No Greater Love - 6th Sunday of Easter 2019

26 May 2019 

1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 15:12-17

In one scene in a movie, love is described as “biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate”.  What is most telling is the context in which it was said … and by whom.  It was the character of “Satan”, and he was trying to convince someone that feelings of love are overrated. 

To a degree, I suppose there is some truth to it.  Too often we confuse love with how we happen to be feeling at any given time, and I’ll grant you there is no warmer or more comforting feeling in knowing we are loved.   In Jesus’ statement about the true measure – and value – of love, however, He is not strictly speaking about being loved or even feeling loved.  He is speaking about the ultimate expression of the greatest love there can be – our willingness to do even for those who will not – perhaps will never – appreciate it or return the favor.

Jesus certainly knew this.  As we are reminded when we celebrate Holy Communion, Jesus knew His disciples would bail on Him and He knew Judas was about to hand Him over to the authorities.  Yet He continued with the celebration of true and genuine freedom, not only celebrating the Passover by which the Israelites had been set free from the bondage of slavery but offering the means by which we may be set free from bondage to sin and death.

Yet the idea of expressions of love received AND given is often reduced to a false notion of “legalism” which seems to suggest love is precisely an emotion to be felt rather than a commitment to the New Life into which we are reborn.  Obedience to The Lord as acts of genuine love for Him, in modern theology, has been deemed unnecessary.  After all, The Lord loves us "no matter what”, right?

Freedom, like key biblical terms as “grace” and “love”, is horrifically misunderstood and misappropriated in our modern society.  Too many think of freedom as “license” to do as one pleases with no regard for how our actions may affect others.  Yet the late John Paul II said it best; “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do as we should”.

This makes me think of a recent article I read (History.com) about what is arguably the very first Memorial Day commemoration.  The first national Memorial Day was in 1868 in Arlington VA, but the first record of an observance is said to have taken place in 1865 in Charleston SC following the Civil War. 

It is said there was a mass grave at a makeshift Confederate POW camp in which Union soldiers had been buried, but the freed slaves of the area who knew about it arranged to reinter these Union soldiers and give them each a proper burial.  The act was one of gratitude, mindful as these freed slaves were of what the Union had fought against.

They could have more easily walked away.  They were freed following the collapse of the Confederacy, but the gratitude they must have felt in that moment compelled them to stay, to do this thing that would honor the war dead who had given all they had to give for a principle few understood. 

But here is the point of discipleship altogether; it is not always necessary to physically die for a principle, but it is always necessary to fulfill the Royal Law: to “love one’s neighbor as oneself”, to put aside the freedom to indulge one’s own desires and, instead, give oneself over to “serve one another in love” (Galatians 5:13). 

So then perhaps we are compelled to ask ourselves if obeying Jesus’ “commandment to love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12) can be reduced to a feeling or if there is more to fulfilling this “commandment”.  We often say we cannot help how we may be feeling at any given time and we know circumstances can change in an instant, circumstances which may surely change the way we may be feeling.

It follows, then, that Jesus is not talking about feeling a certain way.  Indeed, this portion of John’s Gospel ends with Jesus saying, “I am giving you these commands so you may love one another” (vs 17).  Not so “you might” or that “you must” but in “you may”.  Though the statement has the force and authority of “commandment”, there is something even more compelling than this.  Jesus is freeing His “servants” and calling them “friends”! 

Some have suggested that in the whole context, it may have become necessary for Jesus to release His “servants” so they could become much more than mere followers who could do no more or less than whatever Jesus might do in their presence or tell them to do; to be set free from being mere observers.  In being set free from perhaps a self-imposed bondage of blind obedience without understanding why, they would have been less than capable of truly loving one another and those whom they would soon serve. 

The same principle applies to the freed slaves in Charleston.  It may be they had been enslaved to the Confederate POW camp in Charleston and had been forced to dig the mass graves, but in their newfound freedom they chose to give each of these Union soldiers a proper burial.  There is a profound difference in being forced to do something one might otherwise not do – and being freed to do that which love compels us to do.  If there was any measure of “feeling” associated with these men and women choosing to do what they felt needed to be done, it would surely have been a feeling of deep and abiding gratitude. 

In this nation and in the Holy Church, this kind of love is in exceedingly short supply, evidenced by our apparent determination to malign and destroy any who disagree.  The Christian faith has been reduced to a simple formula by which one is either “saved” or not.  While there is real power from a justified heart which has been set free from the sins of the past, we don’t always feel it nor do we feel a need to express that genuine, God-given power in appropriate ways, ways that will glorify Him and serve others. 

As Paul expressed to the Corinthians (1 Cor 6:12-20), freedom is hard and must be handled with the greatest of care because with that freedom comes great responsibility.  We can do anything we choose to do, but we do not often consider or even care how our actions will impact others.  This freedom can never be taken for granted lest we forget we have been set free not for the sake of indulging our own desires but so we can truly, fully, freely serve those who need it most. 

There can be “No Greater Love” than this: to give of ourselves for the sake and the well-being of others.  It is not about being “tolerant”; it is about being faithful … to Him, to His Commandments, and to His Church.  In the Name of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.  Amen.

A Mother's Love - 4th Sunday of Easter

Isaiah 66:13; Matthew 23:37-39

When we began recruit training (USMC), our senior drill instructor gave us a brief run-down of what we would face in the coming months.  Part of the training involved running what was known as the “John Wayne” course; crawling through the sand surrounded by simulated bombs and overhead rifle and machine gun fire reminiscent of the Marine Corp’s island-hopping campaign in the Pacific during WWII, immortalized in the John Wayne movie, “The Sands of Iwo Jima”. 

The senior drill instructor assured us there would not be no live rounds fired at or around us because the Blue Star Mothers of America had put their foot down!  I didn’t even know there was such a thing!  Recruits in the past had been seriously injured, and this group of mothers had apparently been instrumental in convincing the Corps that every reasonable precaution should be taken to protect young recruits in boot camp from unnecessary harm. 

There is nothing so binding, so yielding, and yet so fierce as a mother’s love.  Even the hardest, toughest, most salty Marine would not dare stand against or defy a mom defending her young!  And this reality could be the very reason why the Scriptures use such a metaphor to convey The Lord’s love for, and innate desire to protect, His own young!

When The Lord spoke to His people through the prophet Isaiah in assuring them they would one day be returned to their land after they had been “grounded” in exile, they heard this promise: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem” (Isaiah 66:13).  It is the sort of comfort only a mother can give.

Yet Jesus also laments this same people who “kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you”; so because of their hard-heartedness, The Lord had been unable to “gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings” … because “you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37).  It is the kind of lament only a mother can really understand.

My own father was not the greatest example of a “dad” in the strictest sense, but I know there was nothing he would withhold from me or my sister or brother if he thought it would help in any way.  Yet I also know – as I think most of us can agree – there is no reasonable, finite measure of a mother’s love for her children.  I don’t mean to diminish the fathers among us who would go to the ends of the earth for our children, but I think we can agree a mother would go beyond even the ends of the earth to protect and comfort her children.

Trinitarian theology (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is meant to express the fullness of YHWH even though the doctrine is probably more confusing than fulfilling.  Yet it is an important doctrine to help us to understand the God who created (the Father), His eternal Word (the Son), and His enduring presence (the Holy Spirit) to teach and to guide us. 

Even in that fullness, however, there seems to be a missing component; a component that not only acknowledges but honors a mother’s love.  Roman Catholic and Orthodox theology offer to Mary, the blessed Mother, a significant part of the fullness of this doctrine in the role of the Church.  It is Mary who, despite great personal risk, heeded the call of YHWH to bring into the world the Messiah.

She is the Mother of the Word; the womb from which the Word sprang, the womb in which the Word was nurtured and protected and sustained.  In the historic understanding of the Jewish mother, she was also the one who nurtured, sustained, protected, and taught from the home so her blessed Child could grow as safely as possible into the role for which He was begotten. 

As Mary is regarded and honored as the Mother of the Holy Church, the Church can gain a better understanding of its own role in allowing the Word to be nurtured from within so that, in the fullness of time, the Word can be proclaimed outwardly.  It does the Church nor the world any good to keep the Word in the womb!  It is an important role we too often take for granted and only assume all things will simply fall into place; but without a mother’s love and assuming too much, the Church has not lived into its role with a real sense of purpose, dignity, and Truth.

Joseph had his own role as protector and provider, but this isn’t Father’s Day!  Joseph certainly provided a house, but it was surely Mary who created and sustained a home environment necessary for Jesus to become His true Self – not what she wanted Him to be but what He was begotten to become.  Yet it is, sadly, the environment of the Church which has become more a “consumer’s choice” than a genuine necessity for one to live into one’s true calling. 

There are far too many who regard the Church as no longer necessary to simply “be” a Christian, regarding “being” as we choose to “be” as much more important than “becoming” who we are created to “become”; so keeping the Church compartmentalized is akin to regarding a mother’s love as little more than a choice rather than to embrace a mother’s love as essential to the fullness of life and living. 

Yet the Church, the True Mother of the Faith, must never forget its own role in the life of the community and in the life within the congregation itself; to “be gentle, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7).  There is a time to be firm and steadfast to be sure a child gets what the child needs, but the Mother of the Faith cannot be so rigid and unyielding as to stifle personal and spiritual growth. 

Just as we know the profound independence a child comes to know when it’s time to walk, we do all we can to protect and continue to teach – but we also know there are some lessons which must be learned independently.  Yet even when the lessons are sometimes much harder than a child can withstand, the Mother of the Faith is always there to comfort, to discipline, to guide, to teach – and to nurse a boo-boo here and there.

Here’s the thing, though.  The Church cannot fully appreciate its role as the Mother of the Faith without appreciating Mary’s role in the Life of Jesus; and Mary’s role as the Mother of the Church cannot be fully embraced without understanding the essential nature of the mother’s role in the home and the family. 

The essence of the Divine Commandment to “honor mother and father” is about much more than simply obeying them.  We learn to honor our parents by the way we live, reflecting their faith and their endurance when it would have been easier to walk away and choose our own course.  Yet the one who nurtures and sustains our faith cannot be taken for granted without us losing the essential part of who we are: children of the Living God.

Live into that role, and we truly honor a Mother’s Love.  For now, and forever.  Amen. 

Can't Get Right - 3rd Sunday of Easter 2019

5 May 2019 – 3^rd Sunday of Easter

Psalm 30; Acts 9:1-6; John 21:1-19

Peter is one of the most interesting of the New Testament characters because many of us can relate to him.  He is zealous for whatever he believes in at any given moment; and what he says, he seems to mean.  Yet this Scripture portion seems to open with Peter at perhaps one of his lowest moments.  The other Gospel accounts portray the apostles as afraid, but John’s account seems to show them all at a point of surrender in the midst of a profound loss.  It is almost as if Peter says, “I’m going fishing”, to which the others respond, “Might as well”.

Jesus had appeared to them once, but that Visit may have only further confused them.  There is nothing to indicate they were not still afraid of the fallout for having been associated with Jesus, but they still had to work.  So maybe with the idea of strength in numbers, they all went out together to get back to their lives – as if nothing had happened.

This happens for many of us.  We have those exciting, fulfilling, spiritual moments when we feel more alive than we ever have, when we come to know The Lord has touched us in an unmistakable way; the problem often is we don’t really know what to do with it.  Without further instruction, without some definitive sense of direction, without some measure of accountability, we do what we know how to do: we revert.  We go back to some sense of normal, and we get on with our lives.

It is easy for us to say that if we had been there when the Resurrected Jesus came into the room, there would be no way we could ever go back to the way things once were.  What we may be witnessing, however, is the simple reality: it is far easier to submit to impulse or habit than it is to break away from what was once normal and live as though we really have had a brush with the Eternal.

Maybe there’s a bone in the back of our heads that just “can’t get right”.  Maybe we are such creatures of habit and routine that we are incapable of thinking beyond what is normal.  Maybe we are such tortured souls that we are, more often than not, left twisting in the wind with no real sense of direction, no real sense of community purpose (unless it suits us), and no idea of whether those things even matter.

When Jesus first appeared to the women, there was not much offered except to tell everyone to gather, but John’s Gospel does not offer even that.  When Jesus appeared to them all later, they were given the Holy Spirit and were told, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 21:23).  However, they are not told (at least by John’s account) what to do with this new authority or what it meant for them.

There is still a sticking point in all this, especially for Peter.  Most of the disciples abandoned Jesus when things got dangerous; but by all accounts, they simply ran.  Peter tried to stick around, it seems, which put him in a position to either stand with Jesus as he said he would - or revert to his normal self and do whatever would be necessary to survive having been accused of being one of “them”. 

It is Luke’s Gospel which points out that after the rooster had crowed and Jesus had turned to look squarely at Peter, “Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, ‘Before the cock crows today, you will have denied Me three times’ … after which Peter “went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:61-62).  This seems odd, however, since it is Peter named in John’s Gospel who had drawn a sword to defend Jesus from being arrested (John 18:10).

What went wrong?  How is it that Peter was willing to risk fighting armed soldiers for Jesus’ sake but was unwilling to simply be counted among Jesus’ followers when so accused?  I think that was Peter’s natural state.  I think Peter believed he was doing the right thing by being willing to defend Jesus, violently if necessary. 

When he was called down by Jesus for having done so, he became confused.  In the end, being so uncertain about what it was he needed to do, there was nothing left but to deny that better part of himself which knew Jesus, had loved Jesus, and had professed Jesus.

It’s never that easy, though.  We “can’t get right” because we pay more attention to our impulses, our desires, our habits, our own agendas than we do to The Word.  And it will always be so as long as religion, faith, and being fully connected are less important to us than are the things we would rather do, the things we are more comfortable doing, the things we have always been taught to do.

We need to hear from Jesus.  We need The Word to heal us, to exonerate us, to forgive us for being human.  We need The Word to teach us how to rise above all that so we can be who we really are.  Apart from The Word, we can’t get right.  We can’t be who we really are; we can only be what our impulses, our habits, our routines, even our culture allows us to be.

It is more than simply being absolved, however.  Notice the cost of loving Jesus as Peter had professed: “Feed My lambs”; “Tend My sheep”; “Feed My sheep”.  It cannot be a simple “I forgive you” – not when so much is at stake.  It is never true to The Word that we are simply forgiven so we can feel less guilty about our failures.  It is never true to The Word that we are simply forgiven but not transformed.  And it is not true to The Word that forgiveness stands in perpetuity only in that single moment.

As long as we allow that single moment to speak for us but not to inform us, we can’t get right.  As long as Jesus is our “co-pilot” and not our Shepherd, we can’t get right.  As long as Jesus is an after-thought and not our forethought, we can’t get right. 

Yet we gather regularly to pray, to study, to worship, and to be fed so we can be Made Right.  We are invited to His Table to be Made Right.  We are called to confess so we can be Made Right.  So we must make this decision not once but constantly; because, like Peter, we can so easily be drawn back into our former selves and lose all sense of the One Thing that is always Right: our Lord, our Shepherd, our Savior, our very Life.

He can only be Ours if we are always His.  For now, and forever.  Amen.