calloused hands and dirty nails

Thursday May 17th, John 15: 12 This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. 13 This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. Those defined as friends are the same ones that Jesus refers to in other parts of scripture as neighbors, or brothers and sisters or part of the family of God. When questioned about who neighbors might be, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan.  Neighbor was defined as our actions not the location of the other.  In this world we are called to love as Jesus loved.  When Jesus loved he went to the cross, and even there, offered forgiveness and reconciliation.  When we hear of the Holy Spirit leading the early church through the stories of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch or Peter addressing the crowd in Acts this week, we hear God Calling us also.  Calling us to break out of limiting and confining rules, out of exclusive membership, out of good enough attitudes toward justice and the childish tribalism of Us and Them.  Jesus is calling us into a world that pronounces, along with God, all of creation, good.  Within this calling to love one another, how do our lives show where the rubber meet the road on issues such as immigration, war, foreign aid, debt forgiveness in third world nations..... and on and on and on.  It is one thing to do the Miss America wave with clean manicured nails calling on the whole world to just love one another and quite another to get down and dirty working to make it happen.  Perhaps one of the best offerings to this God of love is calloused hands and dirty nails of one working for justice. In God’s world it is a true sign of beauty.