ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
August 8, 2026
Today, I will be officiating at the funeral for a woman who was nearly 106 years old. It is sort of hard to wrap my brain around what it might have been like to live 106 years, and to have experienced all the changes that occurred in that time. In 1920, 65% of homes in the United States did not have electricity. People did not yet have radios in their homes, though that would soon come. Airplanes were something most people had seen, at least in the sky from a distance, but less than one tenth of one percentage of Americans had actually been in a plane. Some change happens almost incrementally, and it can almost go unnoticed. Other changes happen quickly, giving us little time to prepare. Though not all change is good, I am generally thankful for the progress that has and continues to occur. Did you realize that the first splinter-free toilet paper did not become available until 1935, and that many people continued to buy the old paper with splinters because of cost? It was the Depression. And in thinking about change, Christianity has gone through immense change in the last 2000 years, yet between some good change and some really not so good change, people have continued to wrestle with a single unchanging question: What does it mean to love my neighbor? I hope, at least in the circles in which I live, that we have continued to make some progress in answering that question. Yet as strange as it may sound, I hope we are always growing in our understanding because with each generation there are simply things that cannot be seen. What was once thought of as unconditional love is suddenly seen through new lens as a love that has conditions. Things need to change. But those with both faith and curiosity, the ideal of unconditional love becomes an infinite calling that is explored with joy day after day, amidst all kinds of change.
It is my desire to love as Jesus loved. Merciful God and Source of Love, I know from a practical standpoint that I will never fully love as Jesus loved, but maybe with friends and other faithful people, we can collectively reach toward that goal of unconditional love. Amen.
