Provoking love

Let us consider how to provoke one another to love. Hebrews 10:24

This statement jumped out at me from this week's lectionary readings. How can we provoke one another to love?

Church gatherings are full of provocation. But provocation to love? Mmmm. Not the first description I would choose to describe many church encounters.

But just imagine if that were our focus - provoking one another to love.

Wow! The consequences are unimaginable.

It's conjuring up for me a whole new form of social networking.

On facebook, you can poke someone to get their attention.

Consider the next church meeting, whether with coffee in hand in the fellowship area or row on row at the officebearers court - provoking love would be an attention grabber.

Just think of the fun it would be to set that ball rolling:

You provoke one person to love and they, in turn, have to provoke someone else. It would be like a house of cards or a stack of dominos. Not so much in the fragile waiting to collapse sense but in the chain reaction sense - your little act of provocation grows and gathers momentum as it is passed along until there is a great whoosh of love exploding all around.

That would certainly be church - but perhaps not as we know it!