In the film The Last Jedi, a young fighter in the Resistance named Rose, says to Finn, whom she’s just saved from sacrificing himself in battle:
“We’re going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
On the surface that sounds like a beautiful sentiment, but it also sounds familiar. It’s not unlike the criticisms levied toward people who are pushing back against corrupt power right now. I hear similar refrains:
“You used to be about love and compassion, but now you’ve abandoned that and gone political. You’re too angry. You should get back to just loving again.”
I’ve grown weary of these sentiments.
I’m over the assertion that you can either be loving—or you can be political.
I’m tired of hearing that there is some clear, undisputed line dividing the acceptable ground for people of faith to tread from that which is off-limits for them.
I resist the idea that matters of faith and matters of the heart are confined to a building for an hour on Sunday.
I am loving—fiercely, passionately, unwaveringly loving:
Because I love the LGBTQ community I openly call out politicians and clergy who deny their inherent worth, who try to determine for them where they can go to the bathroom and who they can marry and where they can worship and whether they can adopt children.
Because I love people of color I will speak into broken systems that deny them full participation, that silence their voices and minimize their contributions. I will push back against a privilege that believes itself superior to the lives of people of color. I will say with pointed clarity that they matter.
Because I love my Muslim brothers and sisters, I openly condemn the politics of fear that conflates their earnest faith with terrorism; that makes living and worshiping in America for them a daily hardship, that causes them to feel unwelcome in their homes and communities.
Because I love this country I realize that I did nothing to be born here, that I sacrificed nothing to live here, that this luxury has not been earned; that many people run here in desperation, seeking rescue from a kind of poverty, violence, and oppression that I’ll never know—and I will have compassion for them.
Because I love women I speak into a culture that objectifies them, that shames them for boldness, that would pay them less while requiring more than men. I will stand up when women politicians are being vilified for what men are rewarded for.
Because I love America I use whatever is at my disposal to demand that those representing us in the world and appointing our Supreme Court Justices and upholding our laws, do so with the Constitution as their guide, not their fears or their whims or their prejudices.
Because I love America I speak out when it seems as though the basic liberty, equality, and freedoms it stands for are being denied to great segments of their population.
Publicly standing against these injustices and those who perpetuate them is not a backhanded way to be hateful.
It is not a political agenda.
This is a way to be openly and brazenly loving to those who are denied love, those who are marginalized, those whose voices are not heard.
This is the very nature of love; that it is a direct, unflinching response to that which is unloving.
Love is terribly offensive to those who would wish it silenced.
Love doesn’t tolerate discrimination.
It doesn’t abide bigotry.
It doesn’t play nice with terror.
It doesn’t wait in the corner for Hatred to consent to it speaking.
Love doesn’t sit quietly while people are damaged and dying, for fear of being deemed impolite.
Love is audacious and inappropriate and undignified—at least Jesus’ love was. In fact, his love was so offensive that it got him killed.
Love isn’t a mousey wall flower.
It isn’t a pushover.
It won’t be managed or tone policed or shamed into holding its tongue.
Love is the furious eruption of the heart in the face of all that feels wrong and broken and deadly.
The same loves that embraces the hurting, fights back the hurters. It will be comfort to one and irritation to the other.
These are days when we are called to love, and to risk all that love asks us to risk, to give all that love requires us to give.
Love is still the greatest weapon good people have.
Love doesn’t just love. It also pushes back hard against hatred.
It’s as simple as that.
Plan A is Love.
There is no Plan B.
