John 15:1-8 & 1 John 4:7-21
Happy Mother’s Day!
Blessings and Peace to our mothers …
They carried us close to their heart …
Some of us hold hurtful memories about our mother …
A mother who didn’t do it well …
Her love too distant …
Too controlling …
Words sometimes abusive …
Memories that still hurt …
Memories that mystify …
Defy understanding …
Some of us carry bright and beautiful memories …
Of a mother who did it well …
With a love that was just right …
Neither too hot, nor too cold …
Like porridge for Goldilocks, it was just right …
We celebrate a mot
her’s gifts today:A good sense of humor …
Wise advice …
Patience and forgiveness …
Kindness and understanding …
And the power of love given away …
Love is a many-splendored thing ….
Full of surprises and full of challenges …
Love comes easy some of the time …
And sometimes, it’s the hardest thing in the world …
Sometimes I know what love is …
And sometimes I’m not sure …
Even God doesn’t know how to love all the time …
God cries out: What shall I do with you , O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
Like the dew that goes away early [Hosea 6:4].
Centuries later, the Apostle Paul writes:
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends [I Corinthians 13:4-7].
Love is a deeply ethical word …
To love someone is do right by them …
To honor them for their life …
To recognize them as a real human being …
The Greeks had four words for love … [C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves]:
Storge … simple affection … something we share with dogs and cats and whales, as well: touching, cuddling, nuzzling … cooing, purring and humming … simple, basic affection.
Another word, philia, brotherly love – Philadelphia, PA – city of brotherly love …
Another word, eros, from which we get the word erotic … the physical power of being in love, the power of desire and want …
And then agape … the word used most commonly in the Bible … agape – a deeply ethical love – commitment, loyalty, faithfulness, steadfastness, understanding and patience, tolerance in the face of difficulties … a giving love that seeks the wellbeing of the other … a love willing to lay down its life for the sake of the other …
Jesus said, No greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for another.
The Bible says a great deal about love …
Let’s take a look at our passages for the day …
John 15:1-8 …
1 John 4:7-21 …
What is love?
We do well to begin with God’s love …
For God so loved the world …
The love that takes up a cross and goes to Golgatha …
The love that lays down its life for you and me.
Paul writes of faith, hope and love … and dares to say: the greatest of these is love …greater than faith, greater than hope …
What is love?
Love is a deeply ethical word …
A decision to do right by the other …
Even when we hardly feel like doing it …
Jesus didn’t feel like going to the cross …
And there’s plenty of days when you and I don’t feel very loving at all …
But we love nonetheless …
We do what’s right … and sometimes the doing helps the feeling …
Sometimes we have to use our motions to lead our emotions … the doing of something right takes our emotions by the hand and leads them to a better place.
In other words, do right, even when you don’t feel right.
And in the doing, something good occurs …
There is no greater pleasure than knowing we’ve done something right, something good …
Above and beyond the call of duty …
The extra mile …
Beyond our self-interest …
Big examples like:
Mother Teresa in Calcutta …
My friend Ben Mathes on a jungle riverboat …
A store-front pastor negotiating with street gangs in east LA …
Most of us will never have the chance for such dramatic things …
Most of us live small moments …
No headlines …
Just the day-to-day things of life …
When our mental and spiritual capacities are stretched to the limit ….
So we go deeper, reach higher … travel further … then we ever thought we could …
After 55 years of marriage, Fred visits his wife every day in the nursing home – Alzheimer’s for the last three years … Ruby doesn’t recognize Fred anymore … she stares at a place far away, and then asks, “Who are you?”
Fred says, “I’m your husband, I’m Fred, and I love you.”
Fred tears up, and Ruby looks at him curiously, and then a few tears leak from her eyes, too … for a moment, a connection … she knows him … and then, it’s gone … she says, “Who are you?”
Fred wouldn’t miss a day …
“She’s my wife. She stood by me so many times, and now it’s my turn to stand by her … to be faithful to her and patient … I wouldn’t miss a day here.”
Fred goes home bone-weary …
He cries himself to sleep …
He prays to God …
He’s lonely beyond description …
His children help as much as they can, but they’re busy with their lives …
Fred says, “For better, for worse; in sickness and in health, till death do us part.”
I remember Dale, a Presbyterian pastor – serving two small churches in rural Missouri, when I met him.
Dale wasn’t much a preacher … he didn’t have a way with words – he spoke haltingly and always seemed a little unsure of himself.
That’s why Dale never made it to a big city church.
Dale spent his whole life in small rural parishes … never wrote a book and never made the news …
Dale spent his days calling on widows and comforting the poor, in body and in spirit.
Every Sunday, Dale preached the gospel, as best he could … in season and out of season …
Always broke and a dollar short …
Never could afford a new car … only drove old beaters …
Shopped for clothing at secondhand stores …
Lived in church-owned housing … the carpet worn and the paint showing its age …
I met Dale at a workshop, near the end of his career… he was there on a scholarship … my heart was moved when I got to know him a little bit … I was struck by the character of his life … something right and something good …
I remember thinking: could I be so faithful?
Could I be so true to my calling?
I remember David …
One of the hardest working guys I’ve ever known …
His Daddy went to jail, but David stood by him and cared for his mother …
His wife divorced him for another man … and I remember him coming over early on Sunday morning to tell me … his knuckles were bleeding because he had hit the wall when his wife walked out on him … he sat our table and cried.
They got a divorce … it was done and over with …
But the affair of the heart came to end, as they always do … and by the grace of God, she came back … humiliated and heart-broken …
And I had the pleasure of officiating at their second marriage … and they’ve never looked back …
I’ve always been amazed at this man … and his wife, too … they both said, “I’m sorry” and love flourished again.
I think of Mary caring for a challenged child …
She had to quit work … and we all know what that means … living on the margin … sleepless nights … fretful days … but Mary does it.
She crashes and burns sometimes …
Family members come by and fill in some of the hours …
Neighbors help, too.
I think of the surgeons in Cleveland who did the world’s most complicated face transplant for Connie Culp.
Her husband shotgunned her and blew her face away …
And for five years, Connie lived a very hard life.
And then a miracle, if you will …
A face transplant … bone, muscles, nerves, vessels … for 24 hours, they operated …
The bandages are off … and a lot more work ahead …
But Connie can smile again and eat pizza for the first time in 5 years.
I’m amazed at her spunk and her humor …
And she didn’t do it alone …
She tells of all the people who’ve stood by her … who sustained her … who loved her … and the fantastic medical team, and the surgeon who said, “I think we can.”
Love is a Sunday School teacher …
Love is choir director …
Love is a deacon …
Love is an elder …
Love is writing a check and putting it into the offering plate …
Love is showing up here …
Love is being faithful to things and causes beyond ourselves …
Today, here and now …
Big things, small things …
There is a lot of love here at Covenant on the Corner …
Your love is a courageous love …
Decisions made and positions taken on behalf of love …
For a better world and a more just life for our fellow Angelinos …
Love endures, says Paul the Apostle …
Love never ends …
Every day, when we love,
More love comes our way …
Love grows when it’s spent.
Love comes back to us when it’s given away …
Because God is love … and God is forever …
So let’s love one another all the more …
Live large … live beyond ourselves …
No one excluded; everyone welcomed …
Let us abide in Christ all the more … and do what’s right …
And Christ abides in us …
And glorious is the day!
Happy Mother’s Day!
Amen and Amen!
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