is why it is so good that we are here.

If church is anything, it should be a school of love, a place where we can come to practice on everyone here in the hopes that we might find the courage and strength and wherewithal to love everyone out there. Building a beloved community begins at home, and this is our spiritual home.

But the irony for me this morning is that although you’ve called me as your pastor and teacher the better to guide you in the ways of love, I stand before you this morning full of immense gratitude for all the ways you teach me.

When I look back on what we have done this past year in our efforts to live out our love for God and love for our neighbor, I am struck by how little of it originated with me. Honestly, when I look back at all that has happened, what stands out, time and again …is you.

For instance, inviting Jo Clifford to come and preform “The Gospel of Jesus, Queen of Heaven,” was a brilliant idea. It was a powerful opportunity to share the love of God with a whole lot of people who probably learned the hard way to avoid church like the plague.

I remember being so nervous right before the performance that no one would come. I can still recall walking through this sanctuary on the way to open our big wooden doors, wondering if all our work had been for naught, and gasping with surprise when I opened them to find a whole crowd of people waiting to come in.

They came to hear how Jesus might have told his parables and shared his gospel if he were a she; that is, if Jesus were a trans woman sent to tell us about the unconditional and unconventional love of God. (You know, parables like the one about the man who had two sons, until the day one of them realized that she was actually his daughter?)

And let me tell you, I watched with awe as the old familiar stories came alive in a whole new way; a way that enabled people who never would have heard it otherwise, to hear the good news of God’s love. It was incredible.

But, let me tell you, inviting Jo was Rebecca Stewart’s idea with an assist from Peter and Jenny. And at the time she hadn’t even joined the church. It was approved unanimously by the church council and made possible by the generous hospitality of Debbie and her wife. I had almost nothing to do with it, but oh my goodness did I learn so much about love because of it.

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When you get your stewardship brochure in the mail, you will see a picture of David and Luísa on the back standing next to the Easter cross. Back in April we buried David’s wife Paula who had died suddenly just a few months after giving birth to Luísa. With family flying all the way in from Brazil for the memorial service, David thought it best to baptize Luísa that weekend as well. It’s what Paula would have wanted.

Well my friends, let me just say that if love is weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice, we loved fiercely over those 3 days. I know that I as an individual, even though I am a pastor, can only do so much in the face of tremendous grief. But when it came time to mourn with David and Luísa, they didn’t just have me.

I watched with awe at the ways this congregation showed up for them, at the solidarity you showed as we walked with them all the way to Bridge Street cemetery, at the tears you shed as you spontaneously surrounded and embraced them after they laid her to rest, and at the ways you have walked beside them ever since with love and support, taking joy in David and Lulu’s joy as they heal and grow together. I am humbled and grateful to be in community with people who are brave and tender enough to love like that.

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I think of the anonymous gift that paid off our mortgage; a very different act of love I never could have anticipated nor do I have the means to emulate.

I think you all know that big gifts like that can be tricky. Sometimes people give as a bid for control or attention. But this gift was just that, pure gift. It was given freely, willingly, thankfully… given for the pure joy of giving in the hopes that this church that had labored so faithfully under a heavy debt could now live more freely into its call to make God’s love and justice real.

Talk about contributing to the needs of the Saints! Given the growth we are experiencing as a congregation and the economic uncertainty we are facing as a country, this gift could not have come at a better time. But the full impact of this act of love on the ministry of our church remains to be seen. I believe it will reverberate for generations to come and once again, I am simply in awe.

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The there was inauguration day. A lot has happened since then, but you may remember that we opened the church for reparations and peace work, non-violent resistance training, an interfaith potluck, and a community sing. It was the best thing we could have done, and again, it wasn’t my idea.

It actually all started with Rebecca Phelps who had gathered with some friends to sing after the election and found that it really lifted their spirits. “What if we invited the whole community to come and sing the night of the inauguration,” she asked? And the whole thing took off from there.

We opened our doors on January 20 and as a result hundreds of people came through all day long into the night. Not only were we fed and enlightened and encouraged on a day that could have felt devastatingly hard, but we used that opportunity to build up a resilient network of allies, people who are willing to show up for each other and have been showing up for each other ever since.

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It wasn’t my idea to go to Super Saturday so we could hear Bishop William Barber - that was all Helene - but boy was it good. I was so happy to be at Pride yesterday with you all, but all I did this year was show up thanks to Patty and Elliot and so many others. It wasn’t even my idea to charter a bus and go to the “Hands Off!” rally or stand out on our front steps every Wednesday for the “Faithful Witness” vigil.

I like having Saturdays off.  I do not like crowds. And Wednesday is my sermon writing day that I guard closely so I can write uninterrupted.

But I was out there again this past Wednesday because I am finding that going out and standing up with all of you is good for my soul. I would not have wanted to miss any of these opportunities because every gathering is strengthening my love for my neighbor, my commitment to peace and justice, and my hope for this country. I’m not dragging you all out into the world to witness with zeal. At this point you’re dragging me, and I love and appreciate you for all of it!

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A few more things worth mentioning:

Every Friday, we host a free breakfast for the community to give people a safe place to come in off the streets, warm up, and enjoy a good meal. They call it “The Last Breakfast,” because one of the first cooks, who was homeless at the time but has since found his way back to stable housing and employment, said he would help if we would commit to making a breakfast that was “so good you’d come even if it was your last breakfast on earth.”

Initially Community Action ran “The Last Breakfast” and simply rented the space from us. But by the time they lost their contract with the City to run it we had so many people coming and so many church people helping, it felt wrong to let it die. And so now it’s ours and we wouldn’t have it any other way. I am rarely there because Friday is my day off, but I don’t need to be there because so many of you are, and your work is a labor of love.

Paul is very clear that genuine love flows inward and outward. It isn’t just about loving your kind of people but loving all people: the saints and the strangers, the young and the old, the ones who can give and the ones who stand in need.

I have seen that love in the food collected for the Weekend Nutrition Program and the Survival Center, the books and gifts for children that we collected at Christmas, the money we raised for a lawyer to protect Ronaldo and his family, the keffiyehs that adorn so many shoulders in this sanctuary.

I am learning more about this love thanks to the titles that are populating the book shelves in our new library. I am learning more about it from the words of Diane Johnson and Bekah Maren-Anderson, two powerful preachers with ministries out in the world who have found a home base here in Northampton and who grace us with their presence and preaching and leadership when they are here.

Again “awe” is the word that comes to mind. I am in awe of the effort and expertise Diane has brought to us as she has helped us re-organize and re-energize our peace and justice team and Bekah is even now working with a small group behind the scenes to organize an anti-ableism workshop for all of the downtown churches.

First Churches, we are not a perfect community, and yet, slowly but surely we are building a beloved one. I closed Bible Study by asking where we as a church are good at loving and which parts we struggle with. You’ve heard a lot of the good, but one of our wise ones piped right up and said, “We can be smug,” or what the Paul who wrote Romans would call haughty. “We often think ourselves wiser than we are,” said David.

“It’s hard not to, when you’re right,” I said.

I was going for the laugh then too, but the truth is that this is where my efforts at love break down and why I am so thankful to have a congregation that cares enough to keep me honest and humble. Loving my enemies and blessing those who persecute people I care about is hard.

It is good for me to stand next to Craig on Wednesdays because with his sign and his words and his actions he is teaching me to how to love and pray for the president to be a better president and not a king. It is good for me to listen to the concerns of congregants who are brave enough to call me out when my words from this pulpit cross the line from calling in with love to calling out with disdain. I need your help to keep my anger from becoming meanness. I need your help because I am still learning how to love too.

I can’t do this without you. I don’t think any of us can.

On Easter Sunday, you may remember that I gave thanks for the story of Jesus’ resurrection. “This story has always had my heart,” I said, “but now I feel like it also has my back.” Well, I think this congregation does too. It has my heart and my back and I hope you will let it have yours as well.

That is why I will give again this year. I will pledge as generously as I am able - freely, willingly, joyfully - because just like our Paul, I struggle with all of it. But thanks be to God I need not struggle alone. I have you to help me with all of it. And if you give as you are able, I’ll be here to help you too.

Amen? Amen.