May 2026 Connection

Recently, I attended a teaching session with a clergy cohort that was led by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, pastor at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C. The focus of her teaching session was on Sacred Resistance, a practice of living out our baptismal vows of resisting spiritual forces of wickedness and rejecting the evil powers of this world. She articulates that while this notion often evokes names of people who have done and are doing malicious works, we often forget that the “spiritual forces of wickedness” and the “evil powers of this world” are ways of life that we become either too familiar with and/or too comfortable with, so much so that they just become accepted parts of life. Examples include racism, discrimination, warfare, misogyny, poverty, etc. I am grateful for Rev. Gaines-Cirelli to name these realities against which we must resist as faithful Christians.

Furthermore, Rev. Gaines-Cirelli also reminds us that we as people are responsible for these instances of wickedness and evil. We each at times must grapple that while we hope to be full of faithfulness, love, grace, and compassion, we all fall short and, at times, must come face to face with our own culpability. To borrow a Biblical image, we’d all like to believe that we are made up of only good wheat (Matthew 13:24-30). The reality, though, is that we all have our share of thorny weeds mixed in. Let us pray:

Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love, we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy. Forgive us, we pray. Free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And so, with this acknowledgement comes the central question of this article: How are we to treat one another?

Perhaps it’s as easy as following what Jesus taught… “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” -Matthew 22:36-40 (CEB)

Certainly, this is an area upon which we can greatly improve. Loving our neighbor just as we love ourselves and just as we love God! Seems like a no-brainer! And yet we struggle with this so much! Perhaps we struggle with this because we can only see the thorny weeds in others and not in “Loving the Wheat” continued... ourselves. Put another way, do we withhold love from others – do we hesitate to love our neighbors as ourselves – because we’ve bought into the idea that we’re somehow more worthy of love than those who could stand some weed-be-gone?

As good church-going folks, we’d cry, “heavens no!” But the truth is, so often, we struggle with this one. We see the actions of malevolence of some, and our culpability seems to pale in comparison. Sure, I have weeds and thorns, but look at THAT guy!

And so, perhaps we would be wise to not just love our neighbor, but to learn to see Christ in our neighbor. Let me say that again. We need to learn to see Christ in our neighbor. Yes, THAT neighbor. The one with all the thorns and weeds. Imagine how we’d begin to love one another, care for one another, reconcile with one another, invest emotionally in one another if we learned to see Christ in one another?

Now, I want to be clear about something. Seeing Christ in others does not negate presence of wickedness and evil. It’s just that we begin to see that there is some good wheat present in them, too. It’s not that we stop resisting when they create or perpetuate harm. Rather, we resist the weeds and thorns – not the person.

…we resist the weeds and thorns – not the person.