 Rev. Lisa McIlvenna |
'Tis
a Gift to Remember
Sermon:
Scripture: |
|
In
this week’s Steeple Notes article, I wrote about how, as a
child, Memorial weekend was traditionally celebrated by
playing and marching in the band at the cemeteries near our
home. At each cemetery, we played patriotic songs and heard
various speakers tell once again heroic stories of men who
gave their lives for our freedom. No matter how many times I
experienced it, always the echoing and haunting sound of the
lone bugle player playing taps and the seven gun salute would
bring a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. As
the years have gone by, I must admit that I have not only
ceased going to the cemetery on Memorial Day, but I have
become less and less enamored with the patriotic songs, waving
flags, red, white and blue colored decorations and the heroic
words of military leadership. In fact, if the truth was told,
my own life experience has led me to the place where I abhor
violence of any kind and do not believe in war. I also find
myself disagreeing with the basic philosophy, teachings and
what I believe to be abusive disciplinary regime that happens
in many military camps. Don’t
misunderstand me. I am proud to be an American and appreciate
and value the freedoms we have as Americans. But I am also
often embarrassed, ashamed and regretful of how too frequently
my privileges and freedoms seem to be fought for and won at
the cost of other’s freedom, dignity, basic rights and needs
or lives, and how the pride I share as an American is too
often, and perhaps accurately, perceived as ethnocentric
prejudice and greed. What
I didn’t mention in the Steeple Notes article is that this
weekend also marks the anniversary of my brother’s
unexpected death of a brain aneurysm three years ago. Like
many of you who find yourselves smiling and/or shedding a tear
as your mind reflects back through the memories of time spent
with a deceased family member or close friend, this weekend
invites me to a time of remembering the life I shared with my
deceased brother. While
I loved my brother very much and we shared an emotional bond
that grew stronger with age, much of our childhood was spent
with the love/hate relationship that often happens between
siblings. It started the day that I learned that I had a new
baby brother. I was angry with my mother because the baby was
a boy and not a girl, and told her not to bring the baby home. Five years younger than I, I often felt “put out” because
I was being asked by my mother to “watch my little
brother.” When I wasn’t asked to look after him, still he
tagged along after me and tried to involve himself in all of
my, and my older brother’s, activities. By
no means was Randy, my younger brother, an easy child. Today
he probably would be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD and put on
medication. Not only was he a constant challenge for my
parents, but for anyone who he perceived as an authority
figure. He was a challenge for his teachers, his principals
and anyone he didn’t agree with at the moment. He was very
bright, but if the subject didn’t interest him or offer any
benefit for him, he couldn’t be bothered. In
addition, there was the world’s pace and then there was
Randy’s pace. Therefore, while he scored high on academic
achievement tests, his grades were always mediocre to poor. It
took him five and a half years to complete college. After
completion of college, Randy received a job with a promising
future. Yet, given the opportunity of moving up the ladder, he
and his wife opted instead to build a home in North Dakota. Or
at least start to build a home. When he died, they had lived
in it five years and it still wasn’t finished. In
North Dakota, Randy settled on a low-paying job teaching in a
vocational high school on an Indian reservation. It was a
school where the students had little motivation and were there
simply because the government paid for it. Statistics showed
that the vast majority of the students would return to the
reservation and to a life of alcoholism, spousal abuse and
minimal or no employment. Ah, enough of memory lane. What
does this have to do with today’s Gospel reading? In this
passage from John, we find Jesus gathered with his disciples
in the Upper Room. It was on the night of his arrest and these
verses are part of his longer farewell speech as he attempts
to prepare his disciples for his coming death.
Like many who are facing death, Jesus is reviewing his
life: what he has done, who he has been, what his life has
been about. He is also wondering what words of love,
encouragement and hope he wants to offer to those he is saying
goodbye to. In doing this, he not only models a healthy way to
face death, but he gives both his disciples and us a special
gift: a gift worth remembering! If
Jesus had not offered this discourse and we were left to make
sense of Jesus’ life or to write his epitaph, we might be as
mistaken as the people of his day who both mockingly and
half-heartedly inscribed on his epitaph, “King of the
Jews.” We might be inclined to engrave the words “Wonder
Man,” “Great Healer” or “The Miracle Worker” after
focusing on the great works that he did, such as healing the
deaf, the blind, the lepers, and the demon-possessed. Also how
he multiplied the loaves and fish, walked on the water, turned
water into wine, raised Lazarus and the young girl from the
dead, or how he, himself, came back to life.
In
this passage, Jesus teaches what his life was really about and
what he most wanted to give to others: LOVE. Furthermore, the
real honor and value of his life comes from our savoring that
love and sharing it with others.
Love…
What is love? Today we say that we love everything from a
member of the opposite sex that we are attracted to, to fried
chicken. We love our dog, our wife, our children, chocolate
and pickles. To some people, “love” is nothing but sexual
desire. For others, it is the lump you get in your throat or
the knot you get in your stomach when you are in the presence
of a special girl or boy. Some
parents are too strict or controlling because they “love”
their children and want them to speak and behave correctly.
Others are too permissive because they “love” their
children and can’t bear to correct them. Some marriages fall
apart because they are founded on a selfish sentiment called
“love.” Other marriages last a lifetime because their love
is an unselfish balance of give and take, expressed in
mutuality. What
makes the word “love” so tricky? It is because in the
English language, we love in so many different contexts. And
unless we consider the context to see what sort of love we are
talking about, it is not clear. In
the New Testament Greek, there are four different words for
love. The first kind of love is storgé. Storgé is the kind
of love that you might have in families. It is the love
between parents, and brothers and/or sisters. The
second kind of love is philos. Philos is the kind of love that
speaks of affection for another person. It is the love that
you might find with a close friend and/or someone in your
social group. The
third type of love is eros. Eros is the kind of love that is
passionate love and is often conveyed in sexual terms. It is
the love that you might find with a spouse, boyfriend or
girlfriend. The
fourth type of love is agape. Agape is the kind of love that
is spoken about in today’s scripture. It is a practical
love. It is not the kind of love that leads you to do
something nice because you have a warm, fuzzy feeling about
the person. It is the love that allows you to be loving, even
though the person is unlovable. It suggests a certain
forgetfulness and sacrifice as you act toward another’s highest good or
interest. It is this kind of love that Jesus speaks of in his
scriptures. Not only does he express it as his greatest desire
for us and prescribe it as the only way to know joy in our
life, he also spends several verses helping us understand what
it is. Take
a moment to look at what he says. First, agape love is
sacrificial. A person can have no greater love than to “lay
down his life…” We may never be asked to physically die
for someone, but agape love is about offering ourselves, our
lives, our very being to others.
It’s about being vulnerable, open and honest with our
minds and hearts. The
story is told of an old African woman who had spent 70 years
as a servant to a southern belle, from her childhood into old
age. The mistress died and a neighbor came to offer comfort to
the black servant. She said to her, “I am so sorry to hear
of Aunt Lucy’s death. You must miss her greatly. I know that
you were dear, dear friends.” The maid said, “No, not
friends.” The neighbor said, “I know that you were. I saw
you laughing and talking together many times.” “Yes
‘m,” said the servant, “That’s so. We have laughed
together and we have talked together, but we were just
acquaintances. You see, Miss Ruth, we ain’t never shed no
tears. Folks have to cry together before they is friends.” While
it may not be necessary to cry with every person we love,
agape does suggest giving of oneself in a relationship, enough
to know what brings tears to the other person’s eyes. It
calls for compassion and empathy, which is different than
pity. When we experience pity, we feel sorry for. When we
experience empathy, we suffer with. And then we allow
ourselves to be close enough to put ourselves in their shoes
and wonder what they might feel and think. That is the kind of
love that is agape love. It suggests a willingness to be
inconvenienced in order to demonstrate our love. It won’t
always fit in our schedule or our routine. Sometimes it asks
us to be flexible and to set aside our personal desires, petty
differences, or let go of our own agendas.
That is the first point about agape love. Jesus
raises a second point about agape love. It is unconditional.
It is not the kind of care or concern that we extend because
of fear. Nor is it giving without seeking healthy boundaries,
so that people are encouraged to help themselves. Nor does it
mean to give of ourselves and expect something in return.
Unconditional love is about being all-embracing and
all-inclusive. It is about loving, even though others seem to
be unlovable or are different. It is about letting others be
who they are and acknowledging their “otherness” in its
integrity, without meaning to control, dominate, manipulate or
change. It suggests openness, respect and reciprocity, rather
than a master/servant hierarchy. On
Art Linkletter’s version of a TV show Kids Say the
Darnedest Things, he interviewed a six or seven year old
girl and asked, “What does love look like?” The girl
answered, “It is when I allow Johnny to get in front of me
at the water fountain.” Art smiled and said, “Well, you
must love Johnny very much.” The girl responded, “No, I
don’t even like him.” Perhaps the little girl knows what
agape love is. It is when we act in the best interest of
another person, even when we don’t like them or what they
do. How
do we do that? That brings us to the third point Jesus makes
about agape love. Agape love is a gift that we are able to
give only inasmuch as we allow ourselves to receive it.
Jesus’ disciples could be stubborn, quarrelsome, selfish,
ambitious and often presumptuous men. They insulted, ignored
and disobeyed him at times. He did not automatically always
feel love for them. He
was able to love them only because he knew and felt that God
loved him. Jesus says that is the key to love. It doesn’t
come from our willpower or our determined spirit, but it flows
from a heart that has been loved. When we struggle to show
kindness to someone who irritates us, or when we struggle to
forgive someone who has hurt us, our healing and ability to do
so lies in our renewing our memory of Christ’s love for us.
In solitude, we can share our feelings with God and be healed
of them and be reminded of how God cares for us, supports us,
forgives and encourages us, even in our humanness. It is when
we abide in that sort of love that we come to recognize
God’s Spirit within ourselves and within every human being.
It is when we recognize this Spirit in ourselves and others
that we can see beyond the differences, ugliness and hurt, and
not only recognize the gift of Christ in each person, but
allow ourselves to use that gift to bring healing and meaning
to our own lives and to experience true joy and wholeness. Intentionally,
I started this sermon sharing less than positive thoughts and
feelings about both my brother and the spirit of American
patriotism. Not to suggest that I am ungrateful for either my
brother or the soldiers that gave their lives, but rather to
illustrate how my experience of agape love with each has
brought healing, meaning and joy to my life. It is with my own
experience of God’s love in my life, despite all my
shortcomings and quirks, from my experience of finding the
Spirit of Christ within, that I am able to find it in my
brother and in the soldiers who gave their lives for our
freedom. In
the case of my brother, I had the opportunity to visit the
school where he worked when I went out west for his funeral,
and to see the latest project he worked on with his students.
He was supposed to teach them basic math skills. What I saw
was a nearly finished, beautifully constructed house.
Recognizing that part of the lack of motivation with his
students was due to the fact that the students had to sit,
read books and learn things that they would never use once
they returned to the Indian reservation, Randy found that he
could teach them math skills while teaching them a useful,
practical and employable skill: building construction.
As
one who irritatingly gave so many trouble, and who always
marched to the beat of a different drummer, Randy’s
compassion and love, his ability to see the Christ in his
students, empowered him to think and teach “outside of the
box.” Today, I savor Randy’s gift of compassion and I
choose to honor it and to allow myself to be challenged, to
think and act in ways that are “outside of the box.” Likewise,
while I may disagree with war and much of today’s military
strategy, hearing and reading the stories of men and women who
unselfishly gave of themselves and their lives for others,
helps me to see the Christ in each. And not only do I savor
their agape love, but the heart-prints that they leave in my
life leaves me with the challenge to ask: What am I willing to
die for? For what cause will I leave my husband and children
to face months or years of hardship, danger or possibly death? Perhaps it
is not enough for me to say that I am opposed to war,
injustice, poverty, economic or racial inequality, but rather
I need to ask the question: What am I willing to risk to
prevent it or change it? Today
is the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and each one of us is
left with our own reflections as we remember various people
who have passed from our lives. In your reflections, may you
wonder: Am I able to recognize and savor the gift of Christ in
each person’s life? Does recognizing that gift help to give
meaning and direction to my life? How will I pass the gift on
to others? And what about my own life? Does it know the Christ within? Is the gift that I offer to others agape love? ‘Tis a gift to remember.
|