God’s love knows no boundaries. Each of us finds a place, our place in God. For a long time, though, the church has struggled with the question about who can be included and who cannot be included. We experience divisions all around us and across our society today. The boundaries are sometimes about race, gender identity, sexual orientation, politics, and age. We know well how to divide people up into different groups. God’s vision changes our orientation though as followers of Jesus. Peter hears, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 10:15b). God envisions creation without such boundaries that exclude and isolate others.

“What do you need?” is a powerful question because it communicates intention and consent. Such an exchange opens up the pathway to further conversation through sharing empathy. Empathy is feeling with someone and not sympathy. Sympathy tries to put a silver lining into the mess and results in creating distance between people. When we remain open, practice empathy, and begin the conversation, we practice the care for others that Jesus taught and God’s radical love is revealed in the midst of the question and the answer.

Conversations that lead to transformation require compassion. Compassion means to feel with. This question acknowledges we all carry hurt and pain in our lives. Such an acknowledgement of another’s pain deepens our understanding and communicates through our asking and listening to others that they are valued. Moving to this position, we are able to share compassion. When we show compassion, we are showing up to say that we care about the relationship and we are showing up with God, because God is present even in the most difficult times.

We all have a story to tell.  When we share those stories with one another, the act of sharing connects us despite distance, creates compassionate dialogue, and reminds us that each of us is a child of God.  Listening, deep and long, opens space for relationships to grow between us and with God.  The stories we share will be messy, beautiful, painful, and hopeful.  God is present with us in the midst of all these parts of our stories. 

Scripture teaches, and reminds us periodically, that God hears our prayers. So, prayer is an important part of our faith journeys. Whether we are awed by the beauty of nature or in need of assistance because of distress or full of praise and thanksgiving, James says prayer is the appropriate response. Prayer is powerful; its power resides in its ability to change us. We are sometimes mistaken in our thinking that prayer will lead God to change God’s mind or actions. Maybe if we just pray enough or say the right words. But prayer changes us, not God. Prayer aligns us with God and God’s work unfolding all around us.

James said that the wisdom of the world is self-absorbed and destructive; it is full of envy and boasting. The wisdom of the world is problematic because it causes conflict and so it sets us up against one another. But the wisdom from above sets us on a different path. This wisdom from God is: pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. In Jesus, wisdom from above meets wisdom from below so that everyone can see which is which and we can hear the God’s invitation for us to say yes to God and let wisdom be born from our gentleness.

In the third week, James teaches us that words have significant power. Words have the power to just tear things up, power to tear people up, like a small fire setting a forest ablaze. But we mustn’t forget that words also have the power to bless. We must decide how we will use them.

God honors the poor first. We see it time and again in the stories about Jesus - the stories about with whom he eats, with whom he associates, and who he heals. It is easy to say we follow him even as we know these stories and that God honors the poor first. But sometimes it is difficult for us to put the words we say in action. Often, our words and works of faith don’t align because we engage in favoritism, greed, and status-seeking. These struggles grow out of our desire to be safe and know security; it is fear that drives them. But when our words and works align with one another, then we are finding a faith that works. It works because as we recognize and support the humanity of others, we discover our own humanity. Faith without works is indeed dead, but faith with works thrives.

Every gift comes from God. Understanding this fundamental orientation helps us grasp and join in with God’s work in the world around us. God’s first gift is love and our response should be to love, especially the most vulnerable around us. When we practice self-assessment by looking at ourselves in a mirror, then we can see where we are and where we are going. If that needs to be adjusted, we can make the changes necessary, even if they are difficult to execute. But, aligning ourselves with what God is doing leads to a life of abundant meaning, hope, and love.

The journey of faith calls for us to be intentional about our time and how we live. The writer of Ephesians emphasizes realization of this kind of focus through regular worship, thanksgiving celebrated at the Lord’s Table, prayer, study, and service to our neighbors. The challenges of this time are the many other voices clamoring for our attention while promising easy solutions. It is easy to feel off-balance and like we are stumbling. But being in sync with God aids us in getting back on the path of love that God shows us in Jesus.

In our baptism, we are reconciled to God. We are claimed, adopted, and adored as a child of God. This moment is one of dying to the old ways of living and rising in resurrection to a new way of life. This dying is a letting go of all that stands in our way of imitating God’s love. This change is difficult though because our culture and society teach us that the purpose of life is not to let go but to obtain. When we can begin to distinguish between these two competing paths, then we can decide which we will follow.

Whether it is between partners, parents and children, friends, or neighbors, we don’t like difficult conversations. Sometimes, though, we do have to have difficult conversations with those we love and for whom we care. Such moments should always be marked by love - seeking the whole wellbeing of others. The writer of Ephesians emphasizes this point particularly around the topic of unity and describes embracing unity as a mark of having a mature faith. With our emphasis on the individual and individual desires and rights, we struggle to talk about what it means to be a part of something larger than us; and, not just as an individual component of the larger thing but as an integral element of the whole. The author’s use of the one body image with Christ as the head works to make this clear and offer us a more wholistic understanding of this unity.

We hear Ephesian writer’s prayer for the congregation. The prayer is for inner strength through the gift of the Holy Spirit, that Christ may dwell in our community so that love will be tangible in people’s lives, for understanding of the nature of God’s love so that it may be shared and tangible, and that the community would continue to grow towards Christ. It is challenging to take this path at times though because it means our routines and practices will change living with Christ. The prayer is answered in God’s ongoing activity of love that God has intended from before time and beyond time.

God is building us into the household of God through Jesus Christ. The early church struggled with the ways in which people were divided into different groups. The Letter to the Ephesians pushes past these divisions and reminds us that in Jesus Christ God crosses these boundaries to build what God intends. We are divided in many ways today. We argue about who can be included and who cannot. God continues to cross those boundaries and move towards what God intends.

God destines us to be loved. This divine destiny frees you to love others tenderly and generously. Our understanding of divine destiny sometimes gets in the way of understanding what God is doing. Believing we are fated for pain and hardship, feeling unworthy of any love, and imagining that these are God’s intentions, these block our ability to recognize the divine love for each and all of us. God’s intentions is for us to always know that we are loved. What would it look like if we practiced loving in this tender and generous way?

God’s love is everywhere and always and never exhausted. It is difficult for us to trust this Gospel truth because of pain and struggle in our lives or because we do not feel that we are ever enough. (Pick your category; whatever your category it is difficult to overcome.) The loving kindness that Ruth shares brings transformation to Naomi’s life. In our reading, we hear about the beginnings of a new day with the birth of a son to Ruth and Boaz. How may a new day be dawning in your life because of God’s loving kindness?

When we are desperate, we will do just about anything to make sure we survive. Naomi and Ruth are desperate as they face food insecurity, ongoing shelter, and the need for long term security. They do what they perceive they need to do to survive and potentially thrive. Even when we take over, God continues to work towards God’s intentions. God continues to make a way forward and works with us where we are.

Ruth and Naomi have returned to Bethlehem but their situation is little improved. This impoverished mother, Naomi, and this immigrant daughter-in-law, Ruth, have to find a way to sustain themselves. In the midst of the harvest, the extravagant generosity of Boaz secures the wellbeing of Naomi and Ruth. The storyteller introduces the intersection of Ruth and Boaz as an “As it happened” moment. This moment is where God enters into the story. We hear again how God prepares a way and opens up the future where there was none. We could write it off to chance, but God uses this moment to accomplish what God desires to accomplish.

You have choices about how you will live and interact in all of your relationships. Elimelech and Naomi tried to make it all work on their own. They leave the house of bread to go to the territory of their enemy. They discover that they cannot do it on their own. It is only when Ruth practices loving kindness that new possibilities begin to emerge. When you practice loving kindness then new possibilities will begin to emerge for you as well. The presence of God fills the space between us in our relationships. There, in that space, you will experience fully the love of God that is unending and unfaltering.