Sermon for April 6th

Sermon for April 6th

What’s the most extravagant act of love that you have either witnessed or offered to another human being? This would be an act of love that was offered with no strings attached and no sense that it should ever be returned. Those moments are often few and far between. But when they happen, they are startling and sometimes hard to wrap our minds around.

I think we can’t perceive these actions because that isn’t how the world works. Nothing comes from nothing, as the song from the Sound of Music reminds us. So, when a gift is given, we need to reciprocate or somehow, we are in the wrong. There is no such thing as a free gift or un-reciprocated love. Thus, we can’t necessarily read Mary’s story and not feel a certain level of discomfort. What is Mary hoping to accomplish? Why would she give such a beautiful gift? Was it to say thank you for the life of her brother, whom Jesus had raised from the dead earlier in John? Or was it something else?

I often think of a little child and how they choose to express love. They are open with their smiles, and they offer hugs and kisses not because they want something, but because they want to show their love to the people they care about. A child’s hug is perhaps the best thing in the world. There is nothing but love behind it. No ulterior motivation. No currying favor. They just want to show their love, and it makes those moments of affection so special.

Its too bad that we must lose that. Its too bad that as we grow, our acts of love are always shadowed by motivation and secondary intent. Its too bad that when a teenager chooses to show love, it is often followed with the statement “What do you want?” It is too bad that in married relationships we offer our love to the other with the expectation that is should be reciprocated in exactly the type and manner we want from the other person. If I’m a hugger by nature, and I express my love in such a way, then others should do the same. But we all have our own ways of showing love. And in the end, if I offer hugs, perhaps it shouldn’t matter whether they are ever reciprocated. Perhaps, in the end, what matters, is that we offer our care and affection. It is not meant to be transactional. It is meant to be a gift. Our love, offered to our partner, to our family, to our community, and to the world. It is done not so it may be returned, but because that is who we are created to be.

This doesn’t make sense to us, but that is God’s economics. It is not transactional, it is about giving everything that we are, just as Mary did. Her act was not a thank you. It was an act of absolute love, shared with the one that she loved beyond all mortal measure. There was no hope that it would make her more loved by Christ. It was simply shared, from the bottom of her heart, from the depths of her soul.

Counter that with Judas, who made such a noise about the extravagance of the gift yet did nothing for the sake of love. Everything he did was done on a transactional level. Nothing comes from nothing. Instead of love, his heart was filled with greed and desire. He couldn’t understand what this was all about. And it led to his undoing.

To follow Christ challenges our very perception of how the world works. In God’s economics, nothing is measured on how much it accomplishes or how “good” something is. We are measured through God’s eyes and those are eyes of love. It turns everything upside down. It changes how we encounter the world and what our place in the world is.

I have used this prayer before, but my favorite prayer was written by St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis was a man of unique vision, who understood the life God would have for each of us in a very real way. He lived with the poor. He let go of earthly position. He saw the created world as the gift it was and lived accordingly. His most famous prayer speaks of this very poignantly.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

St. Francis understood the economics of God’s divine love. Mary, sister to Lazarus, also understood it. Mary, Jesus’ mother did too. What would happen if all of us here and everyone scattered throughout the world, followed Christ as St. Francis did, or Mary, or Mother Mary? Those individuals are some of the people who have, through their actions, changed the world. Their story lives on, centuries later and still inspire us to live a life in keeping with where God would lead us. Every time some one like that stood up, the world grew better, grew lighter. What would happen if we could all stand up, to be counted amongst those who would give of themselves for the sake of the selfless, world changing love of God?

Perhaps, if that did happen, we could truly see God’s kingdom on earth. We could see the kind of peace that we pray for every Sunday and likely in our own private devotions. We could see a society where no one is left behind and we value each person as God’s own beloved.

We could make this world what it could be, a home for all, a gift from God, to be honored, cherished, and protected.

We may think that this a pipe dream. We may think this is something that can only be accomplished with Christ’s return. And perhaps that is the case. But this is not a pipe dream. It is who we are meant to be. It is what the world was meant to be. It is in the fabric of our very being. We dream of love and what the world would be like if people lived into that love. Our movies, our literature, our art, is laden with these images. We dream of a world where love will ascend and be triumphant. We long for it and that longing is like an ache in our very soul. We want this. We want to be like Mary and pour out our love, because that is the act our very souls cry out to do. We want to be brave like Mary, Jesus’ mother and say yes to God, no matter where God calls us to go. We want to trust God like St. Francis and live our lives knowing God in all we do.

God’s way, God’s economics, is not a pipe dream. It is a true dream, a dream of what is real and of which we have only occasionally glimpsed. The dream is real. So may we hold fast and learn, as Mary did, to be who we are and to live into that without shame. May we be keepers of that dream until that dream becomes reality.

Amen