Love makes people do the craziest things. When we’re in love, who knows what we’re going to do? But how do you know when you’re in love? To help you, I offer the “Top Ten Signs You’re in Love.”
10. You’re reading Song of Solomon for your bedtime devotional reading. Steamy!
9. You’re in federal prison for trying to make the head of the Lincoln Memorial look like your husband.
8. You’re beginning to think the way her nose drips is kind of cute.
7. You decide the cats, dogs, monkeys, rats, mice, snakes and yes, even the moose can stay.
6. You find yourself in the car on the way to get what she craves and don’t remember asking her what time it was.
5. You think an 8-hour drive to see your significant other is normal.
4. Your latest invention is pads for your sweaty palms.
3. You get lost in her eyes and meet the last six guys she dated.
2. You find yourself breaking into song whenever he walks in the room.
1. You decide it would be okay to use her toothbrush just this once.
Love makes people do the craziest things.
If you wind back the clock to 1914 and think about what all this area was like, you’ll see how crazy love can be. Today, we see houses everywhere, but in 1914, there were not that many houses here. Squantum was mostly a summer destination with a few resort hotels and vacation homes, as people tried to escape the summer heat of Boston. But there were some families—farmers mostly—who lived here year-round who wanted their children to know God loved them, wanted their children to grow up knowing the Bible was a book that could change their lives, wanted their children to make a difference. To start a church, with such a small year-round population was pretty crazy. To start a church, when you had so many different ideas about church—we had evangelical Swedes, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and others—that was crazy too. The people embraced their differences, and they started a church—our church. Love makes people do the craziest things.
During the 1950s and 1960s, churches were filling up, and Squantum had two, right? First Church of Squantum and the Catholic church, Mary Star of the Sea. The priest at the time—some of you may remember—told his parishioners they were not allowed to even set foot in this church. Fifteen years or so ago, when the Archdiocese shut down Star of the Sea, the people who had been part of that fellowship, who had loved and served and shed tears together were looking for a place to worship together—on Squantum—and this church opened its doors, so the people of that church without a building, could worship God together. That’s crazy! Why would we do that for them? But they were our neighbors and our friends and our hearts were broken with them at the loss of their church. Love makes people do the craziest things.
In 2013, the people of this church did something crazy—they decided to call a full-time pastor. Only seven years before, in 2006, this church was down to a couple handfuls of people, and loving God and each other and this community brought the church roaring back to life—at just the right time to help change this community for the better. Were you there that day, nine years ago, when I first stood in front of you? I remember standing up to read scripture before my sermon that day, and feeling the love of God move among us so strongly those of us there could feel it. Call a full-time pastor? What, are you nuts? Together, we have worked together, laughed and cried and served together! We have made new memories together—dances and parade floats, baptisms and weddings, funerals and confirmations, VBS and youth groups. We have opened our doors to the community—for school board nights and mayoral candidates, neighborhood watch meetings and meditation classes, and Halloween and potty breaks. For why? Love makes people do the craziest things.
It's true. At the end of the day, the love Jesus had for God and for each of us, led Him to do the craziest thing of all—to be willing to be killed. His willingness to do something crazy to help us find forgiveness for the wrongs we have done, find acceptance beyond what we deserve, find open arms when we expect hostility—wow! That’s wild! And Jesus’ love for us is not something we just find and then we are good—back to living our own best lives. Jesus’ love for us rewires us, changes our hearts, leaves us wanting more and wanting to do more to forgive, accept and embrace our friends for sure, but also our neighbors and the people who troll us on Next Door, or gossip about each of us, and the ones who aren’t really sure why we are here. We are not just a non-profit—we as a people and as a place are a sign of God’s grace to this community. We keep on loving like Jesus would. Where the world talks about divisions, partisanship, and breaking things down, God has planted us here to be a sign that Jesus’ love is more and showing Jesus’ grace can become a lifestyle.
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us…”(2 Cor 5:18–20a)
But there it is—love made God do the craziest thing in sending Jesus, love made Jesus do the craziest thing in being willing to die for us. And when we love like Jesus did, when we live a life marked by that grace, other people will see how crazy it is, and know that our love is for real. And if our love is for real, then maybe God is for real. And if God is for real…well then…tell me about this love that makes people do the craziest things. We could all use a little more of that crazy kind of grace and hope in our lives and our world!