One of my favorite bible passages is “The Road to Emmaus” (Luke 24:13-35), in which two disciples are leaving Jerusalem after Jesus has been crucified, returning home disappointed and likely in shock at what had happened over the course of the past week. Along the road, they encounter Jesus, but they do not recognize him. After talking about what has happened, Jesus walks them through scripture, and when they arrive in Emmaus, they eat a meal together. It is in the breaking of the bread that they finally recognize Jesus, at which point he disappears. The disciples exclaim, “were not our hearts burning within us?” and they rush back to Jerusalem to rejoin the other disciples in proclaiming the resurrection.
What I love about this passage is the distinction it makes clear between a prophet, “mighty in word and deed,” who has been killed by the state and whose power and influence has come to an end, and the Messiah, still alive through the resurrection whose power and influence is only just beginning. I love the reminder that our human understanding is limited, and that God is capable of so much more than we could ever believe. I particularly love the image of hearts being set on fire by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
Each year, Life Together celebrates the Eucharist together only twice -- on the final day of Orientation in August, and on the final day of DisOrientation in June. Both services include an anointing ritual, whose prayer concludes: “And may your heart be so opened, so set on fire, that your love, YOUR love, changes everything.” As I come to the end of my time with Life Together after four years in community and solidarity with four amazing cohorts, I find myself thinking about what it is, exactly, that we do “set [hearts] on fire.” What is it we do that makes our fellows aware of the fiery Holy Spirit burning within?
From my own experience with Life Together, my best answer is the unique combination of both love and action. In the interviews I conduct with applicants to our program each spring, I am often moved to tears hearing the stories of so many young people seeking a place within the church where they might experience unconditional love and radical welcome. This is not unique to twenty-somethings -- I think we all, deep down, have a constant hunger for this kind of love. It is a hunger that only the love of God can fill, though we certainly experience that love through our human relationships, as well. With its focus on intentional community -- not a community of platitudes and niceties, but a community that is willing to have hard conversations and to engage in the work of transformation together -- Life Together offers its fellows a taste of that unconditional love. And we work day after day to offer an ever more true version of radical welcome.
But we do not stop there. Simultaneously and alongside this work of loving one another, we look at the brokenness of the world around us and we arm ourselves with tools and skills to take action in the face of that pain. Sometimes this looks like attending a protest or organizing direct action, but it also looks like coming together for our monthly racial affinity groups. It can even look like an honest debrief conversation as a staff team, where we identify the places in which our program upholds tenets of White Supremacy Culture and work to repair harm and apply antidotes.
When I joined Life Together’s staff in the fall of 2016, I did not understand how the message of God’s unconditional love and the biblical call to justice that Jesus modeled could coexist within a unified whole. They felt somehow at odds with one another -- one offering rest for weary souls, and the other demanding more action, more work. But in my four years with Life Together, I have come to understand -- not so much intellectually, but experientially -- that this is a false dichotomy. It is perfectly possible to extend grace and love to oneself and others while simultaneously striving to heal and dismantle and fight against the injustices of our world. It is perfectly possible to hold oneself and others in unconditional love while also demanding acknowledgement of impact and accountability to change.
As James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time: “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace — not in the infantile American sense of being made happy, but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”
As we close out this program year, and as I transition out of my role with Life Together, my prayer for each and every one of us is that we continue to open our hearts to those around us, that we let ourselves be set on fire by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that we hold tightly to the truth that love can change everything.
Blessings,
Lindsey