Tag Archives: Love and Fear

What Love Looks Like

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A Sermon for 14 July 2019 – 5th Sunday after Pentecost

A reading from the gospel of Luke 10:25-37. It’s claimed that this is one of the most familiar stories told by Jesus. Listen for God’s word to us.

“Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 The lawyer answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And Jesus said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 The lawyer said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.’”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

A prayer entitled Common Prayer goes like this – perhaps you’ve heard it before. “There are only two feelings. Love and fear. There are only two languages. Love and fear. There are only two activities. Love and fear. There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results. Love and fear. Love and fear.” (by Leunig, quoted in books and speeches by Alan Jones).

Love and fear. We know what they look like, right?

Fear looks like eyes down on the sidewalk in front of us. Hugging in as we pick up the pace just a little bit. No matter what’s up over there. Don’t make eye contact as we just keep on walking by on the other side of the road.

Fear looks like accusations from a pulpit – or podium. Speech dripping in disdain. Hateful words spit into a microphone or spewed online that only insight further dis-trust. Anger. Violence.

Fear looks like keeping ourselves separated. Safely hunkered down among our own kind. And don’t anyone dare challenge our current way of thinking by coming up close with their true personhood. The story of their own struggles, pains, hopes. We prefer our worldview just the way it already is, thank you very much!

Fear looks like worry. Hands wringing about whatever situation has arisen. Pacing the floor. Anxiety rising because what if this one mistake. This one incident. This one episode brings it all tumbling down?

Fear looks like giving up. Not trying something new because we’re too set in our own ways. Too preoccupied by other things. Too tired to even try again.

A 2018 Christian pop rock song puts it this way: “Fear is a liar.” Listen to these beautiful lyrics: “When he told you you’re not good enough. When he told you you’re not right. When he told you you’re not strong enough to put up a good fight. When he told you you’re not worthy. When he told you you’re not loved. When he told you you’re not beautiful. That you’ll never be enough. . . . When he told you were troubled. You’ll forever be alone. When he told you you should run away. You’ll never find a home. When he told you you were dirty and you should be ashamed. When he told you you could be the one that grace could never change. Fear, he is a liar. He will take your breath. Stop you in your steps. Fear he is a liar. He will rob your rest. Steal your happiness. Cast your fear in the fire. ‘Cause fear he is a liar” (“Fear is a Liar,” from Chain Breaker; written by Jason Ingram, Zach Williams, Jonathan Lindley Smith. © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Essential Music Publishing).

And love? Love looks like a story I read this week – a story much like the one once told by Jesus that the gospel of Luke alone records. A parable of Jesus, which tells us that whether or not Jesus actually ever saw such a story take place, it is true. Parables are deeply true so that we should recognize the characters. The circumstances. The twists and turns of the plot from the days and nights of our own lives. Like three different men each having an opportunity to stop. To help another left as good as dead on the side of a dangerous, desert road.

In Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation, Mirabai Starr writes of the time her father called her up to see if she wanted to head over the boarder with her hippie, free-loving momma and her mother’s new boyfriend. Teenage Mirabai was getting over her first heart-break so she agreed. Her father dropped her off at the Mexican border just a few miles from the commune where her parents had moved Mirabai and her two siblings after the death of the oldest, then-nine year old son, Matty. Away Mirabai, her mother, and Ramón raced to the find the isolated beach on which the family lived for six months after Matty’s death. Life along Mexican beaches had changed by then, so a campsite would suffice. The story’s a little racy, because Mirabai writes that “mom and her lover proceeded to explore their relationship” (p. 40) while Mirabai sat on the beach reading and writing love poems to the boy who just had broken her heart. Topless, her mother and Ramón sat smoking a joint on the beach. Before the night was over, Mirabai would have to negotiate their way out of arrest by the Mexican police patrolling the beach who did not at all approve of what they found going on at the campsite. The next day, after some big fight between her mother and Ramón; Mirabai’s mother ended up – let’s just say, in a drug-induced state that left her racing down the beach until she suddenly disappeared. When Mirabai finally caught up to where she last had seen her mother, she saw a high bluff off of which her mother had fallen only to be laying in excruciating pain down below. Mirabai was only fourteen when suddenly the fate of her mother lay in her own hands. Somehow she got herself down the embankment, then back up it with her mother — only to find her mother unable to walk. Something was drastically wrong.

Earlier in the week, Mirabai had found a cantina far down the beach. It was late in the night when at last Mirabai managed to get her mother there. Mirabai explained to the elderly Mexican gentleman standing in the cantina that her mother had fallen down a bluff – her foot was growing larger and more purple by the second. We can see why Mirabai helped – even if she was pushing all the boundaries of acceptable mother behavior, the woman who had fallen over the bluff was her mother. As I read the story, I couldn’t help but wonder if the man in the cantina noticed her mother’s blood-shot, stoned eyes. Suddenly this free-loving American was being dragged to him – their only shot at hope in the middle of the night on that vacant Mexican beach. Almost as quickly as Mirabai had gotten to work to rescue her whimpering mother, the man at the cantina got under her mother’s arm and led them to a small table. He ensured her legs got propped – and took a closer look at the balloon expanding where once a foot had been. Mirabai insisted they needed a doctor – unfortunately, they no longer had any money or their car because those were negotiated away the day before in order to keep the three from being put in jail when the police came up upon their illegal activity on the beach. The man explained there would be no getting a doctor in the middle of the night. Then, almost like he’d known these two strangers his whole life long; he helped them out back to his little beach hut. Getting Mirabai’s mother settled in his own, only bed; he said he’d sleep the night in the hammock between the trees. If they needed anything, Mirabai was to come get him – which she did when the pain got so bad. It was then the man offered a bottle of tequila to at least get the woman to sleep. When morning at last broke, Mirabai was able to find Ramón whose friend drove them back to the cantina. The friend tried to pay the elderly gentleman for tending the two through the night, but the man of the cantina refused to take any payment. Instead, Mirabai reports, “he helped us load Mom into the car, kissed the top of her head, and asked God to bless us all” (pp. 40-46).

Love looks like strangers in need being treated as kin – so they make it through the darkest night.

Love looks like holding what we have freely so that we’re willing and ready to share.

Love looks like carrying one who has fallen until they can walk on their own again.

Love looks like waiting with another in pain – even if there’s nothing we can do to make that pain stop.

Love even looks like offering another the blessing of God when they’ve messed up and don’t deserve it at all.

Once, a lawyer wanted to test Jesus – we hear from the gospel of Luke. He wanted to know how to have Life – eternal Life, which is Life in full here and now and forever yet to be. He knew the rules – love God and neighbor as yourself. But he didn’t quite understand that Life’s not at all a bunch of rules we’re supposed to follow. Life is putting love in action in order to experience God. For, as one source reminds: when we let go of fear, we are touched by God” (paraphrase of EnneaThought for the Day, The Enneagram Institute, 8 July 2019). When we Love, we know God. We Live!

May those with ears to hear, understand. May we choose love and Live.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (All rights reserved.)

Opposing Energies

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A Sermon for 16 April 2017 – Easter Sunday

A reading from the gospel of Matthew 28:1-15.  Listen for God’s word to us.

“After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.  2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.  3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.  4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.  5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.  Come, see the place where he lay.  7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’  This is my message for you.”  8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.  9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!”  And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.  10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”  11 While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened.  12 After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’  14 If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”  15 So they took the money and did as they were directed.  And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.”

This is the word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God!

If you are here today, you likely have heard this story.  What happens when Sabbath rest is over and the followers of a brutally crucified man go to be with his body.  Few of us have experienced a week quite like theirs.  Those who loved this great teacher, those who followed and took hope from all the words he spoke, those who had seen miraculous things taking place in others and in their very own bodies.  Those who gathered at a festive meal just a few nights early though they did not understand it would be his last.  Those who had the courage to watch what would be done to him and those who scattered in fear as soon as the guard came to Gethsemane to take him away.  All of those whose hearts were crushed when the nails ripped through his flesh and at last the sword pierced his side showing all the world he was, in fact, dead.  A handful of those lovers of that One cannot bear it any longer.  The morning after Sabbath rest is over, they go to see the tomb.

Certainly you’ve heard the story before, though perhaps you’re not familiar with the details unique to the perspectives of the four different authors of the gospels who record the happenings as they had come to know it.  It’s the gospel of John, the latest of our recorded gospels that tells of Mary Magdalene heading off to the tomb alone.  Only to return with news something was amiss, which set off the apostles Peter and John in a foot race to see for themselves just what was going on.  It’s the gospels of Mark and Luke that have a group of women early the morning after Sabbath, taking spices to the tomb to properly tend the broken body of their beloved Lord.  Mark names the women from the start:  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome; though Luke leaves out that specific detail until the end of the story when the group is named as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women too.  It’s Mark in which the women wonder together who will roll away the stone for them – as if they hadn’t laid out their anointing plan all that very well.  All the gospels tell of some sort of angelic being – either one or two come to deliver an important message to the woman or women, depending on the version of the story.  In Mark the women flee from the tomb and find themselves too amazed to tell anyone.  In Luke, the apostles believe the women’s words to be an idle tale.  John and Matthew include an appearance of the Risen Christ come to meet Mary Magdalene as it’s told in the gospel of John, and Mary Magdalene and the other Mary too as it’s told in the gospel of Matthew.  And it’s Matthew alone that makes mention of an opposition party at the tomb.  The guards.  Stationed there at the pleading of the religious leaders; for they were worried the disciples might try something tricky like stealing away the body after three days in order to deceive everyone that he had been raised from the dead.  According to Matthew chapter 27, Pilate grants the wish.  Guards are stationed in the graveyard and the stone of the tomb is sealed extra tight so the living cannot get in and the dead cannot get out.

The gospel of Matthew alone is also the one that tries to explain what happens.  How the earth itself shook and a mighty angel of the LORD descended to roll back the stone with ease before hopping up on it in victory to sit in all God’s glory.  Supposedly it all took place right after Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrived at the tomb – before their very eyes and those of the guard’s as well.  Which leaves us wondering if it ever would have happened had not at least these two followers believed God yet could make the impossible possible.  Matthew doesn’t include a mention of women and spices and the duty of an early morning anointing of a beloved one’s dead body.  He simply states:  “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb” (Mt. 28:1).  Could it be they believed and had to see for themselves what their Lord had been telling them all along?  . . .  It’s the contrast lifted up by the gospel of Matthew.  As if in these characters of Mary Magdalene, Mary, and the guards of the religious leaders; we see the energies that war within us all.  The parts of us that hope and the parts of us that fear.  The parts of us that dry up like dead men, as the guards do in terror; and the parts of us that hold on to experience the absolutely amazing, as the women do when they nearly knock over the Risen Christ on their excited dash to deliver the incredible news.  It leaves us wondering what role we have to play in God’s resurrecting work.  Are we, as the gospel of Matthew seems to portray, necessary participants in the process?  So that the stirrings in us that something incredible yet can take place are exactly what is needed for new life to have a shot.

A prayer simply titled Common Prayer, could be the summary of the gospel of Matthew’s telling of resurrection possibility.  It goes like this:  “There are only two feelings.  Love and fear.  There are only two languages.  Love and fear.  There are only two activities.  Love and fear.  There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results.  Love and fear.  Love and fear.  Love and fear” (Common Prayer, by Leunig.  Quoted in books and speeches by Alan Jones).

According to the gospel of Matthew, there are two energies at the tomb that morning after Sabbath after fear had worked its mighty magic.  The earthquake, the flash of some mystical messenger, the site of an empty tomb.  Does it leave us shaking in fear?  For if this thing which defies human logic actually could be – this Life after death thing really something within the Divine’s reach – then what does it mean for us?  For our dying, even before our physical death; in order to truly Live.  . . .  And if this dying, even before our physical death; in order to truly Live is the Way as shown here in full in Christ; then . . . wow!  We indeed have absolutely nothing to fear.  . . .  With the women, we’re left to fall down in worship before this One.  To open wide our hearts in overflowing love; for the Way of the Living God.  For there are only two feelings.  Two motives.  Two activities.  Two results.  . . .  Because of Easter morning, which one will you choose?

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2017  (All rights reserved.)