From the Pulpit: What Does Love Look Like in 2025?

Jesus talked a lot about love some 2,000 years ago — but what does that love look like in 2025?

Canon Rose Duncan said Jesus’ command to “love one another just as I have loved you” has some real implications in our day, especially when things feel like they have been turned upside down:

Jesus’ ministry points to an expansive and inclusive love that is freely offered. Now, there are some who hear this command and understand it as a narrowing of who is able to receive such love to only the followers of Jesus. Others seek to limit the scope of love to one’s family, those of the same political ideology, the same social status, the same race or ethnicity, and seek to set some way of setting boundaries between ourselves and the other. In this way, we establish a ranking system where we may love our neighbor, but not as much as we love people who are most like us.

As we look at the current divisions in our society, we can see that failing to love is at the very heart of the matter. This love requires us to lay down our pride and radically love those who believe differently than we do, and to affirm their dignity as human beings.

But it does not mean that we surrender to or remain silent when confronted with injustice and oppressive systems. More is required than just respecting the rights and needs of others in an ex intellectual way. It means standing with and standing up for the vulnerable and oppressed by showing up. It means raising our voices and putting our bodies out there against the loss of compassion for our fellow siblings.