Gospel

Epiphany 6, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Jesus has been hanging out around Richmond, doing some miracles, recruiting followers and attracting a lot of attention. The religious leaders in town are not pleased.  Big shot representatives from St. James’s Episcopal, First Baptist, Centenary United Methodist and other “important” churches have sought him out to ask him challenging questions and to publicly dispute Jesus’ claims about himself.  But these big shots are not the only ones who have heard of Jesus.  Other people, less important people, have been healed and they are calling their friends and family members all over Virginia. 

So, after awhile Jesus escapes to Afton Mountain, where he can take a breather and regroup from all the attention that has been given him.  He gathers himself, and then comes down to Greenwood to teach his disciples.  When he gets down here, he realizes that huge crowds have gathered.  These aren’t the same stentorian religious leaders that challenged him so decorously in Richmond.  This is a ragtag group from all over the state.  People have packed up meals for several days and walked from Tidewater, from Alexandria, from south Boston, even from Wise.  Hearing stories of healing, they come seeking an encounter with the living God, hoping to see a miracle or be healed themselves. 

In this crowd are the unemployed, meth addicts, migrant workers, high school dropouts, the terminally ill, the elderly, children skipping school, widows, and of course, the curious.  This is not a group you would want to bring home to your mother.  You’re in the group, too.  But, you never went to college or got the job you had now.  You never fell in love, got married and had children.  You’re pretty lonely and you’re definitely broke.  You look around at the people surrounding you and you start to laugh because they are so pitiful.  You’re pitiful.  Finally, Jesus arrives and when he starts speaking, the hairs on the back of you neck rise. 

Your whole life you have been led to believe that the blessed are those who have a steady income, and family that loves them.  You believed that the blessed are those in power, who drive fancy cars.  You believe that the blessed are those who never shed a tear and cruise along in life without any challenges.

Imagine your surprise you over hear Jesus say the following sentences to his disciples.

Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

These words of Jesus pierce your heart.  He is calling you blessed, your life blessed. 

Your whole life you have been told that you aren’t worth anything, because you’ve never achieved anything the world considers valuable.  Yet this holy man, who has the power to heal, the power to do miracles is choosing to call you blessed. Jesus is saying that you are loved by God, favored by God. 

Next, Jesus’ words get even stranger. 

He says,

But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Jesus is flipping everything your culture believes on its ear.  You can hear the murmurs in the crowd, especially from the folks who have a little money.  They don’t really like what they are hearing.

You on the other hand, are too busy having your mind blown to murmur.  Your whole concept of who God is and what God is like and what the kingdom of God will be like is being turned topsy turvy.  You start to understand that just because your church or your society says something about God or about you, does not mean it is true.  You start to understand that God’s values are about relationship rather than acquisition.  You start to understand all the great stuff rich people have, rather than being a reward from God, can actually function as a block between people and God. 

You watch some of these rich folks as they realize the cost of following Jesus.  Some of them are up for the challenge.  They know that a relationship with God is such an incredible, unique experience that in perspective, money and possessions aren’t that big a deal.  You can tell other folks are really weighing their options.  It is not easy to create a life that is rich of wonderful experiences and possessions.  That kind of a life takes years of effort, hard work, and sacrifices.  Following Jesus has no guarantees of earthly pleasure or reward.  A third group of rich people do not need any time to think.  They walk away, convinced Jesus is a nut.

They don’t quite understand, like you do, this blessedness that Jesus describes is the deepest kind of well-being that exists.  Blessedness is a kind of well being that no material object can match.  Blessedness is being loved not for what you have acquired or what you have done, but for being exactly who you are.  Blessedness fills the deepest sadnesses of our hearts with joy.  Blessedness is undeserved, unasked for and always surprising.  Blessedness forces us to acknowledge that all the “stuff” of this life is just. . .”stuff”, ephemeral and transitory.  In contrast, blessedness is eternal and real. 

Blessedness turns the world upside down and forces us to look at life an entirely different way.  Blessedness is grace.

As you watch all the different reactions to Jesus, you process what you are seeing and you understand that the real blessedness comes from knowing Jesus better, from being in relationship with God.  So, when Jesus leaves Greenwood, you follow him.  You don’t pack up your things, you don’t say your goodbyes, you just follow him, so your journey of blessedness can begin.

 

Baptism of our Lord, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

I don’t know how many of you are former evangelicals, but I spent most of my later adolescence as a hand clapping, power point watching, profoundly guilt-ridden modern American conservative evangelical.  It was good times. 

Though now I prefer Anglican chant, complicated motets and authentic gospel music, at the time I loved praise music.  My favorite praise song was based on our passage from Isaiah today.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.
The wind and the waves shall not over come you.
Do not fear, for I will be with you.

and so on and so forth. 

For a nerve-wracked college student trying to figure out what to do with her life, the comforting idea of God’s omnipresence in difficult times was very reassuring.  In fact, I still love an image of a God who is with us, even in our most difficult experiences. 

In the passage from Isaiah today, God is responding to the people of Judah who have been complaining that God has abandoned them because Jerusalem has been destroyed. He reassures them that, despite appearances, He is, in fact, with them.  And no matter what deep waters or hot fires might try to consume them, God will not leave them.

How poignant then, in our Gospel passage today, to see Jesus joining the throng as they are baptized by John the Baptist.  While in many ways, this scene of Jesus’ baptism is familiar to us, there is one key difference between Luke’s account of the baptism and the account of other Gospel writers.

While the authors of the Gospel of Mark, Matthew and John remember Jesus’ baptism as an individual event, independent from the baptisms of the crowds that gathered to hear John the Baptist, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is one of many who are baptized.

But why did Jesus even need to be baptized?  The baptism that John the Baptist performed was a baptism for the remission of sins.  Why in the world would God need to repent of sins?

Imagine with me the setting:  John has set up shop on the banks of a river and hundreds of people of every shape and size are crowded around, waiting eagerly to be baptized.  They enter the water one by one or perhaps as a crowd.  As they are each baptized and washed clean, the water around them gets less clean. The dirt that collected on each person’s feet as they made the long trek to the wilderness, drifts into the water.  The sweat from the heat, joins the dirt.  The sin that has built up over a life time of being human, pollutes the water.

Jesus enters into this murky water, embodying Isaiah’s words.  God is not only figuratively with us when we’re in deep water.  In this case, Jesus actually stands shoulder to shoulder with every sinner who wants to be washed clean.  Jesus does not shy away from the messy, literally dirty parts of these people.  Jesus bathes in them and seeks baptism himself.

Instead of washing himself from sins, in that dark water, maybe Jesus was taking on our sins.  Perhaps he was embodying what he would go on to do his whole life-living as a God completely committed to being human, in all of humanity’s strength and weakness.

We all know that when we experience our baptisms, we become one with Christ.  We change our identity.  We become “marked as Christ’s own forever”.  Perhaps when Jesus was baptized by John in the wilderness, he became marked as our own forever. 

And this is what God blesses.  For just as in all the other Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism, a dove from heaven descends, alights upon Jesus and the onlookers hear the words, “You are my Son, the Beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”

At this moment of utter humility-the moment when Jesus enters a body of water to be baptized for the remission of sins, this moment when Jesus is incredibly vulnerable and human-this is when God chooses to make a public declaration of Jesus’ identity as God’s Son. 

Frederick Buechner, the great Presbyterian novelist and autobiographical author knows this aspect of God’s closeness to us well.  The deep waters he waded through were his father’s suicide when he was a child and his daughter’s anorexia when he was an adult.  At the height of her illness, she became so sick she was hospitalized.  Though Buechner was terrified, He writes,

“I have never felt God’s presence more strongly than when my wife and I visited that distant hospital where our daughter was.  Walking down the corridor to the room that had her name taped to the door, I felt that presence surrounding me like air-God in his very stillness, holding his breath, loving her, loving us all, the only way he can without destroying us.  One night we went to compline in an Episcopal Cathedral, and in the coolness and near emptiness of that great vaulted place, in the remoteness of the choir’s voices chanting plainsong, in the grayness of the stone, I felt it again-the passionate restraint and hush of God.”

Buechner sensed Jesus standing shoulder to shoulder with him.  Buechner knew God was in the deep water with him and would not abandon him.

So, it turns out that the words to that praise song I sang as an adolescent are as true now as they were a decade ago.  God will be with us when we pass through deep water.  God will be with us when we walk through fire.  Our God really is Emmanuel-God with us.  Thanks be to God.
 

First Sunday after Christmas, Year C, 2006

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Do you ever have those years during which you have more sympathy for the Grinch than for Santa Claus? 

Usually I am chomping at the bit to decorate for Christmas and only allow myself to be unleashed on the ornaments and greenery the day after Thanksgiving.  So, that Friday is usually a frenzy of pine, tinsel and Christmas Carols.  This year it just never happened, and then, as many of you know, on December 10th, one of Matt’s dearest friends died.  A week later, nine Virginia Episcopal parishes decided to split from the Episcopal Church USA.  Bah, Humbug.

For me, Advent and Christmas were officially over.  No more waiting for God to show up.  No celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus.  Nope.  I was done.  All I wanted was for the New Year to roll around.

Well, a funny thing happened.  Despite my protestations, Christmas was not canceled.  The radio still played carols, Emmanuel was decorated in gorgeous greenery and candles.  My sister came into town Christmas Eve and fully expected the ritual opening of stockings Christmas morning.  And, there were one or two church services Christmas Eve, as well.

I might not have been ready for Christmas, but Christmas came anyway.

Advent is historically a time to prepare oneself for Christ’s coming, to become open to the possibility of Christ’s victorious return in the world, but what happens when you don’t prepare yourself?  What happens when meditation is replaced by grief over the death of a friend, or when expectant prayer is replaced by the fear of your child being called back to Iraq or getting a devastating diagnosis?  What happens when our denomination is in turmoil?  What happens when we are just not ready to trust God?  What happens when we are not ready to pray with Isaiah,

Hallelujah!
How good it is to sing praises to our God! *
how pleasant it is to honor him with praise!”

What if your prayer is more along the lines of, “I’m not really impressed with your performance this week, Creator of the Universe.”

The short answer is, “God shows up anyway.”

In our reading from the Gospel of John this morning, we are told the story of Christ’s coming in a cosmic, panoramic setting.  Christ is described as the pre-existing Word, who has been with God since the beginning of everything-before time, before creation.  This Word is intimately involved in the creation of all things and is, in fact, God.

John wants to make it perfectly clear that Jesus was not just a special man, Jesus was the very fullness of God, come to earth.

Two of the images John presents are important as we think about our readiness to welcome Christ into the world.  These are the images of the Word living among us and the Word being light.

The word that is translated as “living” in the NRSV is also translated as “dwelling” in other translations, but in the Greek it has a very concrete meaning:  to pitch one’s tent.  So, in all this fantastically abstract and glorious language, we have the image of the Word coming and pitching his tent among humans.

This is not what we expect from John’s previous language.  We expect the Word to come float around, mysterious and omnipotent, perhaps lighting things on fire at will or making people levitate. 

Instead we get an image of a God both so humbled that he needs a tent, and so committed to the prospect of being with humans that he is willing to do the work of pitching a tent.  He does not expect palaces and royal treatment. This God is in for an authentic experience of being human.  This God expects to sweat, to get dirty, to love, and to grieve.  This God wants to feel all the things we feel.

And yes, this Word had John the Baptist to prepare a way for him, to help people repent and prepare themselves, but not everyone was ready.  Many people had never heard of John the Baptist, and no one was ready for the idea of God coming in human form.  Still, Christ came, whether the world was ready for him or not.

He pitched his tent in the darkness with us, but while he fully experienced the darkness of our lives, he also redeemed our dark lives.

For the Word not only came to enter the darkness, he also came to shed light.  John writes, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  Christ came not only to suffer, but to redeem suffering.  He came not only to be human, but to sanctify what it means to be a human.

Christ transformed the human experience by living as a human fully connected to God.  He lived this way, not to be a role model, but to break the barriers between human and God so that we might be able to live so deeply connected.  Christ also invites us to eternal life with God and gives us glimpses of what that will be like as he heals the sick, and disposes with demons as easily as we take out the garbage.  This Word, this human God illumines our darkness and tells us we will not always have to live this way.  There will be a time without sickness, without divisions, without war, without death.

And Christ does all of this without polling us about our readiness. 

The point of Advent and Christmas is not to pass some mysterious test so we can experience God the rest of the year.  We celebrate these seasons of repentance and re-discovery of the stories we know so well, so we can remember who Christ is, what God is like.  We light Advent candles and watch children re-enact the Nativity because the good news of God’s coming to earth is too big for us to hold in our minds and these forms of worship remind us of the story.

But we do not have to fully comprehend that glorious reality in order to experience it.  When we are grieving, or fearful, or feeling lost, Christ does not wait for us to be ready, Christ comes and pitches a tent alongside us, giving us comfort or courage or simply reminding us that the reality of this world is temporary and better things await us.  Christ shines lights into our dark corners and brings us peace and hope.  And Christ does all this, whether we’re ready or not.

Advent 1, Year C, 2006

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Today marks the first Sunday of Advent-the liturgical time of the year during which we wait, with eager anticipation, for God to enter the world.

This waiting has been happening for a long time and will continue for a long time.  And, as Christians, we become those who wait.  We wait for God to come back, to usher in a time and justice and peace.

Throughout history there have been those whose most important roles in life have been to actively wait for God, and to prepare those around them to meet God.

The prophet Jeremiah is one of those people.  He was a prophet, who for forty years, warned his society about the ways they were straying from God.  He lived in a tumultuous time, about six hundred years before Christ came into the world.  During his time as a prophet, Jerusalem, which had been ruled by kings in the line of King David, was invaded by the Babylonians.  They removed the rightful king, and replaced him with a puppet king named Zedekiah.  All went according to the Babylonians’ plan for awhile, but  eventually Zedekiah was convinced by the people of Jerusalem to rebel and he did, but was crushed by the Babylonians. 

The people of Jerusalem were devastated and they prayed that God would free them from his captors.  Babylonia was not the only powerful nation of the time, and soon the Egyptian army marched to the area.  The Babylonians backed off of Jerusalem and the people of Jerusalem were thrilled!  Their prayers had been answered!  God had delivered them!

Jeremiah had the unpleasant job to tell them to hold onto their horses for a minute.  He warned them this break was just a reprieve, and he was right.  In the year 586 BC Jerusalem fell to Babylon again. 

The words Jeremiah speaks in our passage today are spoken after Jerusalem has fallen.  Strangely, they are words of hope, not what you would expect in the middle of such dire circumstances. Before our passage today, Jeremiah explains that God has hidden his face from Jerusalem because of its inhabitants’ wickedness.  But his words don’t end there.  Jeremiah describes to his listeners a vision of a restored Jerusalem in which its inhabitants will experience security and abundance.  He speaks of life replacing the desolation that currently describes the town.

In our passage today, Jeremiah speaks specifically of the righteous Branch of David who will execute justice and righteousness in the land.  Righteousness is a key term here.  Remember the figurehead king we discussed earlier? The word for righteousness in Hebrew is Zedek, and the king’s name is Zedekiah.  Unfortunately, this king could not live up to his name.

So, when Jeremiah speaks of a righteous Branch of David, he is specifically contrasting this image of an upright leader with the image of Zedekiah, a corrupt leader.  Righteous not only means just, as we think of it today, it also has connotations of being right-of conforming to norms and expectations.  So, the Branch of which Jeremiah speaks will not be grafted in, as Zedekiah was by the Babylonians, it will be a Branch of the true line of kings-the line of David.  But, this branch will also be righteous in the sense of being holy and aligned with God.  This branch will conform both to lineage and to God’s standards for kingship-being just and merciful.  In fact, this Branch of David will be called righteousness. 

The image of righteousness springing up from desolation, from hopefulness is a beautiful one.  And this image is really the image of Advent. 

Advent is about waiting for God, waiting for righteousness to enter the world.  Waiting for life to come from desolation.  Waiting for salvation.

American protestant theology usually describes salvation in terms of the individual.  We think of a person being “saved” at a prayer meeting, for instance.  When Jeremiah speaks of salvation and God’s righteousness, though, Jeremiah is thinking in terms of a community’s salvation. 

So, what is the difference between individual and community salvation?

When we think of salvation in individual terms, we think of one person’s righteousness.  We think of this individual confessing his sins, being forgiven by God and going on to have a relationship with God.

However, righteousness is not simply about the relationship between individuals and their God.  Righteousness is about a way of life.  When you think of salvation in terms of a community, you begin to understand that righteousness is not just about being connected to God, but it means living out that relationship with God by your relationships with the people around you.  If you are ‘saved’, but are a jerk to your kids, you’re not experiencing righteousness.  If you’re ‘saved’, but are not taking care of orphans, widows, and the poor, you’re not experiencing righteousness.  If you’re ‘saved’, but not seeking to be in right relationship with others, you’re not experiencing righteousness.  Righteousness is a way of life in which a community conforms to the righteousness of Christ.

And in America, I think a lot of our recent culture wars have to do with different groups having different interpretations of what it means to be a righteous people.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness by sticking with traditional values.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness by eliminating AIDS.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness by protecting ourselves from terrorism.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness by slowing down global warming.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness by fixing inner city schools.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness when all races and both genders are treated equally.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness when we narrow the gap between rich and poor.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness when the media becomes tasteful again.  Some believe we’ll achieve righteousness when we all believe the same things. 

I don’t think we’ll ever achieve righteousness as a nation by backing the right issues.  Our only hope, really, is Jesus.  Our hope rests in a prayer that Jesus will let us conform to his righteousness. This kind of conforming takes effort and sacrifice and cannot be undertaken without the power of God behind us.

Jesus does more than save us from death.  Jesus changes us.  When we are truly in relationship with Christ, we are constantly challenged to grow, deepen and be transformed.  And that transformation is always toward righteousness. 

And for that transformation, we need to wait.  But this is no passive waiting, this is a waiting that is full of longing-longing for Christ, longing for God, longing for righteousness.  This is a waiting full of prayer and of study and of relationship.

This is a waiting full of hope.

Like Jeremiah, we know that God is for us.  And with Jeremiah, we wait for Him.

Proper 25, Year B, 2006

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

What does it mean to see?

The couple that led my high school youth group were an affectionate couple in their 40s who had been in love with each other since high school.  Their loving relationship spilled over to their relationships with their kids and even further to all of us in their youth group.  Deena, the wife, had always had blurred vision, but by the time I graduated from their program, her vision was becoming progressively worse.  Over the next four years, her vision became so bad that even corrective lenses could not fix the problem.  She saw double, and eventually triple, and was declared legally blind.  Despite not being allowed to drive or do many of the things she loved, Deena continued her life without complaint.  Friends of hers urged her speak with an eye surgeon in her congregation.  She felt guilty asking for the favor, but eventually did work up the courage to speak with him.  He referred her to another doctor, who immediately diagnosed her with juvenile cataracts-a condition completely treatable with an easy surgery.  Deena visited him in September and the surgery was scheduled for late November. 

Bartimaeus was also blind, and had been for a long time.  He could not work as a blind person, so made his living by begging.  He is one of many healed by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark and one of two blind men Jesus heals.  So what makes Bartimaeus special?

Bartimaeus’s healing story is the end of what Biblical scholars call an inclusio.  An inclusio is a literary devise wherein a writer tells a certain kind of story-say a healing, then goes on with the narrative, then tells a very similar kind of story.  These inclusios are meant to draw our attention to the similarities and differences between the stories and always teach us something about God. 

In the first healing of a blind man in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is not able to heal the man the first time. The man can see a little bit better, but his vision is incredibly blurry.  To correct this, Jesus ends up having to spit in some dirt and smear it on the man’s eyes to heal him fully.  In the Bartimaeus story, by contrast, Jesus is able to heal Bartimaeus completely and perfectly the first time, without any need for a dirt compress.

Why the difference?  Before we go into that, let me tell you the rest of Deena’s story.  She and Jim spent the fall excitedly anticipating her surgery.  They day dreamed about her being able to drive again, to see his face perfectly again.  They also celebrated their 28th anniversary that fall.  On November 23rd of that year, a week before the surgery, Jim died suddenly of a heart attack.  Deena went ahead with the scheduled surgery, and could see perfectly, but now her vision was clouded by grief.  She’s come to understand that there are many kinds of seeing, not all of which involve the eyes.  She told me recently that it is just within the last couple of months, seven years after his death, that she has felt able to see the world through something other than her grief. 

Sight is not always about the eyes. . .The way we see the world can be influenced by grief, by misunderstanding, by hopefulness, by greed, by any number of things.

Jesus knew about these different ways of seeing.  Some scholars believe the difference in the blind healing stories points to a difference in the way the disciples, and we, see and understand Jesus.  Immediately after the first blind healing story, Jesus asks his disciples “Who do people say that I am?”  The disciples told him what they had overheard and the answers were all over the place.  Some people thought he was a prophet, others thought he was a reincarnated John the Baptist or Elijah.  Only Peter thought Jesus was the Christ.  Just like the first blind man, the disciples’ vision was blurred.  Although they spent every day with Jesus, they did not fully understand who Jesus was.  Like the first blind man, after the first part of his healing, they could only see and understand Jesus in a kind of blurry haze.

The second healing of a blind man takes place immediately before Jesus and the Disciples go to Jerusalem.  Soon, the disciples will learn exactly who Jesus is.  They will see him crucified and then rise again.  Their eyes will be open and they will fully understand that Jesus is God.  Like the healed blind man, their vision is totally clear.

We too, can wear filters that affect how we experience Jesus.  When I’m not careful, I can wear jaded, pessimistic filters.  I am very comfortable with a Jesus who suffers alongside us when we suffer, but less comfortable with a victorious Jesus who answers all our prayers.  You can imagine the shock my filters have had the last year as I have gotten to know Chuck.  Being around someone who is so optimistic and so convinced of Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s work in this world, has forced me to re-examine the way I see Jesus. 

Before I got to Emmanuel, my filters said, “Oh, here I go, embarking on the lonely single life of ministry.  I will work hard in a parish that won’t appreciate me and probably embark on a time of the spiritual desert.  I’m sure my boss will be unfair and mean and I’ll be a deeply lonely person, suffering for Jesus.”

(Deep sigh.)

Well, as you know I’ve had a wonderful experience of ministry and met and became engaged to the man of my dreams.  This does not square with my expectations about how the world and God works.  I have had to recalibrate my filters as I experience God as a loving, giving, generous God, rather than a suffering God who is helpless in this world.

How do you see Jesus?  What filters are you wearing?

Do you see Jesus as a prayer-order catalogue?  Whatever you want, you pray for, but don’t tend to pray otherwise?  Do you see Jesus as a tradition that’s nice, but not relevant?  Do you see Jesus only as the suffering Christ on the Cross?  Do you, like Will Farrell in Talledega Nights only like to think about the sweet baby Jesus? 

Just like in any relationship, Jesus longs to be known for who he really is.  Jesus wants us to see him as clearly as possible.  When we stop learning about Jesus, when we hold onto our Sunday School image of Jesus, we’re letting our vision be limited.

We can remove our filters and have our vision widened if we continue to engage with Jesus as adults.  We can learn about Jesus from the Bible, from books, from Adult Forum.  And we can encounter Jesus through prayer. 

One kind of vision Deena never lost, was her clear vision about God.  Through her blindness, through her grief, she knew that God loved her, was with her and was still worth worshipping.  The last line of her email to me was that every day she can still see God’s hands at work in her life.  May we be so blessed.

Proper 22, Year B, 2006

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable unto you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer, Amen.

I find the conversation between the Pharisees and Jesus about divorce to be unsatisfying.  Do you?

The Pharisees are trying to catch Jesus in a slip-up. Jesus has had the gall to teach people on the Pharisees’ turf-They were the authorities on law, not this young upstart–and they’ve long since stopped being amused by him.  The Pharisees ask Jesus this question about divorce, not out of their own trouble or grief, or out of some burning question members of their congregation have been asking them, or even out of a desire to seek holy living.  No, they just want to see how he’ll tiptoe around a difficult political question

(After all, the 6th chapter of Mark reminds us that Herod Antipas, leader of the Jews, was married to his brother’s wife.  They each had to get divorces in order to get married.  You’ll remember that John the Baptist was killed because of his condemnation of their relationship.) 

Well, Jesus is not about to be trapped by their maneuvering.  He asks the Pharisees to recall what Moses said about divorce in Deuteronomy.  When they give the answer-Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal to his wife-Jesus tells them that Moses created this exception because of their “hardness of heart”.  You see, this “certificate of dismissal” was originally meant as a measure of mercy for women.  It allowed them to remarry.  However, the certificate ended up being a way for men to divorce their wives easily.  In the Hillel tradition, a man could divorce his wife because “the bread was burned too badly!”  Jesus thinks this is a bad system.  Jesus turns their question around from politics to spirituality and refers the Pharisees to the earliest Jewish reference about marriage there is–the second chapter of Genesis–our Old Testament reading today. 

Now, the reason the Pharisees’ question is not satisfying is because they are not asking the question about divorce on behalf of those who have gone through the pain of divorce.  Their attitude disrespects those who have experienced divorce because of the manipulative way they ask the question.  At first glance, Jesus’ response is equally unsatisfying.  Sure, it’s nice that he doesn’t want women to get abused by a divorce system that is too easy, but it still leaves a lot of questions for us about modern divorce.  And then later, when the disciples have him alone, and ask him to clarify himself, he simply says, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” 

We know through other stories that Jesus is a compassionate person, but his response does not seem to leave room for those people who sought divorces for what we would consider good reasons-to escape abuse, to protect one’s children, as a response to chronic infidelity or disrespect.  Jesus certainly couldn’t have known that his words would be used to excommunicate people, force people to stay in abusive marriages, or make people feel rejected by God. 

I wonder though, if Jesus was as unsatisfied with the question of the Pharisees as we are.  The Pharisees’ question about divorce was not a bad one in and of itself, but because they asked it with a motivation to trap Jesus, out of a “hardness of heart” rather than out of an “open heart” the question loses its credibility.

Clearly Jesus did not support divorce.  But what was his perspective on divorce?  Was there a reason for his strong reaction besides the Pharisees’ hypocrisy?  Let’s go back to the passage from Genesis that Jesus quotes to see why he chose to speak these words.

In the passage from Genesis, we read a lovely story in which God decides that Adam needs someone as a helper.   Now here helper is not a demeaning term.  In fact this particular word is used to describe God in several passages in the Old Testament.  I think we sometimes think of this word as helper in the sense of, “Honey, can you help me?  I want a beer but there are only three minutes left in the game and I don’t want to miss anything. . .”  Actually, when the word “helper” is used in the Old Testament it means rescuing a person, saving someone’s life. 

So, God was not interested in getting Adam housekeeping help.  God wanted to create someone who would be with Adam through thick and thin, on whom Adam could rely.  Now that God knows what he is looking for, he tries out several options.  Though Adam seemed duly impressed with all the cattle and birds God presented to him, he wasn’t ready to set up house with any of them. 

We all know what happens next. God puts Adam under some pretty heavy anesthesia, and takes out a rib. . .or does he? 

(Pause)

The word for rib is an interesting one.  Every other time it is mentioned in the Old Testament, the word refers to something architectural, most commonly a side chamber of a building.  So, when God was pulling out Adam’s rib to make his partner, he wasn’t pulling out a miscellaneous bone that Adam didn’t really need, he was pulling out his side, a fundamental part of Adam’s person, so that this helper really could be “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh”.   This woman and Adam are going to be connected in the deepest way possible.  Alone, Adam was not enough.  To complete this human race God was creating, Adam needed a partner.

When he sees his partner for the first time, Adam is so struck by the presence of this new person that he speaks for the first time. He recognizes that this woman is truly a part of him and can’t help but proclaim that.  “I will name her woman, for she was taken out of man.” 

So, when Jesus was responding to these questions about divorce, maybe he wasn’t giving the answer that seems so harsh initially.  Maybe, on another level, Jesus was responding to the question the Pharisees didn’t ask.  Maybe Jesus was saying, “I wish you could remember.  I wish you could remember how it was at the beginning, when you were so thrilled to see another person that you stopped in your tracks.  I wish you could remember how magical it was to see a reflection of yourself in her.  I wish you could remember those first few moments, before you started bickering about who ate the apple and blaming each other.  I wish you could remember how we meant it to be when we created you.” 

Of course Jesus condemns divorce.  Who would want to worship a God who intended for marriages to fall apart?  For people to betray one another?  In our hearts, we wish divorce didn’t happen, too.  Who of us falls in love thinking, “Gosh, I’m glad there’s an escape clause in this one!” I’ve never met anyone who has gone through a divorce who has enjoyed it, even if their life after the divorce was healthier and safer than in marriage.  Divorce represents all of our deepest fears:  rejection, betrayal, being unloved, being alone. 

For Jesus to condemn divorce is not the same as Jesus condemning those who have had divorces.  We know Jesus-we know his compassion to the woman at the well, we know his love for those going through rough patches in their lives.  We know that if a heartbroken man or woman had asked the same question the Pharisees asked, Jesus’ response would have been full of love and compassion.

So, what do we do with Jesus’ response?  We know we can’t crawl back to Eden, back to the days before brokenness entered the world.

I think, in reminding us of our intimate connection with each other; in the way we share the same flesh and bone with all other humans, Jesus points us to what his ministry was all about.  He came into the world to take on all the brokenness that drowns us. If anyone had a right to be angry about divorce, Jesus did.  He earns the right because he was willing to do something about it.  He was willing to take all that pain, all that suffering on himself, so one day we could be free of it.  His death and resurrection are the second half of his answer about divorce. 

The reason we can survive the devastation divorce and other broken relationships bring is because we know, ultimately, through Jesus’ death and resurrection one day we will healed and whole and reconciled to ourselves, all others and God.  Although that can be hard to believe-or even want-in the midst of breakup, some small part of us recognizes that someday in our future we will live in a place where there are no divorces, where there is no heartbreak. 

The hope Jesus offers us is not only for a future heavenly kingdom, it is hope for the here and now.  No, Jesus does not offer us an easy escape from pain.  Being a Christian does not exempt anyone from the hard work of grief.  What God does offer us is a safe place to come with that grief.  Whether we use the image of God as strong rock or a sheltering wing, God gives us something steady to hold onto, gives us a safe place to fall.  Before God we can be completely honest.  We don’t have to pretend to be fine, hide our anger, stop our tears.  By allowing God to be part of our grief, we give Him room to be part of our healing.  Experiencing God’s love for us gives us courage to take steps toward relationship again, knowing that as capable of destruction as we are, we are also capable of the kind of love we were designed to give.  The love Adam felt as he watched, jaw dropped and eye opened as his life partner was made. 

Amen.  

 

 

Proper 15, Year B, 2006

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

From our Gospel reading today:  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.

What is eternal life?

Is eternal life what we see on TV?  Will we all float around on clouds, strumming harps, being careful to avoid the occasional filming of a commercial for Philadelphia Cream Cheese?

Is eternal life what we hear in jokes?  Will we have to prove our worthiness to St. Peter as we wait at the Pearly Gates in line behind a minister, a priest and a rabbi?

Is Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven correct when he portrays eternal life as one big therapy session?

Well, truthfully none of us know. 

The phrase eternal life is mentioned the gospels twenty five times, but almost always in terms of how to get eternal life.  Characters in the New Testament often ask Jesus, “What do I have to do to gain eternal life?”  In the Synoptic Gospels-that’s Mark, Matthew, and Luke-Jesus says eternal life is earned through keeping the commandments, leaving one’s family to follow Jesus, and of course, giving all your money to the poor. 

Not so easy, huh?

In John’s gospel, eternal life is given in exchange for believing in Jesus and, of course in eating Christ’s flesh and blood. 

But seriously, what is eternal life?

You’ll notice in all three of our cultural examples:  TV, jokes, and Mitch Albom’s book, eternal life begins at death.  Eternal life is something we strive for so we don’t have to die-so we can avoid the ultimate obliteration of our story, our selves.  After all, isn’t that how we envision eternal life?  We picture heaven, right?  Eternal life as a physical place we go as we transition from being alive to being dead.  Whether we imagine a garden or a heavenly city, we see eternal life both as a destination and a reprieve. 

But in our Gospel reading today, Jesus does not say, those who eat my body and blood will have eternal life.  He says, those who eat my body and blood have eternal life.  He uses the present tense.

So clearly, eternal life means more than life after death.  Somehow, we can experience eternal life right now.  In this life!

But we’re still left with the question, what is eternal life?  

Eternal life is not simply an extension of the life we already have.  Eternal life is not just an escape from death.  Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian Poet and Nobel Prize winner wrote,

“In our desire for eternal life we pray for an eternity of our habit and comfort, forgetting that immortality is in repeatedly transcending the definite forms of life in order to pursue the infinite truth of life.”

I think what he is saying, is that we are mistaken if we long for eternal life to be a continuation of the life we have now.  We tend to pray for eternal life that is a similar to this life, because we are afraid of death.  Even if our lives are rich and full of love, eternal life is a different quality of life from every day life-Eternal life is a life of connection to God. 

The one biblical definition of eternal life is found in John 17.  Jesus says,  “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”.

So, eternal life is a relationship, not a time frame or a place.  Eternal life is when we know God and know Jesus Christ.  When we are in relationship with the holy, whether it is now or after we have died, we are experiencing eternal life. 

Eternal life is the moment when God breaks into our dreary, daily routine and fills it with transcendence.  Eternal life gives us a glimpse of our true calling-as the beloved of God. 

The synoptic gospels, with all of their instructions of how to achieve eternal life, actually do describe what eternal life is.  After all, what are the commandments they ask us to follow?   To love God with all your heart and soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.  

So, it turns out even the instructions about how to gain eternal life are about relationship-It’s a little bit of circular logic-in order to gain eternal life, we must be in relationship with God and Jesus Christ; the reward for which will be eternal life which a relationship with God and Jesus Christ. 

Eternal life is clearly all about intense relationship.  So, why do we as a culture minimize the idea of eternal life to make it something cutesy and cloudy?  Perhaps the idea of being in direct relationship with the very creator of the universe is overwhelming for us.  Perhaps the idea of being bathed in the fullness of God’s love is too abstract and intimidating.

But as we share communion today, know you are sharing in a moment of eternity.  As we join with each other and with all the saints who have passed before us, we are opening ourselves to God’s presence.  We are opening ourselves to experience eternal life.

Proper 14, Year B, 2006

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Someone in your home is baking a loaf of bread.  For an hour now the warm fragrance has drifted around corners and under door frames and over tables to tease you with its inviting scent.  Despite Dr. Perricone’s warnings about the dangers of simple carbohydrates, you know that when the loaf of warm bread is ready to be sliced, you will be first in line to cut off a large piece, slather it in butter, and slowly savor the way it melts in your mouth.

As you put the bread in your mouth, digestive enzymes begin working, breaking the bread down into smaller, more manageable pieces.  As the bread travels through the stomach and intestines, it is further broken down and becomes fuel and nutrients. Much of the bread literally becomes part of you, providing the energy for your day and some nutrients to help your body function.  Once the bread passes through your mouth into your stomach, eating the bread shifts from a sensory experience to a primal, biological one.

We are disconnected from the nutritional importance of bread, but for many around the world, that piece of bread would literally give them life.  That piece of bread, with all of its nutrients and carbohydrates would fill their bodies with energy, boost their immune systems, and give them hope.

Thousands of years ago, wandering in the desert, God’s chosen people also needed bread.  They had been walking for years, without regular food and drink, and were exhausted.  To make sure they relied completely on him, the only food they received was directly from God.  When God did choose to provide food for the wandering Israelites, he first chose to shower them with manna, a mysterious, heavenly food that resembled, of course, bread.

This manna fed the wanderers, but did not ultimately satisfy them.  After a few hours of eating manna, they were starving again.  And when they became hungry again, God’s generosity completely slipped their mind and they began complaining almost instantly. But still, the manna sustained them for many years.

Finally, after 40 years of wandering and complaining, the Israelites entered the promised land.  The land was rich with food-fruit, vegetables, meat, and ingredients for all the bread they could bake.  The Israelites needed the manna no longer. 

Fifteen hundred years passed, and even though the Israelites complained about the manna while they were in the desert, as a people they never forgot about it.  Manna became a symbol of God’s faithfulness, and the importance of relying on God, rather than your own resources. 

Do you remember two weeks ago, when the gospel reading was about the feeding of the 5000? (Yes, yes you do.)  This is the passage in which Jesus miraculously turns a few fish and a loaf of bread into an abundant feast.  The people who experienced it were amazed, and told all their friends. 

Once Jesus gets off the mountain, people start following him, hoping for a repeat performance.  Maybe they are curious, maybe they are hungry, but they want to see the magic man make some bread!

Immediately before our passage today, Jesus makes a speech to them, explaining that they are looking for the wrong thing.

Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.

They go on to ask for a sign, for Jesus to prove that he is special. 

So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you. What work are you performing?  Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”  Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

Jesus is redirecting their curiosity and question.  He is saying to them-if you focus on the bread, you’re missing the whole point!  Neither the manna, nor the feeding of the 5000 are about bread, they are about God-about God’s abundance and faithfulness.  These miracles are about God’s love for his people and the way God looks after us and provides for us.

Jesus is the height of this provision and love.  Jesus is explaining that he has been sent as a new kind of bread-a bread that never runs out, that never will leave us, and that gives us not only life-but life eternal.

Manna and other kinds of physical bread, no matter how miraculous-or delicious–will never satisfy us, never fill up all the places in us that are broken, lonely or grieving. 

Physical bread cannot give our lives meaning, show us avenues of hope, or help keep us off our high horses. 

God sends Jesus to feed us, to be our fuel, to give us the nourishment we need to live lives that are pleasing to God. 

At the Eucharist, we consume the body and blood of Jesus.  Early Christians were accused of being cannibals because of this.  As Episcopalians, we believe that the bread and wine we eat and drink, doesn’t actually turn into flesh, but does contain the full presence of Christ.  When we consume them, we consume Christ.  Just as a warm slice of bread breaks down and becomes part of us, somehow at the Eucharist we consume Jesus, Jesus becomes part of us, becomes incorporated into our mind, and heart, and hands.  As he becomes part of us, we become part of him.

The Eucharist is more than ritual and tradition.  The Eucharist is more than remembering.  During the Eucharist, we take Christ in to our very being, not only our spirit, but into our flesh.  And so the Bread of Life lives on in us, and we in him.

Amen.

Proper 11, Year B, 2006

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Just a little rest.

That’s all Jesus and the disciples wanted: a little rest, a little quiet.  They had so much to say to each other.  So many days had passed since they had been together.  So much had happened. 

The disciples have been exercising their ministry for the first time.  Jesus sent them out two by two and they have been preaching, healing, and exorcising demons.  Jesus pushed them out of the nest and the disciples did not fail!-the disciples were so much braver than expected and the miracles actually worked!  With their own hands and God’s power the disciples were able to heal sick people!

In the meantime, Jesus had his own troubles to consider. His beloved friend and cousin, John, was brutally murdered by Herod.  Jesus wants to take time to mourn that loss and be together in a quiet place with his disciples.  Jesus and the disciples have been going at a breakneck pace-traveling, ministering, listening, teaching, healing.  . .they just need a little time to reconnect to each other.

So, Jesus and the disciples get in a boat and head to a deserted place. 

Before they can get there, though, followers of Jesus figure out where they are traveling and beat them there!

By the time Jesus and his friends get to the deserted place, it is already packed with people hungry for a little of Jesus’ teaching. 

Jesus has to make a decision.  Taking time out to pray and to rest is a very important part of Jesus ministry.  He knows he needs to reconnect with God and his disciples, but there are thousands of people clamoring for his attentions.  Jesus makes the decision, for the moment, to choose his followers over himself.

Jesus gives them the spiritual food they are looking for and begins to teach.  Before too long though, the crowd starts to get hungry.  The disciples get edgy, because they know it costs nine months salary to feed 5,000 men, and there were women and children there, too! 

We all know what happens next. Jesus uses bread and fish that the crowd already has and miraculously multiplies it to give it to his followers. 

The NRSV translation of the text we read today, says that Jesus gave the bread and fish to his disciples, but the NAU translation says that Jesus “kept giving” the loaves and fishes to his disciples.

Jesus “kept giving”.  What a powerful image.  Jesus was tired and sad, but instead of turning away from the crowd, he turned towards them.  Instead of giving them what they needed in one fell swoop, he gave to the crowd over and over and over again.

Jesus gives to us, too.

For whatever crisis we face, somewhere, deep inside us, we have all we need.  Just like the crowd already had a few fish and a couple loaves of bread, we have a small kernel of what we need already planted inside us. 

Whether we need strength to carry on in a difficult time in our lives, or courage to make a leap of faith, or creativity to work our way out of a corner, we already have what we need.

If we offer that kernel to Jesus, he will transform it through his love and give it back to us hundredfold.

I think about the local teacher who felt a desire in her heart to help disadvantaged kids experience farm life.  This woman continued to teach part time, and after much prayer and many conversations, started an after school program.  Children are brought to her farm in Ivy, where they are taught basic gardening, cooking, swimming and other skills.  This program, called Graceworks, has continued year after year, creating a generation of kids who have a set of rich experiences that will inform the rest of their lives.

What kills me about this lady, is that she has FIVE children of her own.  Five.  You know she wasn’t sitting around her house saying, “Man, am I bored.  I need a hobby.”  Her sense of call came despite the exhaustion that must come from working and having a house full of children. 

Rather than seeing herself as depleted from all this, she saw herself as enriched.  She already had all she needed:  a farm, a love for children, a background in education and an understanding family.  What Jesus gave her was the vision, energy and networks she needed to make her dream a reality.

What have you been longing for or dreaming of that seemed just too impossible? 

Do you want to go back to school as an adult?  Get out of an abusive relationship? Take better care of your health?  Start a new ministry? 

You already have what you need inside of you. 

All you need is to pray and be open to Jesus working in ways you might not expect.

The disciples could only see one solution to their problems:  to buy food.  This panicked them, because they knew they did not have the money they needed to provide for the thousands of people at their feet.  Jesus showed them another way, an unusual way, a miraculous way, and Jesus will show us those ways, too.  Like the director of Graceworks, Jesus will give us creativity and strength when there is no earthly reason why we should have them.

Our lesson today shows us that we can feel free to follow Jesus, and persistently ask for what we want.  We don’t always do this.

The world is in such a crisis right now, with wars and global warming and floods and drought, that sometimes we shy away from Jesus.  We want to give him space to deal with the big problems the world faces.  We don’t want to bother him with our petty prayers.

But remember that pushy crowd–Even though Jesus was facing a personal crisis, he did not send the crowd away. Jesus ministered to them. Jesus performed a miracle for them.

Yes, the world is in crisis-an awful crisis-but if we stop praying, then it will be harder for us to hear Jesus.  And the crisis is not going to resolve itself.  We are going to have to help resolve it, and Jesus will show us how through our prayers.  If we stop praying, the crisis will only get worse.  Like the disciples, we Christians continue the legacy of healing into the modern age. 

We don’t need to be afraid to bother Jesus, to interrupt him.  Jesus does an excellent job of taking care of himself.  The verse that follows the passage we read today tells us that after Jesus feeds the 5000, he gently dismisses the crowd, then takes time to go up the mountain to pray.  Jesus loves us passionately enough to pour his energies into feeding us, but he also knows when to refuel.

We resist Jesus for many reasons.  We resist the blessings that Jesus wants to continually give to us, to keep giving to us, but Jesus keeps inviting us to accept them, gently nudging us to trust him, to live into the joy he has prepared for us.

Who are we to reject such an invitation?

Easter 6, Year B, 2006

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Today we celebrate youth Sunday.  Twice a year we take a day to honor the young people among us. 

We are so proud of our young people and their many skills and gifts and charming personalities.  “Ah”, we think, “I remember when I was young and full of potential and life was all ahead of me. . .”  But before you wax nostalgic on your own youth, or start to envy our fine young people their futures, shall I remind you about the ravages of adolescence? 

Perhaps you sailed through childhood and adolescence without any unpleasant experiences, but I’m guessing for many of you, your teenage years were at the least. . .complicated.  Maybe like me you had a raging case of acne and hideous metal braces from which you are still recovering.  Maybe you were beautiful, and so, learned to be valued for that beauty and not for yourself.  Maybe you were brilliant and labeled a nerd.  Maybe you were not so bright, and stuffed in a locker.  Any way you turn it, for most people junior high and high school have at least some element of trauma to them.

Perhaps the most painful experience of adolescence is that of love.  Do you remember?  Do you remember that first person on whom you had a crush?  That consuming desire.  You could think of nothing else.  When he or she missed a day of school your day was ruined.  When he or she began dating someone else, you wanted to weep. 

Perhaps you were unlucky in love as a teenager and remained on the sidelines or maybe you were even UNLUCKIER and did fall in love, have it reciprocated, and then had your heart broken. 

Do you remember how devastating this was?   How it brought up huge philosophical and theological question?  What is love if love can be lost?  Why should we love if it only causes pain?  Why would God make love so painful?  Frankly, some adults are still working out the pain caused by an early broken heart.

I thought of these painful experiences as I read our Epistle for today.  Both our Epistle and Gospel were written by the Johannine Christian Communities of the very early church.  You’ll notice similar themes of abiding in God’s love throughout both readings.  The phrase that leapt out to me this week, was the phrase from the 1st Letter of John-“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” 

This concept, of there being no fear in perfect love, is antithetical to our anxiety ridden culture.  Romantic love is inherently fearful, isn’t it?  We have hour long dramas like, What about Brian? based on the idea that love is inherently desirable, but difficult to get.  On the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy this week, the true love of one character dies immediately after proposing, and other couple resume an adulterous affair.  The message:  love is risky, and contains great potential for pain. 

We are afraid of not falling in love, of having no one fall in love with us, of falling in love with the wrong person, of having that person fall in love with another person, the list goes on and on.    Woody Allen would not have a career if love was not a little bit terrifying.

So, what in the world is this perfect, fearless love of which the Johannine community speaks?

First of all, it is NOT romantic love.  The New Testament seems fundamentally disinterested in romantic love.  The writers are not against romantic love, per se, they have had such profound experiences of God’s love for them, that the writers understand romantic love can only be understood in light of God’s love.

In Matthew 22, some Saducees were trying to trick Jesus and started asking him what happens if a woman has several husbands who die.  Who will be her husband in heaven?  This seems like a valid question, right? We think of  romantic love as an eternal commodity. In our culture, achieving romantic love is the ultimate goal in life. If someone falls in love with us, it gives us value and security.   We want to know that we will be with that person for all eternity.  Jesus, however, lets us know that romantic love, is not eternal love.  He replies to the Saducees, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

Romantic love is wonderful, and is a subset of God’s love for us, but it is not the kind of love that will sustain us beyond this world.

Romantic love begins with us, as humans.  Romantic love ends with us. 

In these Johannine passages, God speaks of agape-or God’s abounding love.  God’s love begins with God, not with us.  We often define God as love, but in reality, God defines love.  Let me say that again.  We often define God as love, but in reality God defines love.

When we project our ideas of what love is onto God, we come up with a warm and fuzzy picture of God that has nothing to do with reality.  Instead, our passage today invites us to define love through God’s eyes.  And God’s love is not the self centered, anxiety ridden romantic love of our culture, but a love of abundant hospitality.  A love that is so secure, so perfect that it drives away any insecurity, any fear. 

So, the second quality of agape love is that it begins with God.  Only God can generate a love that is entirely selfless and welcoming and abundant.  Agape love demands nothing in return. 

Agape love moves out from God towards us.  Agape love pursues us, rather relentlessly, throughout our lives.  This love is so powerful that it fills us and crowds out any fear or anxiety about love that we may have. 

The author of 1st John writes, “We love because he first loved us.”  What’s wonderful about God’s agape love, is that it redeems and amplifies all other kinds of love. 

God does not ask us to choose agape love over romantic love-in fact agape love makes romantic love infinitely easier and more rewarding.

When we experience God’s agape love for us, the experience creates a life changing moment. For the first time we can stop worrying about whether the love we receive is temporary.  For the first time we can trust that the Being we love, loves us back.  Not only loves us back, but loves us first. 

When we know that God loves us, with a powerful and consuming love, we become secure in ourselves in a way we have not experienced before.  And when we are secure in the knowledge that we are loved, it becomes easier for us to love others.  We stop looking to other people to fill up our empty places.  We stop needing approval and affirmation from humans.  We stop our clingy neediness because we have become filled.  Filled with a love that accepts us and challenges us.

This love challenges us to love in a way that looks out for the good of the other.  When we are filled up with this kind of love, we are able to reach out to others, to take emotional risks with our loved ones, to stop protecting ourselves.  Agape love makes us generous with our time, money, energy and emotional presence.  We stop focusing on our own fears and limitations and begin to celebrate the abundance of God’s love for all of us.

Perhaps the biggest gift we can give our young people is to pray that they might experience the depth of God’s love for them.  It is no coincidence that many people come to faith while teenagers.  Teens have a special capacity to understand the incredible good news of Jesus’ love for them.  They feel love and heartbreak with an intensity that is only a memory for most of us. 

An experience of God’s agape love could change the direction of their-and our-lives forever.  An experience of God’s agape love could help these teens choose life partners who are healthy and supportive and life giving. 

Remember, when you pray and contemplate God’s love for you–Agape is not the limited, fickle love of romance, but the eternal, constant, abundant love of the God who created you and redeems you.   And that love can transform the romantic love in your life into a healthy, mutual love marked by hospitality and integrity.  And that-is good news.