Sermons from St. John's Episcopal Church:
Apr 28, 2024 |
Loving in Unloveable Times
| The Rev. Mary Beth Mills-CurranLoving in Unloveable Times
I’m trying to work through a question. I hope you’ll forgive me for bringing this jumble to you all without much of an answer. But I’m going to share it with you because, I think perhaps, some of you may be trying to work through it as well.
It’s a question of how we are bound together by the love of God, and what that means for my life. A question of how if LOVE is our participation in God’s life, am I supposed to live. A question of how, as 1st John says “those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” A question of how, as the reading we didn’t hear this morning shows, with the conversion of a man from far-away Ethiopia, the boundaries of this “brotherhood” extend FAR beyond our nuclear family. A question of how a man, in his last meal with his closest friends, knowing he’s going to his death the next day, tells them he is a vine - and they as branches must stay connected to him, and that through that there will be much fruit.
These readings all focus on relationships. They remind us of the ways we are bound to God and another. Of the ways we can strengthen those bonds, following God’s will. Of the ways our abiding presence with God and one another will bear forth the fruit of the spirit.
You see…. On Thursday night (three days ago) I was at Burgerology in Huntington - a place I like to go with friends. And a woman at the bar looked up at the TV, and seeing a crowd said something about campus protesters, which made it clear she was not in favor of them, nor did she deem them worthy of respect. I want to say she scoffed, but that’s probably me putting it on a bit hard. In any case, It turned out the crowd was actually just the NFL draft, so the conversation moved on quickly, but in that brief moment my heart jumped. I thought “can she just SAY that to a stranger? Does she just assume I agree with her, or does she not care?” I didn’t say anything at all.
I think back to the word of God… We love because he loved first.
On Saturday (eight days ago) I was in New Haven, spending the afternoon with my friend Noelle, who’d never been there before. I think many of you heard about my ventures out to “the all day singing.” As we walked around campus we saw the library, “old campus” where the freshmen live, and walked by the Beinecke, home to Yale’s extensive Rare books collection. As we passed by I saw the encampment of students outside the president’s office, and went to take a look. They had organized a library. There were maybe 20 tents, and some students were carrying over pieces of what looked like a hand-made marimba. It was larger than the 2017 encampment from the student labor organizers, which lasted 25 days, and included a hunger strike, but less well organized. Around the edges I saw jewish students well-dressed in the early evening for the passover holiday, sort of watching. I wondered what they were thinking.
I think back to the word of God… Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
When I was in graduate school at MIT (fifteen years ago now), in the political science program, one of my favorite traditions was celebrating the passover second seder with my friend andrew, the seder which is on the second Saturday of the ten-day holiday. We used the haggadah from his brooklyn heights temple, which included modern plagues like apartheid and climate change. I was one of the few non-jews in our cohort, but have experienced few religious rituals so moving. And even among that liberal crew, every seder ended with the saying “next year in Jerusalem!”
I think back to the word of God…. if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
In January 2006 (eighteen years ago) I was in the airport in London on the way to Israel when I learned from a heavily laden journalist that the Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon had suffered a stroke. We didn’t know it then, but he would not recover. Sharon, a centrist politician, had led Israel’s policy of unilateral disengagement from Gaza the year before, and had been expected to do the same in the West Bank. On that trip we saw the Holy sites, but also visited refugee camps and did a homestay with a Palestinian Christian family. I had previously NO idea what was going on. On that trip I decided to change my life because of the suffering I saw.
I think back to the word of God…. Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.
I’m sure most of ya’ll know I’m the sort of person inclined towards sympathy with campus protesters, and having spent time in the homes of Palistinians, and had every inch of my luggage searched three times on the way to the airport in Tel Aviv because I was in an East Jerusalem cab, I find Israel’s containment of Palestine very upsetting.
But as a priest, here in Cold Spring Harbor, I know plenty of you all come from different points of view. And as priests, our first job is to love our people. Truthfully, ya’ll are a pretty loveable bunch. I watch as you show up here again and again. I hear about your families. Your aging parents. Your confused kids. I hear about your health. I hear about your dreams. I hear about your goofy ideas for the cemetery. I listen to your mix-tape CDs in my car. I see you delivering meals and designing greeting cards. I watch you joke around with those you’ve known a long time. I see you bee-line for someone new to say hello. No you aren’t hard to love at all…. even those of you who don’t agree with me on immigration policy.
But I think what I am trying to say is that it feels like we are in a hard moment for love in the world. At times it can feel like the branches of the vine are being pulled further than they can stand. At times it can feel like one side or another lacks even basic humanity, or doesn’t see ours.
At times, it’s a scary place.
But I think back to the word of God… Perfect love casts out fear….
I know I’m not there yet. But my hope is that together we can work to get one step closer.
Sometimes this parable or the vine, the branches and the pruning is used to say some PEOPLE are bad branches, pruned and thrown into the fire. But that misses the part where Jesus says it is the branches which bear fruit that are pruned to bear more fruit.
The good news of God in Jesus is that God loved US FIRST - thus giving us our first fruit.
We are all branches of the vine, and as such can stand some occasional pruning. I can’t say where you need pruning anymore than you can say for me.
But, I do know this… emboldened by God’s love, I pray that you, and I, may have the courage to love fiercely in God’s name, and the wisdom to let go of anything that stands in the way of that Love, keeping us from greater fruit.