January 18, 2026 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Ephesians 4:1-6; John 1:43-51
On Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Rev. Derek van Gulden walks through the marks of King's beloved community, rooted in agape love and the image of God in every person, and admits it takes hard work. The homework: look in the mirror and say 'I am beloved', then start saying it to others, even the ones you disagree with.
Transcript
People of God, would you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, in this moment, I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your love, and help each of us this day not to be the instrument of our own or anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every step, in every breath, in every moment of every day. Amen.
So no, it's working today. So for those of you who are new here today, I don't have an aversion to being in the pulpit, but I prefer to be down here with everybody else. But there was one of our beloved. Long time congregants who passed a few years ago that would remind me. You know that's where you're supposed to be. Don't come out of it. Stay up there. So for her service, that's where I was. Thank you. Nancy.
Friends on this Sunday that we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. And on his, if tomorrow was his birthday. His birthday, that is a national holiday. I want to talk a little bit about King's beloved community. Because I believe when he was preaching it many times. He believed it could happen. I believe it's happened before in history. I believe it's happened in this country, in other countries these days. I still believe there are beloved communities all over this country, more so than anything else.
But I want to summarize it real quick. And this is not coming from me. It's a beautiful article. One of my pastor friends sent me, and I'm just going to give you a brief synopsis and then talk about one part. So beloved community is rooted in the biblical notion of agape love. Now, agape love is that unconditional love that God has with all creation, unconditional. In a beloved community. Power is always to be expressed within the context of love. Beloved community recognizes and honors the image of God in every human being. And I want you to hear that. Scripture in Genesis tells us that when God created the first earth people, they were created in God's image, in God's own image. They were created. Everyone, even those people that just. We may have trouble looking at. That's the vision of God.
One of the ways key ways that I've learned of creating or being part of a beloved community is recognizing that. Recognizing that love is what makes it work, not anger. Whatever. God calls us to love each other. And we hear that throughout the New Testament. We hear that Jesus saying that quite often the beloved community seeks peace and justice. It opposes oppression and injustice and takes direct action against racism, poverty, violence. Peace is always to be the connection with justice.
The beloved community affirms the efficacy of the soul force. And I'm still learning on this. King believes in a Gandhian principle of soul force as the most effective way to enact real change in human hearts and society, we must rise to the. Heights of meeting physical force with Soul force. In the beloved community. Faith and action are interrelated. Interrelated. We take our faith and action, but they go together.
The beloved community affirms that all of humanity is part of the. In Escapable network of mutuality. All life is interrelated. All life, all creation. I'm sharing these with you because I know there are times that I struggle with these beloved community insists on interdependence as the impetus towards realization of full humanity and the actualization of full community. The beloved community depends on collaborative efforts of cross section of people with common interests for a just society.
What I hear is the beloved community needs to be as diverse as it can be. It doesn't mean, well, we have four seats we have to fill to fill out this actual part of diversity. So you stay at the door. The others come in. Everybody brings diversity. Everybody, no matter who they are. The beloved community seeks to build increasing levels of trust among people across differences. That's a lot of work. Right now it may seem impossible, but we have to start somewhere.
I'm going to quote for you. Maybe I'm not going to quote to you. Two people that I read an awful lot about. One is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who stated this. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If you're neutral, if you take no action, you're siding with those who are oppressing others. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Said it this way not to speak is to speak. Not to speak is to speak is to speak. And not to act is to not act. Oh, and not to act is to act.
Calling us out. To not sit down and let other people do it. To not be passive and say others will take care of it. I'm out of energy to not realize that to make this beloved community takes a lot of work on all our parts. It takes action. It takes love. It takes peace, which we know takes action.
So where do we start? Oh. question. I thought you'd all have answers. Maybe we start with ourselves. I'm going to challenge you to do this one thing this week. Last week we did a breathing exercise. This week I'm going to give you another exercise.
One when you look in the mirror in the morning. Most people do. If you're brushing your teeth, combing your hair, whatever, checking out what you're wearing. Look in that mirror. Really look at yourself and say to yourself, I am beloved. We're all beloved of God. Every single person. When we realize that in ourselves, then we can start seeing it in other people. And you might pick one person sometime this week and just tell them you are the face of God and you are beloved. You might say it to other people. You might say it to somebody who you're just disagreeing with for some reason or not. You are beloved.
It is a place to start. It is a place that most of us have forgotten about because we let our anger, our emotions, which is perfectly normal, seep up. And then we start yelling and screaming, pointing fingers, doing everything. It takes love. It takes action. And it takes each of us to realize that those we might not get along with in any way. Our beloved child of God and part of becoming a beloved community in my heart.
I believe it's when you can invite anyone. About a year ago, I was here doing some stuff on motif. One day I had the church open just because I was here and doing some work in the sanctuary. And some people come in and they love looking around. They ask for history. And somebody said, well, we looked at your website like just a minute ago. They did, and all are welcome. Are they truly all welcome here? And I said, yes. Well, what about people that do these horrible things? Well they're welcome. Maybe by them entering this space, they are touched and find a way to reach out for help to stop their oppressive behavior or to just have somebody say yes, all. All are welcome here, no matter who. I can only speak for myself. But when I say that, that is my conviction. All are welcome.
Certainly, there have been times when we've had people in church that I look out and go, hmm. Because I've seen him before and they've challenged me before, but I always go up to them afterwards and thank them for coming to church. And there's one who's, I think for fourteen years I've been here a couple of times a year shows up, and after a while I started saying, hey, do you want to get coffee sometime this week? And he said, really? I said, yeah. When we met in Gloucester, he said, well, I don't drink coffee. And I said, I don't either. So we got chocolate milk and just talked. Not about church or anything else. Just talked about being. And the next time they came into church, they usually get here about an hour beforehand. And they came up to me and gave me a hug and said, thank you. And sat through it and came up afterwards and was talking to other people.
Now, my story sometimes make it seem like it's really easy. It is not. God calls us to do work to reach out and work hard to make that beloved community.
So your chore this week. I always love that word. Chore is when you see yourself in the mirror. Say it out loud. You are a beloved child of God. You are the very image of God. And when you get comfortable with that, start with saying it to other people. You are a child of God. You are the very image of God, and you are beloved by God. The first time I heard that, I couldn't speak. I didn't actually know what it meant. But the next time I ran into that person, they explained it to me and I thought, well, that's pretty nice.
That's my story today and I'm sticking with it. Amen.