2025.07.06 | Revolutionary Love
“Revolutionary Love”
Reflection on the Fruit of the Spirit of Faithfulness
Leviticus 26:3-5
Reflection by
Rev. Dr. Marvin Lance Wiser
Eden United Church of Christ
Hayward, CA
06 July 2025
This morning’s Scripture speaks of abundance: rains in season, fruitful harvests, full bellies, and safety in the land. In essence, God’s faithfulness, even to parched lands like we read about from Jeremiah. But notice the condition—it begins, “If you follow my statutes, and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully.”
Now, it would be easy—and tempting—to reduce that to a kind of transactional faith: obey and you’ll be blessed, or and I remembered my saying Jeffa, “reverence begets benevolence.” But that’s not what this is about. The fruitfulness described here is not a prize; it’s the natural outgrowth of a just and faithful relationship with God and neighbor. It's what happens when love is rooted in righteousness—like a well-watered tree producing fruit in its season.
The fruit of the Spirit we lift up today is faithfulness. And I want to be clear: this isn't just about personal devotion or showing up at church on Sundays. Faithfulness, in the biblical sense, is relational. It means fidelity to God's vision of justice and community. It means showing up again and again for one another—even when it's costly, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Valarie Kaur, in her revelatory work See No Stranger, describes faithfulness as love in action. Not soft, sentimental love—but fierce, courageous, public love. Love that refuses to let go of anyone’s humanity—not even our opponents’. She writes, “Revolutionary love is the choice to enter into labor—for others, for our opponents, and for ourselves.” A resistance rooted in Imago Dei.
Today, the Sunday after the Fourth of July, we sit with the complex layers of what freedom has meant—and failed to mean—for so many in this country. We've watched in grief and anger as ICE continues to separate families. We've seen the language of faith twisted in the MAGA movement to defend not justice, but dominance.
La Escritura de hoy habla de abundancia: lluvias a su tiempo, cosechas, alimento y seguridad. Es una imagen de la fidelidad de Dios, incluso en tiempos difíciles. Pero todo comienza con una condición: “Si siguen mis mandamientos y los cumplen fielmente.” Pero no se trata de una fe transaccional, como si obedecer garantizara bendiciones. Más bien, la abundancia nace de relaciones justas y fieles con Dios y con el prójimo. Es el fruto natural de un amor arraigado en la justicia—como un árbol bien regado que da fruto a su tiempo.
Y nuestro fruto del Espíritu de hoy es la fidelidad, no solo como devoción personal, sino como compromiso con la justicia y la comunidad. Significa estar presentes unos para otros, incluso cuando es difícil. Valarie Kaur describe la fidelidad como amor en acción: no un amor sentimental, sino valiente, público y transformador. Un amor que no suelta la humanidad de nadie—ni siquiera la de nuestros enemigos.
En estos días después del 4 de julio, recordamos que la libertad no ha sido igual para todos. Vemos con dolor cómo ICE sigue separando familias, y cómo algunos distorsionan la fe para defender el poder, no la justicia. Frente a esto, somos llamados a una fidelidad revolucionaria, arraigada en el amor y la imagen de Dios.
Speaking of Jim’s story of mail being delivered to troops, this weekend my girls and I watched Six Triple Eight, the 2024 film telling the long-overdue story of the all-Black women’s battalion in World War II. Their faithfulness wasn’t just to country, but to each other—to dignity, to excellence, to being seen in a world that tried to erase them. They would not be erased and they will not be erased, even with 47th’s attempt at removing Lieutenant General Arthur J. Gregg and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams names from former Fort Lee in Virginia.
In contrast, we’ve also seen that “Big Ugly Bill”—a massive piece of legislation chipping away at civil rights, environmental protections, and the fragile scaffolding of care in our country. We name it for what it is: faithlessness at the systemic level. A breaking of covenant with creation, with the poor, with future generations.
Followers of Jesus can hear him today,
“I was hungry and you hung posters of the ten commandments in my classroom while ensuring that I lost free lunch.
I was thirsty and you removed environmental protections and left me with unclean water.
I was a stranger and ICE agents arrested me and placed me in a concentration camp in a sweltering swamp.
I was sick and you defunded Medicaid.”
So how do we respond? With a revolutionary love! A love that roots itself in God's justice, not nationalism, seeing no stranger. A love that takes the long view—like a tree planted by water. A love that labors in faithfulness, even when the harvest is slow in coming.
Church, our call today is not simply to be nice Christians. Our call is to be faithful and brave—to bear the fruit of revolutionary love. To live in right relationship with God, with one another, and with this fragmented yet sacred world that God is still creating and where we are still becoming. Amen.