August 30, 2026 | 14th Sunday after Pentecost
Holloway Memorial Chapel – Ridgeway, ON
References
Scripture: Romans 12:9–21; Matthew 16:21–28
Let Love Be Genuine
“Let love be genuine.”
These words are so simple.
How do you hear them?
“Let love be genuine.”
What does it well up within you … or touch somewhere deep in your soul?
“Let love be genuine.”
Where have you seen, experienced, or given genuine love recently?
I’ve been thinking about the word “genuine” this week and where I’ve seen it.
“Genuine leather” … you might see these words stamped on a wallet, purse … maybe shoes. It conveys that the material you see is, in fact, leather. There’s nothing artificial about it … nothing fake.
“Genuine vanilla” … again … nothing fake, watered down … diluted. Just … pure vanilla.
So … “genuine love” … is it fair to say that it’s love in its fullness? It’s love that’s not watered down or fake.
What’s more, the word St. Paul uses for “genuine” also means “without hypocrisy” (Greek: ἀνυπόκριτος).
I’m spending a fair amount of time on this word “genuine” because … after all … isn’t the concept of love being genuine kind of an elementary concept? Something that all of us know, and all of us strive to do?
So, shouldn’t we get on to something more meaty … something more spiritually enlightening … something newer or deeper or maybe even more exciting?
What Dolly Parton Can Teach Us About Genuine Love
You probably know that Dolly Parton died this past week. We have all heard news coverage after a celebrity dies. What stood out to me as being really different is that she was almost universally loved, and no one had a bad word to say about her. Conservatives loved her. Liberals loved her.
That’s really amazing for someone who has lived in the spotlight and has been so well known and widely covered in the media.
But Dolly didn’t just tell people what they wanted to hear.
She certainly had her beliefs about faith and politics … but love was her priority.
In a 2014 interview with Billboard Magazine, she said:
“If people want to pass judgment, they’re already sinning. I try to love everybody.”
Was Dolly perfect? She definitely wouldn’t claim to be.
Was she genuine? From what I know of her … it seems so.
I don’t know whether Dolly Parton would describe herself as a theologian. But St. Paul would recognize something in what she said in that interview.
Love isn’t something we turn on when people have earned it.
Love is the posture from which we engage the world.
You see … love being genuine in us means that everything we do is colored with love.
Love Doesn’t Have an On/Off Switch
Love doesn’t have an on/off switch.
Genuine love isn’t the same thing as being nice all the time. It isn’t avoiding conflict or making everybody comfortable.
Sometimes we have to do hard things.
We may have to discipline or terminate an employee … sit on a jury and render a guilty verdict … speak up and tell a friend something they really don’t want to hear.
When we are guided by genuine love, we’re not turning off the switch of our love.
Telling the truth, setting a boundary, confronting something that is wrong … these are all part of letting love be genuine. And sometimes genuine love means allowing ourselves to be confronted, too.
Because if my love never asks anything of me, never challenges me, never changes me … I have to wonder how genuine it really is.
Love doesn’t have an on/off switch.
Not when the person in front of us is difficult.
Not when the person disagrees with us.
Not when the person doesn’t look like us or live like us.
Not when loving them requires us to change.
Love doesn’t have an on/off switch.
St. Paul exhorts us to a life with our “love switch” turned on … permanently.
Really Notice Your Neighbor
Paul expands on Jesus’ teaching to “love our neighbors as ourselves” … and even to love our enemies! But I wonder if Paul is asking us to do something even harder than simply being “nice” to people.
He encourages us to notice the other. Really notice them.
To see the person we might ordinarily pass by.
To hear the story we might otherwise never hear.
To become curious about a life that is different from our own.
Because once we really see our neighbor, genuine love can change us.
Notice the poor, the hungry, the thirsty … and love them!
Love them with a genuine love, not making exceptions for whether we think they are worthy enough or good enough.
And there’s the challenge for us … genuine love isn’t passive. Genuine love notices, listens, and allows the story of the other to affect and move us!
Genuine love doesn’t put us in the position of deciding who deserves our attention and who doesn’t. It can be a real challenge to love the person whose experience of the world is nothing like our own.
People’s lives have been shaped by experiences that are very unlike our own … sometimes experiences that make us uncomfortable.
Genuine Love Changes Us
Living life with our love switched permanently “on” doesn’t just change the people who receive it.
Genuine love changes the person who gives it.
And maybe that’s what Jesus means when he tells us to take up our cross and follow him.
The cross is not simply about suffering.
It is about letting go of the self that insists on being at the center.
It is about discovering that my life is connected to the lives of my neighbors.
When I make room for my neighbor, I don’t lose my life … I find it.
Isn’t that what Jesus promises?
Those who lose their life for his sake will find it.
Perhaps that is what it means to let love be genuine.
Not simply to say that we love.
Not simply to be nice.
Not simply to love the people who are easy to love.
But to live with our love switch permanently “on.”
To notice.
To listen.
To be challenged.
To be changed.
To make room for our neighbor.
And in doing so, to discover that genuine love doesn’t just change the world around us.
It changes us.
Reflection Questions
- Where have you experienced genuine love recently? What made it feel genuine rather than superficial or conditional?
- Where might your “love switch” be turned off? Is there someone or some group you find difficult to notice, listen to, or understand?
- How might genuinely loving your neighbor change you? What might you have to release, reconsider, or make room for?
Epicurious Lutheran 
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