Invocation
President Grover Cleveland Dinner
Rev. Mary Edes
2005

I have often heard it said that the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. Love sets people free, Fear holds people - even nations - captive. And so, this evening I want to invoke the name of Love into our midst.

But first a dire warning. Be careful what you ask for - what you pray for. Love is a Big word and it places upon us Big demands: it requires more than plain talk or even eloquent oratory about compassion, freedom, and justice. Love requires that we put forth our best selves, acting together to promote well being for all our citizens. Love requires of us an unapologetic stance on the side of greater social and economic justice for ever greater numbers of our citizens and for the world. It is not work that will be - or ever can be - motivated by fear. Fear makes us smaller than we are. Our hearts become like fists with which to strike out against imaginary, or at least inflated enemies - fists that hold on too tight to that which we fear we will lose if we open ourselves to some other way of being American citizens in a world of ever closer neighbors.

We have lived in this tragic atmos - fear for too many years, now and it's half past time for a change. Our lasting strength and best legacy will not grow out of our ability to frighten and intimidate, silence, and control all our enemies - real and imagined - but rather out of our courageous stance on the side of Love with a capital L. Our country - the world needs us to find a new language for this century. It is no longer acceptable for us to define our commitments only in opposition to the present and potential policies of fear and exclusion ... rather we need a new language of welcome, affirmation, and hope. As an American and as a minister, I am sick and tired of bumper stickers proclaiming - I sometimes think demanding: God Bless America . I want me a bumper sticker that says: America : Bless the World with your Goodness.

Our message will not speak to every living soul, but it can and will speak to many more people than it does now, if we will only - each and every one of us in our own way - take to heart the admonition of Rev. John Murray, one of America's first Universalist preachers from the late 1700s. ( adapted )

Go out into the highways and byways of America , your .. . country. Give the people ... something of your new vision. You may possess only a small light but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men [and women everywhere] . Give them, not hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper into their theological - [ and I might add, political ] - despair, but preach kindness and everlasting Love.

And so I do invoke this evening - in this place - a renewed, enlivened, embodied, empowered Spirit of Love. Dear God, may we take seriously the commandment to Love our neighbors as ourselves, so that we can build the world we hope to inhabit and leave it as a living legacy to future generations. This, I pray: May we - each and all - be led by and with Love. Amen.