28May2000sermon.htm

"The texture of love"

Sermon for Easter 6, Year B, 28 May 2000

St Stephen's, Riverside, NJ

Reading: Psalm 33:1-8, 18-22; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:9-17

Well, the summer has begun at last. Another year has passed, and we can
look forward to three long months
of cookouts and swimming pools,
of vacations and visitors,
of sun and humidity
and mosquitoes.
Memorial Day marks a change in time,
a change in the rhythms of our lives:
the summer has begun.

But as you probably know
the church calendar
is a bit different. Instead of marking our time
by the movement of the sun
and the budding and the falling of leaves on our trees,
by days when we remember
the events which have shaped our national lives,
we, here at church, mark it by a different cycle
of life and death,
the life and death
of Jesus,
and by different events
which shape our lives
as the people of God.

Which is why
we are still
in the Easter
season,
and because the date of Easter
kind of wanders around,
the readings on this weekend that heralds the summer
are different every year -
sometimes its Trinity Sunday, sometimes Pentecost,
and sometimes, like this year, just a Sunday in the Easter season.
And so it's simply a coincidence
that this week
the readings have a theme
which fits all too well
with our remembrances on Memorial Day.

In our gospel for today
were the words,
"Love one another
as I have loved you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends."
Words which were among
the last words
that Jesus spoke to his friends.
Words which remind us
of the human cost
of love.

On Memorial Day
we remember with thankfulness
those people
who laid down their lives
on behalf of their country,
whose lives ended
in the service of others.

And yet....and yet I wonder.
I wonder if this is really
what Jesus is talking about, or at least
if it is all
that Jesus
is talking about.
Because it seem to me
that giving up ones life in the cause of patriotism, for love of one's
country,
is kind of different
to giving up one's life
for the sake of the people
we love.
Of course the result is the same - you lose your life.
But it is one thing
to get caught up
in the machinery of war;
and it is another
to voluntarily
set yourself towards death
for the sake
of those you love.

And what that points to
is the incredible complexity and diversity
in that thing
we call love,
it is not simply a smoothly uniform idea,
but has a kind of rough and variegated texture.

We speak about love
in many different ways.
I still remember coming to church as a teenager
on a day like today
with all its readings about love,
and hearing an extensive analysis
of the various Greek words
which are translated love - agape, phileo, eros . . . each with slightly
different nuances of meaning -
and I remember coming away from that sermon
feeling ever so slightly confused - I still have difficulty with those
differences!
But what stuck with me, what was most important, I think,
was the sense
that there is more
than one
sort of love.
What is important
is not so much which word you use for it
as understanding that love
is a huge concept
and includes far more than we can ever imagine.

Most of the time
society would have us believe
that what love is about
is a kind of schmaltzy romantic feeling
which takes control of our bodies,
overwhelms our minds,
and sends us into some different sphere of existence....
until reality breaks in
and we have to deal with the facts of everyday existence.
I remember it well -
it was the Sunday before my nineteenth birthday
when suddenly a quiet friendship
burst into romance. I didn't eat
for four days...

If the movies had it their way
that
would be love.
Just this week,
I saw the video of the movie
Notting Hill, with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts,
a movie
full
of the life changing improbability
of love.

But in spite of the movies, in spite of TV
that is not all
there is
to love. Love is not just
a flash in the pan.

Love is also about
the enduring friendships,
the steady, constant love
of a lifetime.
Sometimes, ideally, this is the love
which marriages are made of,
love which may have begun
with the romance of the movies
but which has grown and matured.
It's the love
that comes with knowing someone through and through.

And then there is the love
we have for our children,
that inexplicable sense
which fills us
when we first see that wrinkled, crying,
and, to be honest, ugly
little creature
which is the wonder
of a new born baby.
That love
which makes us get up night after night
to their crying,
which sees us through the traumas of teenage years,
and can grow to something more like friendship
as our children reach adulthood.

And there is the love of our animals,
the wagging tail and enthusiastic licking
which our dogs greet us with
when we arrive home
as if we had been gone a month
rather than just out
doing the shopping,
and the deep throated purr
of a contented cat,
the love
that tears us apart
when they die.

And there are the surprising loves,
the four year old called Caroline
who comes to my church
and when she sees me,
throws her arms around me
and wants just
to be held,
and the gentle fondness which has grown in me
for an elderly friend
who lives up in Boston.

Love.
Just one word
and so much richness.

When we read about love
in the bible
its is about all of these,
sometimes one more than the other, but always multifaceted, always
textured.

And, according to our reading from 1 John, always grounded in the love of
God.

The love of God
is often hard to comprehend.
It's kind of nebulous, out there somewhere,
hard to get any real sense of.
Its not as if
we can get to feel
the touch of God's arms
embracing us with a hug,
or hear God say
loud and clear in our ears
the words, "I love you".

And there are times when its easy to wonder
if God has forgotten us,
times when we think
that the whole Christian thing
is a delusion.
Because there's no proof
that God loves us.
Here we are
trying to live our lives
as faithfully
as we know how,
and there is nothing to show for it.
The love of God
is kind of hard
to grasp.

But maybe
the readings for today
can be of some help.
The psalm today
spoke of the steadfast love of God,
so much love
that the earth
is full of it,
love which was expressed,
which was made graspable
in the act of creation.
That
is the love of God.

And the epistle, from 1 John, spoke of the love of God
as being revealed to us
in Jesus Christ.
God who loves us so much
that in Christ
he came to live among us, in Christ
he died for us, in Christ
he rose for us
so that we can live in the hope
of life and love
which will never end.
That
is the love
of God.

And according to the first epistle of John, and according to the gospel of
John, it is that love of God
that abides in us,
it is that love of God which shapes us and remakes us
and enables all the rest of our loving.

So where does that leave us, this Memorial Day?
I think it leaves us
with the call of Christ
who said
"Love one another
as I have loved you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends."

On Memorial Day weekend, our minds go straight
to the love which has led our forbears
to lay down their lives
protecting national interests.
But I suspect that the laying down of life
which we are called to
is a whole lot more ordinary than that.

It's the laying down of life
day by day,
the small actions we take
which make a difference in the lives of others
so that they too can know the rich texture
of love.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
28 May 2000