Tag Archives: love

Love complicates things (3rd Sunday after Pentecost)

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Readings (Track 1)

In the middle of Jesus’ argument with the scribes he tells this short parable: “But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.” Plunder: that’s an intriguing image for what Jesus is about. For what God’s about, for that matter. The Exodus: plunder on a national scale. The mob stirred up by Paul and Silas’ presence in Thessalonica didn’t get it entirely wrong: “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also” (Acts 17:6). No wonder Paul’s regularly in trouble—as we heard in our second reading.

But it’s not plunder for the sake of plunder (“My pile of loot’s bigger than yours!”), but, whether at the Exodus or in Galilee, for human freedom, restoring it so that it can be used well. Pulling back the camera to take in all of Mark’s Gospel, whether in the exorcisms, the healings, the conversations or the proclamation, that plundering is about restoring human freedom and encouraging us humans to use it well. The first thing out of Jesus’ mouth in that Gospel: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (1:15).

The kingdom/reign of God, with two divine desires in play: that we be free, that we choose well. Either one of these would be easy to fulfill; both—that quickly gets complicated. Consider our first reading from Samuel’s time, a few centuries after the Exodus. The people have repeatedly used their freedom badly, and now they want a human king. A king: they’d celebrated the Lord as their king back at the Exodus (Exodus 15:18). But now, no, a human king “so that we also may be like other nations.” If God’s desire were simply that the people choose well, well, so much for freedom: no human king. But God desires both that they be free and that they choose well. So God tells Samuel to give the people what they want; we’ll do it the hard way.

That’s a pretty good illustration of God’s love. God loves us too much either to compromise our freedom or to stop caring about our choices. Love—as any parent knows—complicates things. God can bring good out of our bad choices (the king is the template for the Messiah), but the price is high (“King of the Jews” was the sign on Jesus’ cross).

Does God always get what God wants? Since what God wants is that we be free and that we choose well, the answer is pretty clearly no. (That’s one of the main reasons why the Bible is a lengthy book!) And one of the recurrent challenges in worshipping this God is to respect both of these divine desires. If we think the people are choosing badly is their freedom really all that important?

Bad choices bring death. Adam and Eve choose badly in Genesis chapter 3; only one of their sons (Cain and Abel) is alive by the end of chapter 4. Death ends the story; death ends all stories. In the psalms one of the most frequent arguments the psalmists make for deliverance: rescue me, because in Hades no one praises you; that’s the lose-lose option. Shakespeare nails it in MacBeth:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

So if there were ever a game-changer, it’s Jesus’ resurrection (the motor for Paul’s reflections in our second reading). Death isn’t the end. Jesus’ transformed body grounds our hope for a similarly transformed body, “an eternal weight of glory,” as Paul put it.

How to tie this together? At least three ways come to mind. “God desires our freedom and that we use it well.” That, of course, is only one of many ways we might summarize what God’s up to. But play with it; wonder how it might serve to guide our outreach budget and activities.

Second. God desires our freedom and that we use it well. Because neither desire is negotiable God’s history with us is as messy as it is (recall, again, Holy Week) and Mick Jagger’s “You can’t always get what you want” turns out to apply to God as well. So we don’t know how all this will play out in the end. Will all be saved? We do know that it comes down to a fairly simple question: is my character such that I’d enjoy spending eternity with this God who keeps making hard choices and who loves my enemies as much as me?

In this respect heaven and hell reflect who we are. Recall that old analogy: a large banquet hall, the tables loaded. The complication is that our arms no longer bend at the elbows. At some tables, despair: despite increasingly acrobatic strategies no one can feed themselves. At other tables, delight: everyone feeding their neighbor.

A third way of tying this together: C. S. Lewis’ luminous sermon “The Weight of Glory” that draws on our second reading. After imagining what this weight of glory might mean, he pivots:

…it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour.… It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.…There are no ordinary people.

God, in love, desires our freedom and that we use it well, for our choices really matter. That doesn’t make it easy for God or for us. Easy, apparently, is not the point.

“Love one another:” Putting it into practice (6th Sunday of Easter, 5/5/2024)

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Readings

The first lesson from the Acts of the Apostles tells of the Holy Spirit coming upon the Gentiles —Romans, mostly— while Peter was still preaching. And with that all the parts of Jesus’ commission and promise “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” begin to be fulfilled. For once this still very Jewish Church crosses the enormous cultural hurdles to preach to the Gentiles it’s a relatively short step to the ends of the earth. Once the doors are open to the Gentiles, it doesn’t matter much if they’re in Naples, Norway, or North Lake. “And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith” indeed.

If we ask about the motor for that victory, there are two obvious answers. The first is the Holy Spirit. Who else but God’s Spirit could have given the apostles the backbone to stand before the Jewish leaders and the Roman Empire? But the second equally obvious answer is the love that has been the constant theme in our readings these past weeks. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” And in another context Jesus said “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you…have love for one another.” All the things that Jesus could have said but didn’t: “if you have flawless theology; if you are without sin; if you…” Well, we might as well segue into St Paul’s paean to love in 1st Corinthians: “if you speak with the tongues of angels and men…” Nope: “if you have love for one another.”

I thought very briefly about organizing this homily around the question “What does the Bible say about loving one another?” Then I quickly realized that that was absurd, because you wouldn’t be far wrong if you said that on the whole the Bible is about nothing else than loving God and loving one’s neighbor. So “What does the Bible say about loving one another?” would be a very long sermon. Better, it’s something we spend our entire lives learning.

So the question pretty quickly became What might I say that would be useful to us here and now about “love one another”? Here are four themes to chew on: confession, generosity, no-fault, and forgiveness.

Confession. “Love one another” doesn’t get very far unless we’re willing to acknowledge ourselves as serious sinners. If my own experience is an indication, we’re ready to admit we’re sinners, but not serious sinners —that’s other folk. Years before I got married a friend described marriage as the ideal context for discovering the depth of one’s selfishness. He was right. And in the first years of marriage the times I came closest to throwing in the towel were the times in which my choices were to flee or acknowledge to myself just how selfish I was being. To which the Christian tradition with exquisite pastoral sensitivity says “Well, duh! What did you think Jesus died for, your parking tickets? So repent & learn how to love this woman.” How often are we tempted to walk away from each other because the relationship is an occasion of unwelcome self-knowledge?

Generosity. “Love one another” is about —to steal from St Paul— hoping all things, believing all things. St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises put in best: “it should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. Further, if one cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love; and if this is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved.”

So when we find ourselves mentally mapping a conflict in a way that puts the others entirely in the wrong and us entirely in the right, all the warning bells should be going off, first because we are offending against charity regarding the others, and secondly because this mapping blinds us to our own sinfulness. The sad thing about this is that all of us have been working hard since kindergarten at getting good at this sort of mapping, and by puberty it’s mostly instinctive. As with the barbarian hordes, so with us: following Jesus means laying down weapons that we’ve gotten very good at using.

No-fault. “Love one another” is pretty much a no-fault policy. That’s the point of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” Again, notice what he doesn’t say: not “if you remember that your brother or sister did something bad to you” or “if you remember that you did something bad to your brother or sister” but simply “if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you.” If the relationship’s broken, that’s the trigger, and whose “fault” it is…is irrelevant. What relationships need some TLC?

Forgiveness. “Love one another” is about forgiveness. The stakes here couldn’t be higher. “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” I don’t know of anything harder than forgiveness, whether of others or of ourselves. Many times the best we can do is to pray for a little more openness to forgiveness.

And when it comes to forgiveness we need to be careful not to cut corners. People say: well, I forgive him, but see if I’ll trust/respect/talk to him again. That doesn’t work, and here’s why. It’s not simply that Jesus ties us forgiving others and God forgiving us together. It’s that the way we imagine God forgiving us is linked to how we forgive others. And God’s forgiveness is reckless and extravagant. The prodigal son gets new robes, the fattened calf, and a seat at the head table. The Epistles repeatedly celebrate our boldness and freedom of access to God’s presence. “[You have] made us worthy to stand before you” says one of the Eucharistic prayers. And this is the way we’re to forgive. It is an integral part of the freedom Jesus has won for us. The flip side: if we persist in forgiving at arm’s length (“I forgive you, but…”) we should not be surprised if we wake up one morning and discover that our image of God looks less like the prodigal’s father and more like the prodigal’s elder brother: well, you’re back, but don’t you dare make yourself at home.

“Love one another” It’s about being willing to learn the depth of our brokenness. It’s about putting the best interpretation possible on the conduct of our brothers and sisters.  It’s no-fault. It’s about forgiving as God forgives us: recklessly, extravagantly.

Let me leave you with a final image. Football games are usually won or lost in the trenches, the hard away-from-the-cameras work. It doesn’t matter who’s playing quarterback for the Packers if by the time he gets the ball the backfield is filled with guys wearing the wrong color jersey.

Loving each other when that “each other” is hard to love is that work in the trenches. There’s no glamour to it, but it wins games —and our Lord is out to win the world. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Life on the Vine (5th Sunday of Easter, 4/28/2024)

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Readings

Jesus’ resurrection, the beginning of the New Creation, ripples out to the ends of the earth.

We watched the beginnings of this last week in Jerusalem; this week we’re in Samaria–almost, and in a bit we’ll focus in on Samaria.

But there’s a second ripple effect in our texts today, starting with the Gospel, moving through the Epistle, and ending in Acts.

The Gospel. In last week’s Gospel, Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd. We noticed that “Shepherd” is not a new image, but had been and continued to be a powerful political image. Not surprisingly, Jesus’ followers proclaiming him as Good Shepherd encountered persecution and martyrdom from other authorities who claimed the exclusive right to that title.

This week, “I am the true vine.” And “vine” too has a history. Let’s do some word associations: Golden Arches… McDonald’s; Uncle Sam… United States; Badger… Wisconsin; vine… And we draw a blank. In Israel, we’d have gotten “Israel” The vine is one of the most basic symbols used in the OT for Israel: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove away the nations and planted it” (Ps 80). The prophets play off it: “Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit” (Hosea 10). Most elaborately, Isaiah develops an allegory of God seeking good fruit —justice— from Israel the vine and encountering only rotten fruit —injustice.

So when Jesus says “I am the true vine” it’s big. Never mind being the Messiah of Israel, he’s Israel. The closest analogy is Louis XIV’s “L’état, c’est moi.” (The State? That’s me!) What’s going on? Well, this comes after about 1200 years of history with Israel, God the vinedresser seeking good fruit and finding mostly stuff that even the livestock would turn up their noses at. So God decides that if this relationship’s going to have a future, God must unite with our humanity and play both parts, vinedresser and vine. Our task becomes infinitely easier: not producing fruit on our own, but simply staying connected to that fertile Vine.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me as I abide in you. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in the mid-20th Century wrote of these verses: “All forms of Christian worship, all forms of Christian discipline, have this as their object. Whatever leads to this is good; whatever hinders this is bad; whatever does not bear on this is futile.”

In developing the image, Jesus says “apart from me you can do nothing.”

This may grate, since particularly in this culture independence and autonomy are such high values. We may see it as a design defect: if God had done a better job, we’d be more independent. But there’s another way of looking at it.

We Christians confess the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Trinity: eternally equal, eternally interdependent. The Father without the Son and Holy Spirit can do nothing. The Son without the Father and Holy Spirit can do…nothing. The Holy Spirit without the Father and Son can do…nothing. So when this Triune God creates humanity in God’s image, is it surprising that we are created to be related to God, created, so to speak, to run on God? Rather than a defect, it’s an undreamt-of privilege, Cinderella getting an invitation to the ball.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way: “The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?” (Mere Christianity 176).

We spend our life together with God discovering what this means, how this happens. The obvious question is how do we abide/stay connected? In the verses that follow this text —we’ll read them next week— Jesus talks of love and keeping the commandments. Those sound like they might be going in two very different directions, but are not. As we’ll hear next week —and may already recall from Jesus’ summary of the Law— the commandments are finally simply about loving God and loving one’s neighbor.

The Epistle. The epistle too is concerned with abiding, God abiding in us, we abiding in God. The epistle’s particular concern is lack of love between Christians, and so its repeated command is “Love one another.”

Why should we love one another? The epistle reminds us of The Story: God so loved us that He sent Jesus to bring us from death to life, from separation to union. God so loved us —recalling the Gospel— that God played and plays both parts: Vinedresser and Vine. If that’s the story, then the only way to live that fits with the story is love.

How serious is this? “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

In contrast to our culture’s assumptions and the impression you can easily get from the Church’s history, God doesn’t regard loving God and neglecting to love one’s brother or sister as an option. We can’t, in other words, keep two sets of books: my relationship with God, my relationship with my brothers and sisters.

We’ll spend some time looking at what this means in practice next week, because I need time to say something about our reading from Acts. Suffice it to say that the Apostle in Acts, Philip, has heard first-hand from Jesus about the Vine and the Branches, about the need to love each other, and has had some years of learning to do this with the other Apostles, a challenging group to love even on their best days.

Acts. The assigned reading in the lectionary tells of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. From the position of the story in the book, he looks to be a Jew or a proselyte. Although it’s a lovely story, I want to focus on what happened in the verses just before it: Philip’s visit to Samaria and the conversion of many Samaritans.

First, a bit of background. Saul, David, and Solomon ruled over a united Israel. After Solomon’s death, the northerners rejected David’s dynasty and Jerusalem as the place of worship, so now there were two kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah). The city and region of Samaria is in the heart of that old Northern Kingdom. Centuries later in Jesus’ time, the Samaritans still followed Moses, rejected Jerusalem, and were universally scorned and shunned by all the Jews. When good Jews went from Galilee north of Samaria to Judea or vice versa, they’d do so on the east side of the Jordan, so as not to have to set foot in the region of Samaria. It had been going far longer than Hatfields/McCoys or Packers/Bears.

So here’s the thing. Nothing would have been more natural for Philip and the Apostles than to continue writing off the Samaritans. Nothing would have been more natural than for the Gospel to have leapfrogged Samaria for the Jewish dispersion throughout the Roman Empire.

But that’s not the story and that’s not the script. The story is God’s love turning enemies into friends: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” The script is Philip going to Samaria. In the Name of Jesus people are delivered from possession by unclean spirits, people are healed —and there is great joy.

Learning to abide in the true Vine, learning to love the other apostles sets Philip up to recognize in the Samaritans not The Enemy, but simply other folk for whom Jesus died and was raised.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me as I abide in you. In a world torn by multiple divisions nothing could sound more like irrelevant navel-gazing. But it’s precisely this “Abide in me as I abide in you” that gives the Church the traction to go where it would not otherwise have gone and to make of enemies friends.

Coming together during the Longest Night / Celebrating the Feast of St Thomas (St Dunstan’s, Madison WI)

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Readings (For the 2023 Longest Night, only Habakkuk and John used, the John reading expanded as follows)

7 Then after [hearing that Lazarus was ill Jesus] said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” 11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (Jn. 11:7-16)

3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (Jn. 14:3-6)

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (Jn. 20:24-29)

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This year our Longest Night Eucharist falls on December 21, the Feast of St Thomas, Apostle. That is an interesting coincidence; let’s wonder together about what Thomas’ Feast might contribute.

Were it not for the Gospel according to John we’d know nothing of Thomas besides the later legends. And what John tells us—three bits from chapters 11, 14, and 20—we heard in the Gospel reading. Hardly enough for any sort of biography, but enough to make us wonder whether there had been some serious loss in Thomas’ past.

Loss can leave us feeling unhinged, wondering if we belong—anywhere. So the first thing we might notice about Thomas is that Jesus’ words to the disciples—words to each one of us—apply also to him: “You did not choose me but I chose you” (Jn. 15:16). Thomas isn’t there by mistake. I wonder if Jesus chose Thomas also as a counterweight to some of the other apostles. Thomas is not going to be among those arguing about who can sit on Jesus’ right or left when they return to Judea.

“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Just because you’re heading toward a brick wall is no reason by itself to change course. So Thomas shows himself an authentic son of Abraham and Sarah, promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, but who spent decades as sojourners in the “Promised Land” having produced together exactly zero children. But of course John has not passed on the opportunity for irony: at the end of the story both Lazarus and Jesus will be alive. Perhaps it’s a sort of prequel to the resurrection stories.

I love that second bit out of the 14th chapter: “Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Thomas is willing to acknowledge that he—like the rest of the disciples—has no idea what Jesus is saying. The usual strategy is to keep quiet; Thomas speaks up.

In passing, I wonder if we notice often enough that Jesus’ well-known response (“I am the way, and the truth, and the life…”) is not an answer in any obvious sense (“’Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ ‘I am the way…’”). It’s more a Zen koan (“The sound of one hand clapping.”) If we pay attention, we may catch glimpses of its meaning throughout our lives.

Then there’s that third portion of John, set a week after Easter. There are two surprises, that Jesus shows up and that the disciples are still together. The other disciples have been all “Hallelujah” and Thomas “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands…” Christians split over so much less, but here they are, together. It does look like something of Jesus’ “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn. 13:34) has sunk in.

This is maybe one of the more important things our brother Thomas contributes to our Longest Night observance: loss and grief are not meant to be experienced alone. Job’s friends got it right: they came and sat with him in silence— for seven days. The trouble started when they started talking—a standing warning, I suppose, to preachers.

Thomas and the other disciples are together. Jesus shows up. And Jesus gives Thomas what he needs. Thomas, like Jacob wrestling all night with the stranger: “I will not let you go, unless you bless me” (Gen. 32:26). Or Job, for that matter, who quickly figures out that the conversation he needs is not with his friends, but with the Almighty. And the Almighty shows up.

That story ends with these words from Jesus: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” That’s not a criticism of Thomas. Rather, here, as in other resurrection accounts, the author’s wrestling with the question of how their audience relates to Jesus. So in Luke’s road to Emmaus story, how is the risen Jesus encountered? The Scriptures are opened, bread is broken: the two halves of our Eucharist.

The collect for Thomas’ Feast understandably focuses on Thomas’ faith (“Do not doubt but believe.”). I wonder if the story does not equally encourage us to focus on the love that holds Thomas and the other disciples together. Faith and love: how often these get disconnected, with “faith” that uses all the right words (hear the scare quotes) underwriting loveless conduct. This is one of the main problems the author of 1st John, a sort of dummy’s guide to reading John’s Gospel, is trying to address:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (4:7-8)

Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. (4:20)

The author of 1st John has, of course, no interest in undervaluing faith, but equally no interest in letting it get disconnected from love. He pulls the two together elsewhere in the letter:

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. (3:23-24)

And we might extrapolate: the community of love that the Spirit nurtures is the context we need when life’s experiences make faith, trust, and hope difficult if not near impossible. That’s one of the things tonight’s gathering is about.

That community of love—do we always get that right? Of course not, and that’s one of the elements of loss and grief with which we struggle. Fortunately the Spirit is more patient with us than we ourselves are, keeps nurturing our capacity to love.

How to summarize? We sell John short when we hear his story about that encounter a week after Easter as simply Thomas’ story. It’s a story about what happens when Jesus’ “love one another” is heeded in the midst of loss and grief, so that together—and only together—are the other disciples able to witness and share Thomas’ confession “My Lord and my God!”