Several months ago, I noticed in my neighborhood a message someone had graffitied on the side of a building: “SPREAD LOVE.” It was written in clear red letters, in a little cloud of hearts. Whenever I would pass it, in the course of hurrying from one thing to another, this message gave me a little reason to pause for a moment and smile. It helped me to remember I wasn’t alone. It helped me to remember Jesus, and to remember why we’re here on this earth, to remember own better selves and the better selves of others that we called to call forth in the service of Love. I felt grateful for whomever had put it there. It was an act of spreading love.

Then a couple of months ago, I saw that someone had sprayed a big ‘X’ over “SPREAD LOVE” and scrawled out what I’m guessing is their personal tag. (See the photo above)

So, the question is: How do you respond to this, if you are on team “Spread Love”?

One response is to accept defeat for our side. It’s a naïve sentiment, anyway, “Spread Love,” a coddled view that one should grow out of. The world isn’t cuddly, after all, it’s cold, it’s mean. So, you better get mean too, to get yours and to get ahead – or just give up and go home.

This is probably the view of the person who X-ed out the love. They want that view to triumph and they see its triumph as their own (even if one day it may kill them).

Is the only true option to give up on love and get mean or go home?

Or can our love get tough and tenacious?

Can it stay strong in its truth, which derives from none other than God, the Creator of each and all, who endows all humanity with the value and dignity which love calls us to witness and to protect in others and ourselves, those near and those far?

It’s not at all surprising that a public call to spread love was soon confronted with its opposite. Sin is real. But it is not as real as the ultimate reality of God. In the revelation of that ultimate reality, which as Christians we find through Christ, God is a God of Love, and God is a God of resurrection. The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to faith in a God of Love who withstands all the power of sin, marshalled in hate against Love, and reveals to us the ultimate triumph of Love.

When I take a moment to remember Jesus and to root down into our faith and remember the great witnesses and ancestors of the Gospel of Love, that vandalism on the wall in my neighborhood just looks pathetic. Look again at it. See how strongly the “Spread Love” shines past the X slapped over it. It is beautiful and powerful. It triumphs over the thin and brittle bitterness that is so weak it feels threatened by other people simply knowing that their value and dignity.

Love is an action. And it calls us to action.

Jesus preached about love, yes. But the only reason why his words have endured is because of the ways he lived out that love, and he inspired that courageous action in his followers, and she showed that love triumphs in the end. He stood up to the angry mob that wanted to stone a woman. He joined with those who were scapegoats and showed them mercy and witnessed to their essential worth and dignity. He identified so strongly with those who need food, who need clothes, who need home, who need safety, who need to know they aren’t alone, that Jesus told his followers: “That which you do to the least of these you do to me.”

This is a doing kind of love.

There are a lot of people right now who need that kind of love, especially those who have been made into scapegoats for our society’s problems. The Xs that try to negate the love ethic are trying to cut them off from basic human needs, like food and shelter, home and safety, family and identity and dignity.

The Love we serve is stronger and tougher and truer. It doesn’t give up on us, so we must not give up on it.

Let me share another story about, let’s call it, unsanctioned public art.

Several years ago, we were living in Walla Walla, Washington, where I was serving a church. Near the church was a walking bridge over a waterway. One day – this was in 2018 – there appeared letters bolted to the fence on the walk way, that spelled out,

“NEVER GIVE UP.”

There also had appeared other messages nearby that affirmed the dignity and sanctity of LGBTQ+ folks.

After a few months, I noticed the “N” had disappeared. The message now was “EVER GIVE UP.”

I went and investigated the chain-link fence. It was clear that it was sabotage, according to my forensic analysis. It’s not like something had broken and the “N” had just fallen off. Someone had gone out of their way to undo the wires that hold up the painting and, I presume, throw the “N” off the bridge into the creek. “EVER GIVE UP”.

I wondered about who did that and what was going on for them. Were they feeling despair? Where they feeling anger? Where they feeling hate? Maybe were seeking the kind of petty power of someone who pops kids’ balloons just to make them cry. 

Whatever they reason, they left a message to others, a dangerous message:

“Just give up already” “You’re not worth it” or “This world isn’t worth it.”

This was an attempt to X out an effort to Spread Love. It was an attempt to cause despair and defeat. 

What this saboteur didn’t know was that their deed was not the end of the story: it was just the set up for a much more powerful expression of love and hope.   

A couple weeks after the “N” had disappeared, it had been cold and rainy over night and into the morning. By late morning the sun had come out and it was becoming a beautiful day. I needed a little break, so I went on a walk in the sun.

When I left the church and headed toward the footbridge I saw there was someone there on the near side of the bridge stooped over working at something. I saw she was busy fixing a wire behind a square canvas on the fence. It was a new canvas, where the “N” used to be. As I got closer I saw that she had also put up a bunch of flowers – cloth and wire flowers – on the chain-link.

I thought, “Now here’s someone I need to meet!”

It turns out she was not the person who put up the initial “NEVER GIVE UP.” As a matter of fact, she had never seen the original un-sabotaged “NEVER.” She was just in town that week visiting family and she had gone on a walk and she came to the bridge and saw “EVER GIVE UP.” She thought, “That’s not right. Something’s missing here.” So, she went to Goodwill and found a cheap blank canvas that was the right size. She got some paint and some wire and some flowers and set to work.

This is the work of Love, on behalf of our God of Resurrection.

Thanks be to God.

Delivered Sunday, February 9, 2025, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge.