“Let mutual love continue” was our theme last weekend for World Communion Sunday. It was a beautiful way to frame the celebration of the unity that we are called to as Christian siblings around the globe. Mutual love sounds sweet, don’t you think? Love is always a good thing. Cue the singing animals, some sparkly stars, and warm fuzzy feelings. Until of course you are stuck on a never-ending zoom call with the person who drives you absolutely crazy, or the person who always complains but never steps up to fix the stuff they complain about, or that person you live with who just left their dishes inches from the dish washer for the 10^th time this week, or the family member who knows exactly which of your buttons to push… And so the author of Hebrews goes on to describe what mutual love actually looks like. And unfortunately for Disney it doesn’t appear to include singing animals or star-crossed lovers. It is a choice, and often not an easy or comfortable one.

Mutual love is counterintuitive: it looks like congregations who are facing all the challenges of living in this difficult, in between, insecure, unclear and unsure moment welcoming strangers. Strangers who could be angels, but who are strangers all the same. Mutual love isn’t safe. It means empathizing with those in prison, so much so that you visit them, write to them, pray for them, advocate for them. Mutual love extends to those who we can easily love like family and those who are strangers, love means being in the skin of the person being tortured, practicing compassion so extreme that you experience the suffering of others yourself. Which is probably going to demand that you do something about that torture. Love changes you, love demands things of you; love is action. Love is making the choice to act for those who are in danger, who are powerless, who are other. Love is a risky choice that will change who we are at our core.

The reason is simple: we are made in the image of a God who is mutual love. God of course does it perfectly, the three diverse persons of the Trinity freely to act for one another, to make room for one another, to always choose the best for the Beloved, and in turn the same is done for them. Mutual love becomes perfect in that the One who made us got so in our skin and felt our struggle that God came to us having put on human flesh. It doesn’t get much more compassionate or more loving than that! God took on real risk to be with us, to experience our lives, to show us with God’s own hands a different way of living, a way of choosing to love. Even if it meant suffering, even if it meant conflict, even if it meant death.

The author of Hebrews is seeking to guide that congregation – and our congregations – to build wide and welcoming community where the vulnerable are cared for and safe, where those with privilege and power give of themselves for the good of all. And the key to all the author’s instructions is action that builds welcoming, mutual, loving community. Love is about our relationship with others, the actions that will draw us closer to others, that will knit together a community, that will bind individuals into relationship with each other, and with God.

Love is a choice, however. We are free to walk away from it. We are free to choose an easier way, probably a more comfortable way. That easy way lets us choose just the people we like to

surround us, and only do activities that we like, and resist any change that might crack us open to otherness, or newness. We do have that choice, but it won’t help us to pattern our lives after Christ’s way; not like consciously choosing love does.

To choose mutual love is to choose to act in a way that gives life to all. Sometimes that means welcoming the stranger who is in danger, afraid, hated by others. Sometimes that means allowing ourselves to be the stranger who is welcomed by others out of our suffering, to be raised up and cared for in a community of love.

We are called by God to choose to act toward others in ways that builds wholeness, promotes healing, provides welcome and wellness in ourselves and our communities. It is work we can only do together, with one another and with the God who made us. This is the hope to which we are called on World Communion Sunday, and every day: To be people who are formed by and who practice mutual love.

In peace,

Kristi

“Buenas noches,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. It took me a minute to recognize the polite and timid tone. It was Jose*, a young man whose family I have become close to at church. “Sorry to bother you this late,” he continued, “but I wanted to talk to you about something important – I’m considering going north.” My heart sank.

“You know what it’s like in my neighborhood,” he said. “Gracias a Dios I don’t have problems with anyone right now, but they know I don’t have work and it’s just a matter of time before They start asking me to “do favors”. That’s a business that I don’t want to get into.” Jose paused; “Once you’re in, there’s no way out.”

I did know what it was like in Jose’s neighborhood, a marginal community built on the side of a ravine at the San Salvador city limits, and he was right. They – the local clique or cell group of one of the major street gangs – control the area. Despite a large and well-staffed police post in the center of the neighborhood, it is known that drugs, weapons and cash move in and out of the community with relative ease. Surrounded by this pervasive culture of illicit activity, it’s nothing short of a miracle that Jose and his family have remained reasonably untouched as long as they have.

I wept silently and listened as he shared his fears and frustrations. He told me of the conversation with a coyote who could help him cross the border in a semi-truck for the fee of $6,000. Jose would have to pay half up front and the other half upon arrival, payment of which had been promised by a cousin living in Houston. I felt so helpless to respond. He had clearly given this a lot of thought; what could I possibly say that might discourage him from this decision? When your reality includes 16-year-old boys going missing, never to be seen or heard from again, and 13-year-old girls impregnated as a means to claim them as gang “property”, somehow the dangers, expense, and lack of guarantee associated with making the journey north seem like the better of bad options.

As heart-wrenching as it is, stories like Jose’s are not uncommon. And although we are becoming accustomed to a daily dose of dehumanizing rhetoric and heated political debate around policies and tactics meant to “combat the problem” of migration, the reality of the tens of thousands of children and families in desperate need of refuge is so much more than the terms “border emergency” or “humanitarian crisis” can express. These are our kin. While politicians on all sides are posturing, the ones whom Jesus calls the least of these his siblings – our siblings – continue to suffer without food and water in the desert, sick and without visitors in detention centers, and denied welcome as deportees.

Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, writes: “The measure of our compassion lies not in our service to those on the margins, but only in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship with them.” As people of faith, we are called to respond compassionately to our siblings forced to choose between risking it all by leaving and risking it all by staying, and who have opted for the former. Jesus charges us to see immigrants and refugees as he does, as family, and to choose welcome. May it be so.

Paz y bien,

Kristi Van Nostran

It is with heartfelt gratitude and appreciation that I acknowledge the many individuals and congregations that are opening their hearts and their doors to offer hospitality and hope asylum seekers in our communities. And, if you are interested in learning more about the ways you and your congregation can get involved with the SoCal Presbyterian Immigrant Accompaniment Ministry, please reach out to me at PresbyWelcome@gmail.com.