Love Does Not Run Away

Do you feel of ache trying to do good work that feels too small to matter as we watch the government shutdown drag on? It is painful to see families and children stand in long lines at food banks while wrecking balls prepare the ground for a gleaming new gold-plated ballroom. While park rangers, air-traffic controllers, and food inspectors labor unpaid to keep others safe, ICE is handing out signing bonuses. The empire never stops funding its fear, rewarding detention centers but not senior centers. What does the prophet Zechariah say?  See Zechariah 8: 3-8

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Transcript

Sermons from 

Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

November 2, 2025

“Love Does Not Run Away”

Zechariah 8: 3-8 – Common English Bible

The Lord proclaims: I have returned to Zion; I will settle in Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be called the city of truth; the mountain of the Lord of heavenly forces will be the holy mountain.

4 The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:

Old men and old women will again dwell in the plazas of Jerusalem. Each of them will have a staff in their hand because of their great age. 5 The city will be full of boys and girls playing in its plazas.

6 The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:

Even though it may seem to be a miracle for the few remaining among this people in these days, should it seem to be a miracle for me? says the Lord of heavenly forces.

7 The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:

I’m about to deliver my people from the land of the east and the land of the west. 8 I’ll bring them back so they will dwell in Jerusalem. They will be my people, and I will be their God—in truth and in righteousness.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was born in Monrovia, Liberia, a country formed in the 1800s by formerly enslaved people sent from the United States to Africa. Tragically, having survived unthinkable brutality, they built a nation that repeated some of the same patterns of dominance. A small Americo-Liberian elite of the formerly-enslaved came to rule over the Indigenous majority, setting the stage for generations of conflict into which Ellen would step.

Her father was the first Liberian of Indigenous descent elected to the national legislature. Her mother was a Methodist pastor who taught her that faith was not a performance but a responsibility. Faith is what we do for people. Her home life was complex, marked by privilege, pain, and possibility.

Ellen married at seventeen, but when the marriage became violent, she made the difficult decision to leave to protect herself and her four sons. She went back to school and studied economics and public policy. She learned how nations rise and how they collapse. She learned what corruption does to people and how poverty is manufactured by greed. Armed with that knowledge, she decided to speak out against the military dictatorship of Samuel Doe. She was arrested. When that did not silence her, she was arrested again and threatened with execution. She survived only because of international pressure.

She fled into exile, first to Kenya, then to the United States. Life was stable and safe there, but exile could not satisfy a conscience shaped by responsibility. Methodist churches abroad helped her stay rooted in her faith. From a distance she watched Liberia fall into civil war and knew she had to return, leaving comfort behind. After the first civil war, she returned to ruins:  250,000 dead, 1 million displaced, and among the worst atrocities, 20,000 children had been forced into becoming soldiers.

Many who fled chose never to go back, but she did. She believed her nation could be repaired and later became the first democratically elected female president in the history of Africa. For her leadership she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.

Hers is not a story of triumph alone. It is a model of strength and moral courage shaped by faith, because faith had taught her that love does not run away from those who suffer.

Her story has echoes of Zechariah. He was born in exile, far from Jerusalem, among a people forced from their land by Babylonian armies that completely destroyed the city. But by the time he was born, exile had become normal. People had built houses and vineyards. Some even found comfort there. So when the chance came to return home, not everyone wanted to go. 

Zechariah’s family chose differently. They were from a priestly line and believed their calling still belonged in Jerusalem, even if Jerusalem no longer looked like home. What they found when they arrived was the Temple in a heap of broken stones. The economy had collapsed and those who had stayed through famine and fear felt forgotten by those returning from Babylon who carried means and influence. Suspicion grew between them. When things became too hard, many went back to Babylon. But Zechariah stayed because he believed God still had a future for the people. And yet, the future does not build itself. 

Zechariah gave people a vision they could hold as plainly as day: a time when the elderly would sit safely in the streets and children would play without fear. That is how he defined a healed society. Not by wealth, power, or religious observance. A society not only measured by the safety, but by joy in living.

This is where Zechariah’s story meets ours as I hear more and more people asking if they should give up and leave the country – somewhere else to raise our children, a place to enjoy growing old.  I sympathize with that feeling. It is heartbreaking to watch people feel the need to harden their hearts in order to survive their breaking hearts.  

But the story of faith has never been an escape story. God does not call people to abandon the world, but to love it. Empire will always manufacture distractions to hide greed and corruption. And there will always be a place that looks like a greener pasture. But are we called to pursue comfort? Are we called to escape? No. We are called to faithfulness.

Faithfulness looks like stubborn love – daily decisions to live by what is right, even when no one notices. For example, earlier this year, a local paper ran a story about two neighbors who had barely spoken since 2020. Carol lived alone in a white farmhouse with a small rainbow flag in the window. Across the road, Ron flew a red “MAGA” flag on his porch. They kept their distance.

Then one morning, heavy rain turned their road into a river. As water began to seep into her basement, Carol looked up and saw Ron crossing the road in his work boots, carrying a shovel. He didn’t knock. He just started digging a trench to divert the water from her house, then asked to come inside to help her move boxes to higher ground.

When she thanked him, he brushed it off. “You’d have done the same for me,” he said. And something changed that day. The next day, he waved when he drove past. Later, she left a plate of cookies on his porch.

As the paper reported, “They still disagree about nearly everything, but they stopped pretending they’re not neighbors.”  

Actions like these may seem microscopically small in the face of enormous powers, but small matters. Small does not mean meaningless.

That’s what the exiles needed to hear when they returned to Jerusalem and began to rebuild the Temple. The foundation they laid looked so small, so plain, so unimpressive that some of the elders who remembered the old sanctuary from childhood wept when they saw it. This was not the future they dreamed of. They mistook small for failure.

That same ache of doing good work that feels too small to matter runs through our nation now as we watch the government shutdown drag on. It is painful to see families and children stand in long lines at food banks, while wrecking balls prepare the ground for a gleaming new gold-plated ballroom. While park rangers, air-traffic controllers, and food inspectors labor unpaid to keep others safe, ICE is handing out signing bonuses. The empire never stops funding its fear, rewarding detention centers but not senior centers.  

You heard Zechariah use the image of elders in the streets and children at play to measure a people’s health. But in our streets today, the old wonder what to do when their Medicaid shrinks, while the young practice active shooter drills that steal their recess time. By that measure, we are failing.

But while feeling despair about it is honest, it is a strategy of injustice. When people give up, nothing changes. When people stay silent, cruelty wins by default. So hear me. Small work matters. Showing up matters. Feeding people matters. Every act of stubborn love and whispered prayer, is a declaration of hope.

Into that moment the prophet Zechariah gives a direct word from God: “Do not despise the day of small beginnings.” Small things are a sign that God is present. 

In September, we started our lunch and activity program for seniors every Wednesday.  Our first day, we prepared for 40 guests and worried what we would do if we ran out of food.  Far fewer than that showed up.  We felt discouraged but knew we had work to do to invite more, yet little changed for weeks and I started imagining how to give up gracefully – let it go as a good experiment. Perhaps wondering if it was worth their time, the volunteers remained committed and then I witnesses a shift – the one I had dreamed of.  There is a sizeable Chinese community at Green Manor that exists separately from others in our neighborhood. I wanted to bridge the gap of residents at Green Manor, our church, and our neighborhood and I watched it happen organically as participants and volunteers made arts and crafts together, proudly showing off their creations to each other. the next week they came with smiles greeting one another.  More community members joined in – and last week we had a total of 24 guests and volunteers.  A man was asked if they serve any food at Green Manor. He said, no but with a big smile, “I get to come here every Wednesday!”  Small things matter!

We are not the first people to wrestle with discouragement. On All Saints Day, we honor those whose faith was not proven by how loudly they believed but by how deeply they loved. Not to be perfect, but to be faithful. Not to run from the world, but to help repair it. Because love does not run away.

For example, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was not a saint in the sentimental way people sometimes imagine saints. She was not a perfect leader. Her story included some questionable choices and painful consequences – which is precisely why her life matters so much. She did not return to Liberia for triumph. She returned out of responsibility, shaped by a faith that taught her leadership is service.  And now at age 86, she is still serving the world.

How did she keep going in the face of such enormous need?  Raised in the church, she spoke of prayer and purpose and trust that God does not call people away from struggle, but through it. And so, like Zechariah, she did not leave when hope was slow. And sustained by God’s love, she gave witness that God has never run away from us.

No, the love of God entered history and refused to leave it.

• The love of God entered the world in flesh and blood and walked straight into suffering.
• The love of God blessed the bleeding and healed the ones left to die.
• The love of God touched the sick no one else would touch and defied the holiness that labeled them unclean.
   
   
• The love of God overturned the tables that traded faith for control.
• The love of God marched truth into the palaces of power and exposed their lies.
• The love of God tore down the golden altars of greed and false glory.
   
   
• The love of God defied the whips of empire and shamed mobs who cheered them on.
• The love of God carried a cross through the streets of cruelty and did not turn away from death.

• And then, the love of God rose, not to claim a throne, but to break the grip of fear forever.

So, when the world turns hard, we will stay human.
 
 

When fear tempts us to flee, we will stay and do the work of love.
 
 

Because love does not run away.