Love as Radical Inclusion
This December, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team are sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. Join us as we explore the Advent themes of hope, peace, love, joy, and Christmas. This week’s reflections are written by Katelin Champion (she/her), a lay leader on Juniper Formation’s Leadership Team.
Love as Solidarity
Ruth 4:11
May YHWH make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah...
The story of Ruth has been this slow, tender unfolding of two women, Ruth and Naomi, surviving loss together and building a new kind of family outside the usual expectations. By chapter 4, Ruth has navigated the legal and cultural maze required to secure a future for them both. And when the community sees what she’s done, they bless her – out loud, in public. They call on the Creator to make her like Rachel and Leah: matriarchs who basically held Israel together with sheer will and generational grit.
What I love about this moment is how the blessing isn’t just “congratulations.” It’s the community naming Ruth’s worth, her courage, her belonging. It’s love as solidarity; a whole neighborhood recognizing that family isn’t biology or borders (Ruth was a Moabite, an enemy of Israel), it’s the people who show up and choose each other. That is the kind of love that builds worlds.
How might you practice a love that publicly affirms the people who have shown up for you, naming their courage and belonging the way Ruth’s community named hers?
Love Has Resurrecting Power
Ruth 4:14-15
Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be YHWH… who shall be to you a restorer of life…
This part of Ruth’s story picks up right after the community celebrates her bravery. Ruth and Naomi have been through loss, displacement, poverty. And honestly, survival alone would’ve been a miracle. But here’s the wild thing: the community doesn’t just witness their struggle; they step in with blessing again. They say, “Blessed be the Lord… this child will be a restorer of life and a sustainer in your old age.”
In other words, they’re naming that love has resurrecting power. Not a magical-fix, but the kind that grows from people refusing to let grief have the final word. Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi becomes the soil where new joy takes root. The community sees this and declares that restoration is already happening in front of us. It’s a reminder that sometimes hope returns through the steady love of the people who simply won’t give up on each other.
Where might restoration already be taking shape in your life through the quiet, faithful love of others, and are you willing to name it?
Love as Legacy
Psalm 78:4
…we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of YHWH and your might and the wonders that you have done.
Psalm 78 is basically a holy reminder that our stories matter, especially the ones about liberation. The psalmist is saying, “Listen, we’re not keeping quiet about what the Creator has done. We’re telling it to the next generation.” And that hits differently when you remember how many stories get erased; stories of marginalized people, stories of survival that don’t fit the empire-approved narrative.
Verse 4 is an invitation to resist that erasure. The psalm isn’t bragging; it’s bearing witness. It’s saying love looks like passing down the memories that keep us free. Stories of deliverance, yes, but also stories of courage, tenderness, defiance, chosen family; all the things that show how the Creator’s love keeps showing up in the lives of people who were never meant to make it.
This is love as legacy. Refusing amnesia, choosing remembrance that heals, and keeping liberation alive by telling the truth.
What liberating truths from your own story, or your community’s story, need to be remembered and passed on instead of tucked away in silence?
Love is Deeply Liberating, Queer-Affirming, Boundary-Breaking, Dignity-Restoring
Galatians 4:6-7
So you are no longer a slave but a child…
In this section of Galatians, Paul is basically trying to shake folks awake. He’s telling them, “You’re living like spiritual minors—like someone else still gets to decide your worth.” But then he drops this gorgeous truth: the Creator’s Spirit is already in you, calling you beloved, claiming you as family. “You are no longer a slave but a child… an heir...”
And that’s not some cute metaphor. It’s saying you don’t have to audition for divine love, or hustle for a place at the table, or shrink yourself to fit someone else’s religious comfort zone. The Creator isn’t running a hierarchy of worth; They’re establishing a lineage of grace.
This love is deeply liberating, queer-affirming, boundary-breaking, dignity-restoring. It’s the kind of love that hands you the keys to your own freedom and says, “You belong because you’re you. Full stop.”
Where are you still living like you need permission to belong, and what would it feel like to step into the freedom already given to you?
Love as Radical Inclusion
Matthew 1:3-6
…and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar …and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of King David.
Matthew opens his Gospel with a genealogy, which I know sounds about as thrilling as reading the opening credits of a movie. But this is wild. Intentionally chaotic in the best way. In the passage, we get Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth – women whose stories involve trauma, survival, boundary-crossing, and an almost holy level of resilience. Then there’s “the wife of Uriah,” who the text refuses to name, but we know her as Bathsheba.
This text is often read as erasing Bathsheba, but it’s actually throwing shade at King David. By refusing to sanitize the King’s abuse of power, it aligns the Messiah with the exploited, not the empire. And that’s the point.
Love refuses the sanitized version. Love says the Messiah comes through a family tree full of complicated women, widows, and exploited outsiders.
This is love as radical inclusion: every story belongs, especially the ones people try to rewrite or erase.
What parts of your own story have you felt the need to sanitize, and what would it feel like to trust that the Creator is present in the messy, unpolished truth?