Month: June 2012

A Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

Year B –  May 27, 2012

David Hathaway Knight, Priest Associate

Come, Holy Spirit, come: come as the fire and burn; come as the wind and cleanse; convict, convert, consecrate, until we are wholly yours through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

So writes Paul in his letter to the church gathered in Rome.

Today, the Church throughout the world gathers to  celebrate the third major feast day of the year, a day equal in significance to Christmas and Easter, yet this Feast of Pentecost seems not to have the same importance in our minds as does Christmas or Easter.  There are no secular holiday traditions to accompany it so it passes through our church year all but unnoticed.   And when it comes on a Memorial Day weekend such as this, people seem to stay away in droves, yet you are here and for that God rejoices!

 So today, we gather to celebrate this third major feast day as it marks the birth of the Church.  On that day there came from heaven, like the rush of a mighty wind, the Spirit of God.  That Spirit was to empower the disciples and the devout Jews from every nation who on that day were assembled inJerusalem.  The account in the Acts of the Apostles tells of how people began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability.  This was to fulfill not only the commandment but also Jesus’ promise that the disciples would receive power when the Holy Spirit would light upon them.  On that day of Pentecost that the Church began to take shape.  On that day, the hands and the feet and the voices of those who were empowered would go forth into the world to bring the hope of the Gospel and the world would never be the same again.  It was a day long promised. Ancient promises such as that of the prophet Ezekiel that we heard a few moments would come to life. Listen again to these words of the prophet Ezekiel that Al Rider has just read to us this morning:

 “Then (the Lord) said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel.  They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”  Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the LORD God: I am going to open their graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.  And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.  I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.’ says the Lord.”

 The Gospel today proclaims that it is through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit that the Church receives power to witness to the presence of God.  The Gospel reminds us of what Jesus promised to his disciples at Easter, that he will remain alive in the community and that he would send the Spirit of hope so that whatever lies deepest in the human soul will find God in the midst of all that life brings.  On that Day of Pentecost, the Spirit commissioned the Church to continue the work of Christ in the world.  The Spirit still speaks through the church to this day and for all time. That Spirit speaks  to us here at St. Mary’s. As we prayed in the Collect for this Feast of Pentecost, “O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore rejoice in his holy comfort.”

 I share with you a wonderful image that our new bishop suffragan bishop-elect, Susan Goff, painted for us in her Ascension Day homily at the chapel at Roslyn just the other evening.  She was talking about the feet of Jesus. She described Jesus’ feet as we might have seen them beginning with his infancy, tiny little feet with those small toes that would grow as he became a toddler, then as a young child playing with other children.  (It was fun using these images with our St. Mary’s School children last Thursday at the graduation service. One little boy said that they didn’t have playgrounds when Jesus was little. We agreed that while he did play with his school mates, the playground would have been different and none of the children in his time had those shoes with lights that twinkled as they ran!). Then, Jesus’ feet would be the feet of one who learned his father’s trade, then the feet to carry him on his journey through his ministry, feet that would be pierced and nailed to the cross by those who would come to reject him and to crucify him.  Then, finally, the soles of his feet would be all that was visible to his followers as he ascended into heaven, leaving the small gathering so that he could then be with us all for the ages to come.  After hearing how she described Jesus’ feet, I shall never think of his feet, or anyone else’s feet, for that matter in the same way again.  It is our feet that carry us through life. On the Day of Pentecost, the Church would receive power to become Jesus’ feet as it would carry the message of the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.  You and I, through our baptism, become his feet as well.  It is our mission to be bearers of hope in a world that desperately cries out to have hope.

 We wonder sometimes what the Spirit is doing today as we observe what is going on around us in our nation and in the world. It is one thing to hear about that first day at Pentecost. But what about today? We, like the people of whomSt. Paulspeaks in today’s epistle, often groan inwardly. We look for the hope that that is promised, yet that hope so often is illusive.  Our prayers at times are inarticulate under the weight of our concerns. The promise, however, is that even in those difficult times when hope seems so illusive, it is the Spirit that will come to us to carry our burdens with us.

 “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

 If, for example, we are with someone in despair who is looking for hope, we discover that it is no comfort to them for us to deny their present suffering by trying to focus only on the hope that is eventually to come. For that person, it is not the future but rather the present that calls for our most careful listening.  You and I do not pass over the present sufferings, rather we must pass through the present sufferings. It is the Spirit of God that accompanies us through that journey. Many years ago, for example, there was a woman in a parish in which I was serving whose husband had died. Initially for her, any hope for the future seemed unimaginable.  The first year for her was rough.  The second year wasn’t much better, if any better at all, in fact it was perhaps even worse than the first.  I vividly remember, however, what she told me one day a couple of years later. She said, “I realize now I cannot rush the process of grieving. I must head into it because I can’t get around it.”  By her being attentive to her present suffering she was able to face the future. She would discover that hope would come.

It is the presence of the Holy Spirit ultimately that gives you and me patience. It is the Spirit ultimately that gives us hope. It is the Holy Spirit that empowers the Church to be present with its people in the midst of all our groaning as each of us heads into all of what life brings as yet we look forward to the hope that is yet to come. And God says to us, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.” The day does come when you and I can rejoice in his holy comfort.

 “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

 The gospel speaks to a world that is groaning on many fronts. It is the Holy Spirit that empowers the church today as it did on that Day of Pentecost, to carryout the mission of bringing hope to a creation yet in the midst of present suffering for it ever will be our prayer:

 To the members of Christ’s Body, to the branches of the Vine,
to the Church in faith assembled, to her midst as gift and sign:
come, Holy Spirit, come.

With the healing of division, with the ceaseless voice of prayer,
With the power to love and witness, with the peace beyond compare: come,  Holy Spirit, come.                    Amen.

A Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Year B – 3 June 2012

John Edward Miller, Rector

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”

Then I heard the voice of the LORD saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

– Isaiah 6:1-8

___________________

The Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 In the sixth chapter of Isaiah’s book, the prophet hangs out his shingle for all of Jerusalem to see. What we read there today is what the people of Judah heard in the eight century before Christ. It is his call vision, the mysterious moment when God commissioned him to serve as a prophet. The story contains his credentials. Isaiah’s awesome encounter with the LORD and his winged seraphim is the literary equivalent of a professional certificate. It’s like an official license authorizing him to speak for God.

On the basis of his call, Isaiah would become the LORD’s messenger. Henceforth he would say, “thus says the LORD,” and the people would listen. They knew that he was God’s official “mouthpiece.” It was an unpopular, but necessary job, because he had to say hard things to people who were out of line and at odds with God’s purposes. Isaiah would have to depend upon God’s strength to remain true to his task when he was tempted to quit. But he did the work; he was faithful to the LORD who called him.

In the mystical vision, Isaiah was bowled over by the holiness of God. He actually thought he was a goner, because he had seen the brightness of God’s glory. “Woe is me!” he cried. “My lips are unclean, and the lips of my people are unclean.” In other words, he realized that he was not worthy to stand before God or to speak for him. Any pretense, any trace of hubris was erased. By the grace of God, Isaiah’s sin was removed, and he was readied to prophesy. Then he heard the LORD call out, “Whom shall I send; and who will go for us?” And Isaiah heard a still, small voice within his soul reply, saying, “Here am I; send me.”

Isaiah stepped forward, and accepted his vocation. His voluntary response turned an ecstatic vision into a strategic plan. It activated his prophetic ministry. Like many before him, and the many who would step forward after him, Isaiah was sent by God to serve.

In Latin, the verb “to send” is mitto, mittere, missi, missus. That’s where we get the word, “missile” (the kind with the warhead), and “emissary,” and “dismissal,” and, of course, the word, “missionary.” All of these English terms are rooted in that old Latin action word. Literally then, Isaiah, the prophet whom God sent, was also Isaiah the missionary.

That may sound odd to you, but I assure you that was Isaiah’s identity. And his dual role was not unique. Remember the twelve disciples of Jesus? They are also known as the twelve apostles. The latter title fits their job description after the Day of Pentecost, when God’s Spirit activated their ministries of evangelism. The disciples got their marching orders that day in Jerusalem, and they went out as apostles. In New Testament Greek the verb “to send” is apostellein. That’s the origin of “apostolic” – a key term for the nature and essence of the Church.  The scriptures tell us that the original followers heard the great commission of Jesus, and they responded by going into all the world to preach the Gospel. In other words, they too were “sent.”

So it’s six of one and a half dozen of another. To be an apostle is to be a missionary. Both are sent to serve. Every ministry involves being sent – to a person, a community, a mission field. The church is eternally being sent (out). At the end of every Eucharist, there is a dismissal – “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” In the old Roman liturgy, which uses the Latin language, that same dismissal was, “Ite, missa est,” which means, “Go, [you are] sent.” Missa est. That is the origin of the word, “mass.” It’s an expression describing the path outward to sacred service in the name of Christ. It aptly identifies who we are. In fact, I know of a church that has a sign posted on the lintel of the nave’s exit door. It says, “You are now entering the mission field.”

On Easter weekend in 1878, Francis McNeese Whittle, the fifth Bishop of Virginia, consecrated what we now call Little St. Mary’s. The carpenter Gothic building and our forebears were dedicated and launched as a mission to the farmers and coal miners of Eastern Goochland County. Bishop Whittle noted in the diocesan journal that, “this is a very neat and pretty building, in a destitute neighborhood where our Church is hardly known at all, and has been erected and paid for entirely through the persevering and untiring efforts of a lady of the congregation. May God honor her who has thus honored him!”[1]

We’ve grown considerably from those simple beginnings. After becoming a self-sustaining (financially, that is) parish with its own rector in 1962, we expanded in 1992 and 2002, respectively, adding new buildings and more than doubling the size of our churchyard. Our population has grown from 100 in 1962 to over 2000 in 2012. Yes, we’re bigger; we’re better equipped, and financially sound. In a sense we’ve grown from adolescence into full adulthood in the last 50 years. But we remain a mission. Being sent – sent out to do what God calls us to do, namely to extend the love of God to our neighbors, is essential to our life as a Church of Jesus Christ.

Just as God’s nature is self-disclosive and outreaching, offering life and light to every corner of creation, we are charged to go forth and do likewise. You might even say that the doctrine of the Trinity is a description of a God whose being overflows with love for the world. The Creator’s benevolence fashioned a cosmos out of chaos; the Redeemer’s compassion offers us a clear picture of the lengths to which God will go to love us; and the Spirit’s inviting energy inspires us to accept the mission of seeking and serving Christ in all persons.

That is to say, to be a follower of Jesus Christ is to be outward bound, on the move. Discipleship is dynamic, enthusiastic, exploratory, and sharing. To be static, to rest on one’s laurels, or to retreat into the past, is to lose our reason for being, to suffer an identity crisis of tragic proportions.

During the parish meetings conducted by our building committee in 1989-90, much of the discussion was about our parish identity. Some were focused on the historic St. Mary’s. They were worried that changing those sacred structures would cause us to lose our identity. Others were certain that the core of St. Mary’s character was all about being small and simple. Making the church larger and more complex would ruin something that we cherish, they said. Still others argued that we could keep things the way they were since 1878 by recommending that all newcomers visit nearby All Saints Church, which was already large and perhaps had empty pews to fill.

At one critical juncture in the discussion, Phebe Hoff, a long-time, highly engaged member of St. Mary’s, looked up from her knitting when it appeared that the do-nothing option might be adopted. Phebe stood, and the people of the church listened. In her lovely English accent, she calmly, but firmly said what needed to be said. Phebe stated the case for expansion and growth, saying these words: “Too many of us feel that St. Mary’s Church is simply about familiarity and comfort. This mission was built to serve the Lord and the Lord’s people. That’s who we still are. So let’s take a risk, and grow and develop, and not just rest in our warm coziness.”

And so, the campaign to create New St. Mary’s commenced. The church was built by people who believe in being sent into the mission field, spreading the word of love to a world aching for renewal. One hundred sixty families and individuals, pledging an average of $10,000 paid over five years, gave the go signal to the building committee and our vestry. Bishop Lee celebrated the consecration of the new buildings in October 1992 – twenty years ago this fall. In his sermon, Bishop Lee challenged us to be a community that is sent to do what God would have us do. He said:

 “Jesus is not satisfied with a people who are silent, inert, like the ancient stones of Jerusalem. He calls us into a living, growing relationship with him and with one another. The images of the people he calls are organic and not static; living vines, a body with all parts essential for the good of the whole, growing, building up in love.

 “We gather today in this splendid new building because of who we are, and who God is. We gather in a spirit of reverence and humility more than in a spirit of triumphant accomplishment. This building is an instrument and no more. It is holy, not because we set it apart today, but because of the holiness of Christ who brings us together, who summons us together as his family, as his people. . . .

 “[When he consecrated Little St. Mary’s in 1878] Bishop Whittle described this area as ‘a destitute area where our Church is hardly known at all.’ Now another bishop comes to a community where there are destitute people, some still hidden in their material poverty, even more in their spiritual poverty, and like Bishop Whittle, I pray that God may honor those who have honored him with the new St. Mary’s Church as people reach out from the place with the immeasurable riches of Christ.

 My prayer for St. Mary’s Church is that this may always be a center of a holy people, respectful of one another, faithful in praise and prayer, in word and sacrament, united with your brother and sister Christians in this diocese and in the diverse church, reaching out always with the wide open arms of Christ, and most of all most of all built on that rock that is Christ himself, and growing together in him.”[2]    

 Thanks to God’s grace, and to your responsiveness to God’s call, we are living into Bishop Lee’s prayer for this church. We are outward bound; we are on the move; and we are empowered by the Spirit.

But we cannot be content to rest, and let our momentum carry us along. Sooner or later momentum abates, and forward movement diminishes. So our continued growth and development will depend on our attentiveness to God’s call, our discernment of God’s direction, and our willingness to act in accordance with God’s will. And it will take character to remain on track.

 William Willimon, a noted preacher and bishop in the United Methodist Church in Alabama, has been called “a peculiar prophet.” He has been a spokesman for God throughout his ministry, which has famously included his chaplaincy to the students and faculty of Duke University. In all of these roles, he has been faithful, attuned to God’s call, and an articulate messenger of the Word. Now, as he prepares to retire as bishop, and to return to Duke Divinity School as a teacher, Willimon is reflecting on his vocation. An interviewer for The Christian Century recently asked him, “As you leave the episcopacy after eight years, what do you consider your greatest achievement?” Bishop Willimon thought for a moment and gave this answer: “Perseverance. That’s a cardinal virtue for any form of ministry, including the episcopacy – the willingness to serve where one is sent with the conviction that God is present, working through your ministry to accomplish God’s purposes, even when one doesn’t get observable results.”[3]

Perseverance – remaining steadfast in a ministry of service, is a character trait of a people who know that they are sent out with a purpose. It means abiding in God’s love, and I can’t envision a better place to be. Amen.

A Sermon for the 6th Sunday of Easter

Year B – 13 May 2012

Eleanor Lee Wellford, Associate Rector

Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you 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. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”  (John 15:9-17)

  _________

  In something called a free-association test, a person is asked to say the first thing that comes to mind in response to a word, concept, or image.  So, in the spirit of free association, what immediately comes to mind when I say the word “love”? 

Is it a specific memory or perhaps a picture or image?  Maybe it’s a poem or song about love such as “All you need is love.”  Maybe because of what today is, a picture of Mom comes to mind (or not!)  Or better yet, maybe it’s something David said in his sermon last week such as “God is love.”   For me, pictures of my children as babies pop into my mind just as I’m sure there is no greater love than what Clara and Kevin Lang feel right now for their baby son “Bo”.                                          

The word “love” is complicated by the fact that it is so misused.  We humans are famous for doing that to some of our best words.   And apparently there are organizations that track such misuse. 

One such organization is Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michiganwhich publishes each year its “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.” In 2011, its 37^th  year of compiling such a list, the word that topped it was the word “amazing”.  It has apparently finally replaced “awesome” as the most annoying misuse of a word.

  The word “love” it seems, is used just as broadly as the word “amazing” in that the list of words that we connect to love is endless.  We can love just about anything – a color, a car, the beach, the mountains, clothes, jewelry – which dilutes and distorts its meaning when we want to use it in reference to and in reverence of a person.  

It’s interesting to me that the Greeks got around the complications of this word by breaking it down into three separate categories.  One word for love meant friendship; another meant romantic love, while still another, agape, the word used in this morning’s Gospel reading from John, meant divine love which one commentary said is “what God has by nature and in which we participate by grace”(Feasting on the Word pg 498 “Theological Perspective”).  

It’s the love that doesn’t try to possess or dominate the other and is free from self-interest.  It’s the gold standard or maybe the platinum standard of love. 

John used the noun version of this type of love 7 times throughout his gospel while he used the verb version 39 times.  It makes me wonder if John who was writing about Jesus  was more interested in the actions that flow from this type of love – the doing of love – rather than the idea of it.

Agape love is a selfless giving of ourselves – almost an emptying – which is at odds with our nature to want to receive or be filled up, instead.  I do believe we humans are very capable of selfless acts – just not most of the time.  Jesus was capable of selfless acts – all the time – and we have a written history of all the many times and ways he acted out of love.  He was completely secure in his Father’s love for him and it was as real as life itself, yet at the same time, it cost him his life.        

The verses that we heard this morning from John’s gospel are all about love and are a continuation of the vine/branch analogy that we heard in his gospel last week.  He uses this analogy to explain how we are connected to our Creator.  Love is the glue that holds that relationship together.  Because God loves Jesus, Jesus loves us.  So, when we abide in his love, we also abide in God’s love, making our joy complete.  (Lectionary Homiletics, Volume XX, Number 3, “Pastoral Implications” pg 54).      

Jesus said all of this to his disciples in a farewell discourse which they didn’t understand because they didn’t know that Jesus was about to lay down his life for them purely out of love.  They didn’t yet understand how his death could possibly be a source of joy for them.             

Theologian Paul Tillich observes that, in general, “Christians are poor examples of embodied joy.”  He wonders if that’s due “to the fact that we are Christians, or to the fact that we are not sufficiently Christian.”  He points out that many Christians, even the most devout, are surrounded by an air of heaviness which may have something to do with not knowing what real joy is or with the guilt that we feel when we are joyous (The New Being New York/London Scribner’s Sons, 1955) as if we don’t deserve it when there is so much suffering in the world. 

So, perhaps “joy” is as misunderstood a word as “love” is and when Jesus talks about both love and joy in the same sentence, what are we to take away from that? 

I think what we can take away is that agape love, the love that brings us joy, is much like grace, in that it’s not something we can seek out.  Rather, it comes as a gift in seeking us out in the context of giving unselfishly of ourselves. 

None of it happens apart from God because as we heard Jesus say in John’s gospel: “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:4-5).  “You did not choose me but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” (John 15:16). 

What we do for others may simply start out as random acts but they will eventually lead to intentional acts of kindness.  And according to Tillich, the awareness of how our true being is fulfilled by those acts is what causes us joy.

Just a few weeks ago I saw a rerun of a 2008 movie that expresses this so clearly.  It’s called “Gran Torino” and stars Clint Eastwood as an aging, newly widowed Korean war veteran named Walt Kowalski, whose anger, prejudice and bitterness are given new life when an Asian family moves into his neighborhood, right next door to him.  It consists of two teenagers and their mother and grandmother.

When the teenage boy is bullied by street gangs into trying to steal Walt’s prized possession – his 1972 mint condition Ford Gran Torino Sport – Walt feels even more contempt for his new neighbors than when they first moved in.  And to make matters worse, the Asian family treats Walt with great respect and deference which just increases his irritation. 

  Despite Walt’s repeated and heated requests to leave him alone, the boy, at the insistence of his family, begins hanging out at Walt’s house and willing to do whatever it takes to make up for having tried to steal Walt’s car.  Finally Walt begrudgingly begins to let the boy help him out with some odd jobs around his house and slowly, very slowly, and in spite of himself, he begins to take an interest in the boy’s life. 

All the attention that Walt used to lavish on his prized possession of a car and the joy he thought he was getting from that, eventually shifts to the well-being of the teenage boy.  He becomes the boy’s strongest advocate in helping him find a job and finally a hero not only to the boy, but to his family and to the entire neighborhood as Walt risks his life to bring the terror of the street gangs to an end.  Once Walt let that boy into his hardened, angry heart, he was able to look beyond his own unhappiness and find real joy in the acts of kindness he did for a family he once despised. 

The doing of love or the acts that become the fruit of the vine can only happen as a result of God’s loving us first.  And if God’s love never ends as Jesus revealed, than neither will the potential for us to be the fruit and to find joy in our true being.  Unfortunately, we often have trouble getting out of our own way long enough for that to happen.      

So maybe we start being the fruit with small steps, such as giving a minute of our time that might lead to an hour next time.  Or maybe it starts by giving $10 in Outreach before giving $1000; or maybe it’s by loving the person sitting next to us in church instead of loving our neighbor; or as Walt Kowalski showed, maybe it’s loving our neighbor who used to be our enemy (Lectionary Homiletics, Volume XX, Number 3, pg 58).   Being the fruit by giving of ourselves is hard, but thankfully, it’s a process that begins with God.  Is there any better time or place to continue that process than right here and right now?    

  A  Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

 Year B –  May 6, 2012

David Hathaway Knight, Priest Associate

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God… Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”        (1st John 4:7 ff)
                                                                                               

  In the Name of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sometimes, things we may have heard a long time ago can remain etched in our memory forever. I remember vividly something that David Evans, rector of St. Paul’s in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where I began my parish ministry, told me some 40 years ago when I was his assistant, or curate, as they called us in those days. He was a great mentor to me. He and I sometimes would sit in his study at the end of the day and he would share his thoughts of a long and faithful ministry. It’s interesting now as I am on this end of the spectrum of my ministry, I sometimes have similar conversations with John or with Eleanor. I continue to learn so much from them as well. One afternoon that many years ago, David Evans and I were talking about preaching. What he said was this: he said that most preachers have but one sermon throughout their ministry. They may use different illustrations in different settings, yet they have but one basic message that finds its way into most of their sermons. That’s probably true. Apparently it was thought to be true of one of the great bishops of our church, the late William Appleton Lawrence. Bishop Lawrence served as the third bishop of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts from 1937 until 1957. (Believe it or not, there have been some great bishops in the Church outside the Diocese of Virginia!) A church leader, he was also known as a faithful pastor and fine preacher.  But it was apparently noted once by an upstart seminarian in Cambridge that there was only problem with Bishop Lawrence’s preaching. You see, it was that he had only one sermon, “God is love.” Whenever he preached, somehow, the message inevitably got out, “God is Love.” But if that be the case one could argue that “God is Love” was not all that bad a topic.

 In the first letter of John that we heard this morning, we hear with stunning brevity what God is and what God is not:

 Sometimes, in our insecurity, even our fear for ourselves and for those whom we love, we long for protection. We yearn for a God who can control the elements of nature, who will keep us safe on the highway, a God who will protect us from all harm, a God who can prevent disease, a God who can stop or even prevent violence.

 We live in a world of increasing moral and ethical confusion. We might yearn for a God who will somehow lay down the law with complete clarity and who will hold everyone accountable, a God who will catch the cheaters and all those immoral people, and who will reward the faithful who obey God’s statutes as they perceive them to be.

 We live in a culture with an insatiable hunger to be successful and to possess things. We all, of course you understand, have our wants. For me, for example, with already four very nice bicycles, I dream of owning a fifth bicycle, a Trek Madone 3.1 Apex carbon frame bicycle that I have seen at a local bike shop and on the Internet. In its understated, luxurious dark metallic blue finish with white accents and high end components, capable of precise handling, this bicycle is the apple of my eye. The look on Jeannie’s face, however, when I mention that I might just take a test ride on one, is enough to cause me to put such a fantasy aside, at least until a more opportune time. Some yearn for a God who will make them prosperous if they simply obey and follow a few of God’s principles. Recently, I walked into a Barnes and Noble bookstore and saw a display of books by one such promoter of that concept of God.

 Nowhere in the Gospels, however, are we promised physical safety from harm or illness or violence, nor are we promised law that is laid down with complete clarity, nor are we promised prosperity. In his letter we hear today, John avoids all these descriptions of God. Instead, he uses one word, one word only, to describe the nature of God. The one word is “love.” Perhaps Bishop Lawrence was not so far off after all. Indeed, not power, not law, not the promise of prosperity, but rather self-sacrificing love is what is at the heart of the truth about the nature of God. When, for example, our worst fears come true and we suffer great loss, God is love. Is it not Paul who reminds us that nothing can separate us from the love of God? “For I am persuaded,” he says, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come… will be able to separate us from the love of God.” As we sang a few moments ago in the second stanza of that hymn:

God is Love; and love enfolds us, all the world in one embrace:
with unfailing grasp God holds us, every child of every race.

And when human hearts are breaking under sorrow’s iron rod,
then we find that self-same aching deep within the heart of God.

How do we know that God is love? God’s love is not something left to our imaginations. We only have to look back at what God has done in the course of human history. John’s point to us this morning is as clear and simple as it is powerful. It is that we know God first through the record of that community around Jesus, through those who, for example, stood at the foot of the cross and watched the suffering of outstretched love. We know that God is love through those in the community of the faithful who prepared Jesus’ body for burial, seeing first hand wounds that were caused by betrayal and violence yet wounds that were met with love. We know that God is love through those in the community like Thomas who doubted only to have their doubts transformed by the presence of a love that simply will not die.

 What those in the early Church would come to experience, you and I too have come to know, for God is around us at every side. If God’s love was to be present in the lives of people then, so it continues to be present now in the lives of each of us. You and I are never alone. That is not to say that there are times when one can feel lonely, times when one cannot pray, times when one does not feel God’s presence. That reminds me of a story some time ago of a couple, married for many years, out riding in their car. Remember how most cars back a few years had that wide bench front seat? This was before the days when virtually all cars came to have bucket seats. The front bench seat would allow couples who were dating and newly married to sit close to each other. When he was driving, she would snuggle up to him with her arm around him in a loving embrace. Well, it seems that years later while this couple was riding in their Buick, one of the last cars to offer a bench front seat, this wife looked over at her husband and lamented, “You know, Honey, we used to sit close when we’d be out driving in the car, but now I feel so far away from you, me sitting over here, on the right, next to the window, with all that space between us, and you over there on the left. What’s happened?” Her husband, sitting behind the wheel responded lovingly to his wife as he kept his eyes on the road ahead. He said, “My beloved, (and notice that he used the word “beloved”) “I haven’t moved.”

 Even, you see, when you and I feel far from God, God has not moved. God is still there unseen, still there with us.

 Sometimes the witness of one person will remind us once again of how God has been present. Jeannie and I shall always remember one Sunday morning in the winter of 1971 at Christ Church in Alexandria where I was doing my field education while in Seminary. The preacher that Sunday was Bishop Madinda, the newly enthroned Bishop of the Diocese of Western Tanganyika. He was speaking of the hardship and of all that was happening in his land, much of what was horrific, yet he kept repeating the refrain, and I can still remember his pronunciation of the words: He would say, “Christ is in our middist, Christ is in our middist.” God’s presence as he kept saying those words was palpable throughout the congregation that morning. He knew something that is true for all of us: God is with us. God is Love, no matter what we may be experiencing. How many times over the years, I have recalled what Bishop Madinda said that Sunday morning. The impact of his witness was profound and lasting.

 The psalmist even before Jesus came to us knew well of the presence and of the love of God when he wrote:

 Where can I go then from your spirit?
where can I flee from your presence?

 If I climb up to heaven, you are there;
if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.

If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there your hand will lead me
and your right hand will hold me fast.

 John also writes, “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” And note that he doesn’t write, “Dear friends,” but rather, “Beloved.” That word “beloved” is significant. To be beloved puts our relationship with God in its perspective. And herein lies the challenge as well as the imperative for us as we profess to love the God who loves us. God’s love for us is perfect, unqualified love while ours is always flawed in some way. Yet even so, we should not be held back by our own imperfection. One thing we cannot do is make the claim that we can love God while at the same time refuse to love others with whom we may have our difficulties. It is in the natural order of things that we can have serious differences with others. We have a model, however, in God’s love for each one of us. All of what God does, God does in love. If God creates, God creates in love.  It is that if God judges us, God judges us with love.  God’s response to our fear, our anxiety, to our sense of meaninglessness, to our mortality is love. It is a love that casts out fear. Can we then, strive to do anything less for one another? How might God’s love for you and for me, for example, transform our cherished resentments toward another into a loving response, for it is not possible to love God as we nurse grudges and as we seek revenge, or as we are careless with the feelings of others. Love is not simply an emotion that is shaped by how we might feel. Love is a decision that shapes our actions and how we treat one another. Since you and I are beloved, God calls us to love one another. And the truth is that you and I know the difference when we do that. Imperfectly as we might do it, we will know the difference, and it will be a blessing. It will be good.

 As you and I live each day of this coming week, there will come before us along the path of our day an opportunity for each of us to act in love in some encounter with another person. It might be our spouse, our child, someone with whom we work. It could be a stranger. It could be something, perhaps as simple as giving someone the right of way at a crowded intersection even when we are in a rush. In any event, you and I will in this coming week face an opportunity to respond to John’s words in today’s reading, “Beloved, since God loves us so much, we also ought to love one another.” What will our decision be?

 Bishop Lawrence of Western Massachusetts may have had only one sermon, “God is Love”, but with that one sermon, perhaps he was on the right track after all.

 “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” Amen.