The Wow Factor (16th after Pentecost, September 8, 2024)

 16th after Pentecost  The Wow Factor

September 8, 2024,  Wolf Kirchmeir

[Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125; James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17; Mark 7:24-37]

Today’s gospel is on of many that tells us of miracles. Just what is a miracle? That’s not as easy to answer as it looks. What looks like a miracle could just be coincidence.

Fact is, the concept is kind of fuzzy. The word originally just meant something to wonder at, something amazing. The German word for miracle is “Wunder”, which also means “wonder” or “marvel”, something amazing in English.

And we do often use the word to emphasize that something is amazing, as in the miracle of modern medicine.

Sometimes miracle just means that we can’t explain some extraordinary event.

Sometimes what looks like a miracle isn’t a miracle at all. Here’s a story about that:

One day while a cowboy was building a barn, he lost his favourite book. A week later, one of his horses came up to him holding the book in its mouth. The cowboy was stunned. He took the book from the horse and said, “It’s a miracle!”

“Not exactly,” said the horse. “Your name is written inside.”

Today we’ve heard about two miracles of healing. In the first, a Greek woman asks Jesus to heal her sick daughter. In the second, friends of a deaf man ask Jesus to heal him. In the first, Jesus at first refuses the woman’s request, and implies that as a Greek she doesn’t deserve his healing power. In the second, Jesus takes the deaf man away from the crowd before he heals him. In the first, Jesus agrees to heal the woman’s daughter after she has argued that, like the dogs under the table, she deserves to have the leftovers. Jesus likes the argument and heals her daughter. In the second, it’s the pleading of the deaf man’s friends that moves Jesus to heal him.

At first glance, these two miracles may look like a couple of random events retold for no reason other than that they happened to be recorded in the manuscripts that Mark used to compile his Gospel. They could just as well have been left out. After all, Jesus ministry lasted three years. Most of what he did during that time has not been recorded. The Gospels are not a day-by-day chronicle.

So I think that we should pay attention to what may seem like unimportant details. Because if they were unimportant, they would not have been included.

In this case, what caught my eye was how Mark introduced these two miracle stories. I think that if we take a look at the opening and closing of this section of Mark’s gospel, we’ll find a clue.

Mark begins by telling us that Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. [Mk7:24] And Mark ends his account with Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” [Mk7:36-37]

This is not the only place that Mark reports that Jesus didn’t want a lot of talk about the miracles. He was happy to heal people. But he didn’t want people to do what Mark tells us they did: they were amazed that He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

The crowds paid a lot of attention to the miracles. Somehow, that attention was misplaced. Jesus didn’t come into the world to work wonders. He didn’t travel around to amaze people. He didn’t want the crowds to come just because he did astonishing things. He didn’t want to be a spectacle.

In modern terms, he didn’t a want to be the subject of a video on Instagram or TikTok. He didn’t want the Wow Factor.

Nowadays, just as back when Jesus walked around healing people, the most common reaction to something extraordinary is Wow! Amazing! LOL!

And when it’s uploaded to TikTok or Instagram, that Wow! reaction spreads. We say it goes viral.

That makes it sound like a disease.

And it is a kind of disease. It’s the disease of wanting distraction. We like novelty. We like surprises. We like being amazed. We crave excitement. We want to be distracted.

Jesus knew that. He knew it better than we do. He knew it from the inside, like we do. But his knowledge wasn’t obscured or fudged or veiled by our tendency to avoid ‘fessing up to unseemly emotions.

And Wow! Amazing! LOL! is sometimes an unseemly emotion. For example, when we see video about some silly accident. Even accidents in which people are hurt.

LOL!

Laugh Out Loud!

Laugh at what?

Wow! Amazing! LOL! seems like a rather inadequate response when you stop to think about all the harm and trouble that silly accident caused.

But we usually don’t stop to think. Wow! Amazing! LOL! is often where it ends. A brief jolt of excitement, and we turn our attention to something else, hoping for another jolt. Anything to distract us from our daily round of obligations and chores, and another frustrating admission that we can’t have everything what we want.

It’s the Wow Factor at work.

Jesus rejected the Wow Factor. Mark in several places tells us that Jesus was at least somewhat impatient with the crowds who wanted him to perform miracles. He wanted something else from the people who came to wonder at him. He wanted the right kind of attention. He wanted the people to listen to his message.

The miracles should be understood as part of his message. He wanted them to stop and think

He wants us to stop and think, too.

What is there to learn from Jesus’s miracles?

First, they are examples of his compassion. The very first one saved a bridegroom from the embarrassment of not having enough wine for his guests. Jesus goes on to heal the sick and the lame and the blind. He heals lepers. He feeds five thousand people. He raises Lazarus from the dead. He calms the storm that threatens to sink the boat.

We know the stories.

Let’s look at the miracles from another angle. Jesus tells many parables. Suppose we look at a miracle story as a kind of parable, a story included in the Gospel, told to teach a lesson. What lessons can we draw from the two miracles we heard about today?

Begin with the Syrian woman who asks Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus at first refuses her request, saying that the children of the house have the first claim on the food provided. The woman replies that even the dogs are allowed to pick up the crumbs that fall from the table. Jesus is pleased with her answer. Why? What is it in her argument that pleases him?

First, it’s clever. The woman accepts Jesus’s argument, and then extends it to show that it’s not only the children who deserve the food. Even the dogs are allowed to scavenge for the crumbs that fall from the table. Dogs back then were not the adored pets that they are these days. Back then, they ranked just slightly above pigs. The Syrian woman’s point includes the unspoken claim that she ranked higher than the dogs. 

Second, it displays trust. The woman trusts that Jesus will listen to her argument, and reconsider her plea. She trusts him to treat her as a human being with the same legitimate claim on his compassion as anybody else. She believes not only that Jesus can heal her daughter, she also believes that he will do so. Why? Because she has made a good case.

Jesus is pleased with her argument. It appeals to his insight and his compassion. And above all, it demonstrates her absolute conviction that will do what is right. He grants her request.

Now consider the miracle of the deaf man the speech impediment. What impresses the people is that Jesus  makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

We don’t know how bad the deaf man’s hearing was, but the reference to his garbled speech suggests that he could hear well enough to imitate what he did hear, but not well enough to communicate clearly.

What will the deaf man hear now? What will he speak? He will hear the words of his family and friends, the words that make him a part of their community. He will speak the words that connect him to family and friends. We are social creatures, we need social connection. We need each other’s love. Jesus strengthened the bonds of love for the deaf man.

When I set these two miracles beside each other, I wonder what we hear and what we speak.

 Do we hear the cries for justice? Do we speak for those who suffer?

Do we hear the loneliness of the friendless? Do we speak words of friendship?

Do we hear the pleas of the hungry? Do we speak words of invitation to the feast?

Do we, like Jesus, answer when we hear Help me!

Do we accept the trust that we will do the right thing?

Let us pray,

Lord Jesus, grant us the grace not only to hear the cries for justice and peace, but also the will and the ability to answer them as you have done. We ask this trusting that you will answer our prayers as will be best for us. Amen.

Miracles (6th Sunday after Pentecost, 1 July 2018)

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43

May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be ever acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Dear Friends in Christ,
     And he strictly charged them that no one should know this.
     Several times when Jesus heals a sick person, he tells the disciples to tell no one about it. Why does he do this? Because, as he makes clear more than once, he doesn’t like the way people get all excited about signs and wonders. That excitement diverts attention from his message about the Kingdom. Focussing on signs and wonders is likely to make you forget his command to love one another. He’s come to fulfill the law. He has not come to entertain us.
     When we think about the miracles recorded in the Gospels, we should keep all that in mind. It’s not the miracles themselves that matter. It’s what they signify. The question is not “How could this happen?” It’s “Why is this story included?”
     John ends his Gospel with There were also many other things which Jesus did; if every one of them were written, the world could not contain all the books that would be written. The Gospel writers selected only a few things, those things that would be enough to convey the story and meaning of that ministry.
     When I read the stories of Jesus’s miracles, I notice two common threads. One is that most of the miracles are healings. Even the feeding the 5,000 can be thought of as a healing miracle, as anyone who remembers feeling very, very hungry will understand.
     The other thread is that every one is Jesus’s response to a request for help. The very first one, the changing of water into wine at the wedding, set the pattern. He never performs a miracle merely to show that he can do it. In fact, quite a few times, he seems reluctant to perform the miracle. He doesn’t like the publicity.

     So we have three topics for today: Jesus's refusal to be an entertainer.  Jesus the healer. And Jesus the one who responds to pleas for help. I’ll start with asking for help.
     We often ask for help, but sometimes we don’t recognise it. Here’s one of my favourite stories about that:

     There was a bad flood. The water was rising and coming closer to Joe’s house. The police came by and advised him to leave. “Oh, I’m all right”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     Well, the water rose and came up to Joe’s house. A neighbour came by in his SUV and said, “Get in, the water’s still low enough that we can drive out.” “That’s OK”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     The water rose further, and Joe had to go up to the second floor. An emergency crew in a boat came by, and urged him to leave. Joe refused, “The Lord will provide”, he said.
The water kept rising, and Joe climbed up onto the roof. A helicopter came, and offered to take Joe to safety. “I’m all right”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     Finally, the water reached Joe’s chin as he held onto the chimney. “O Lord,” he prayed, “Save me.” And a voice from on high spoke: “I sent you the police, a neighbour with an SUV, a rescue crew with a boat, and a helicopter. What more do you want me to do?” 

      Joe wanted a bona fide miracle, I guess. He had this idea that God helps by doing something spectacular and wonderful. Maybe he expected God to send an angel to pick him up and carry him to safety.
     Well, he got his angel, but he didn’t have large white feathery wings. He didn’t float silently through the air and pick him up. He was flying a machine with black rotors which made a lot of noise. He lowered a ladder for Joe to climb up on. With his helmet and face mask and all, he looked like some insectoid robot. Not like an angel at all.
     So Joe turned down the offer of rescue. It reminds me of Naaman the leper, who didn’t want to follow Elisha’s simple instructions to wash in the Jordan. He expected Elisha to come out and say magic words over him and wave his hands and such. A bona fide miracle, you see. Not something as ordinary as a wash in a river.
     Question is, how often have we turned down offers of help because they didn’t look like the help we expected? How often have we not seen the miracle that God is performing right before our eyes because we expected something out of this world?
     But this world is itself a miracle. That we live in it is a miracle. That we can do God’s work in it is a miracle.

     Mark’s story is a little different, or so it seems. The woman knew what she wanted. Jairus knew what he wanted. Both, in different ways, asked for Jesus’s help, and both got it. But not exactly the way they expected.
     I don’t think the woman expected Jesus to notice that she had touched him. She was very afraid when he turned towards her and said, Who touched me? Perhaps he was going to take away the cure! When she stammered out her explanation, Jesus said Go on your way, your faith has cured you.
     Notice: He didn’t say I have cured you. He said Your faith has cured you.
Then he continued on his way to Jairus’s house. Jairus’s servants came out and said, The girl is dead. There’s no point troubling the Teacher anymore. But Jesus ignored them. Don’t be afraid, have faith, he said. She is not dead; she is asleep. Then he woke her. Again, there is the emphasis on faith. We’ll come back to that.
    The woman got what she wanted, but not the way she expected. Jairus got what he wanted, but not the way he expected. First lesson: When we ask God for help, there may be a surprise. Maybe even a miracle.

     What’s a miracle, anyhow? The word comes from Latin miraculum, “something to be wondered at.” It belongs with the words “mirror” and “admire.” A mirror enables you to admire yourself, to wonder at your good looks. Or wonder where the handsome young person went since the last time you looked. A miracle is something so unusual that we wonder at it.
     However, the word miracle is not used in the Bible. The usual English translation of the Bible’s word is “sign” or “work”. These signs and works are evidence of Divine attention. And when God pays attention, strange things are likely to happen.
     That’s one reason why miracles fascinate us so much. Think about an unexpected recovery from a very serious illness. It’s unexpected because it rarely happens. So of course we wonder at it. We may wonder at it so much that we hardly take time to be grateful. The recovery becomes news and gossip because it’s unusual, not because it makes someone happy. After all, very ordinary events may make someone happy, too.
     We love amazing and unusual events The internet is infested with videos and stories about amazing things. They’re called clickbait. If you’re on Facebook, you know what I mean. Some people make a good living creating clickbait.
     Some of these events are amazingly good, of course, but that’s not why they go viral. They go viral because they are rare. They happen somewhere else, to other people. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be there in person, to actually see it happen! Instead, all we have is a shaky video taken with a cellphone.
     Jesus understood human nature inside and out. He knew perfectly well that his healings and other works would attract attention. He also knew that the attention to his unusual works could and too often would distract people from what really mattered.

     What mattered was the significance of what he’d done. What mattered was that he’d healed someone. What mattered was that he showed that the Kingdom was at hand, that it was right there, that the work of the Kingdom was to heal. Jesus did not want to be an entertainer. If Jesus were among us today, I’m pretty sure he’d tell us our cell phones are a distraction.

     The significance of today’s stories is that they are about healing and trust. The woman trusted that he would heal her. Jairus trusted Jesus to heal his daughter.
     Your faith has cured you, Jesus told the woman. Do not be afraid; have faith, he told Jairus.
     Healing and trust. They go together. They go together so much that we have the placebo effect. In every trial of a new drug, half the patients get the real thing, and half get a dummy. About one third of the people who get the dummy get better. This is such a regular effect that the real thing has to do much better than that.
     What causes the placebo effect? Trust. The patient believes they are getting the real drug, and that somehow makes the body better able to heal itself.
     We also have the opposite effect. How we feel about our illness may affect how fast and how well we heal. If we don’t trust the medications, if we don’t trust the surgeon, if we don’t trust the caregivers, we won’t recover as well as when we do trust them.
     Healing and trust. They go together. Trust is in the mind. Healing is of the body. Mind and body are one.

     Jesus came to heal us. He came to heal us from the sickness that we ourselves have created because we have not cultivated wisdom as much as we have cultivated cleverness. We call that sickness sin, and define it as the refusal to do God’s will.
     We are a very clever species. We can figure out all kinds of things. That’s what has made us the most successful organism on Earth.
     We invented social systems that enabled us to co-operate more than any other species. We invented technologies that enabled us to survive in strange and hostile habitats. With those social systems and technologies we have subdued the Earth to our purposes. The result is indifference to the Earth, and the harm that we do to it.
     We invented money, which enabled an economic system that produces more than we can use. The result is that greed governs our choices.
     We invented politics, which enabled us to work together on an ever larger scale, and create secure spaces for ourselves. The result is war, driven by the fear of those who are different from us.
     What we have not done is to acquire wisdom to match our cleverness.
     We haven’t been able to accept that it’s not enough to be clever. We also need to be wise. Two thousand years ago Jesus showed us the wisdom that we need: Love God and love each other, he said.
     Trust me, said Jesus. I bring you the Good News of the Kingdom, of more abundant life, of purpose and meaning. Ask, and it will be given to you. Knock, and the door will be opened.
     What does it mean to love God and do his will? It means many things. But one of the things it means is to understand the consequence of our cleverness, and be wise enough to make those choices that will preserve God’s creation.
     What does it mean to love each other? It means many things. But one of the things it means is to understand how what we do affects each other’s welfare, health, and happiness, and be wise enough to make those choices that do good and prevent evil.
     What prevents us from acting wisely?
     Fear.
     The fear that we won’t benefit, that we will be in peril, that things won’t go well, that they will not go as we expect or wish them to go.
     Have you noticed how often a messenger from God says Do not be afraid?
     Don’t be afraid, Jesus said to Jairus. Have faith. The woman was afraid, and Jesus calmed her fear.
     Like the woman and Jairus, we must trust that God will work things for our good.

     It’s risky to trust. To trust someone or something means that we don’t know for sure. There’s fear hidden inside trust, the fear that our trust will be betrayed. Safer to not trust anyone or anything, right?
     Well, maybe so. But without trust, the woman would not have been cured. She risked not being cured at all, but that was a risk worth taking. Without trust, Jairus’s daughter would not have been cured. Jairus risked losing his daughter if Jesus couldn’t heal her. That was a risk worth taking.
 
     Can we trust in God’s promises? Yes, but we take a risk. We don’t know how God will work things for our good, and ignorance is a powerful motive for fear. How can we trust God when we haven’t a clue about what will happen next? How can we be confident we’ll get help when God expects us to recognise the help he offers, no matter how different it is from what we expect?
     How can we trust God when he says Love each other? Because he’s asking us to give up the security of our material wealth, of our comfort and convenience. He’s asking us to risk everything on the promise of being healed. He’s asking us to learn the wisdom of doing what we know is right.

Let us pray.

Lord God, by your grace enable us to trust in your promises, that we may act wisely, and by doing your works of love may glorify your name. We ask this the name of one who trusted you even to his death on the cross, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

The Leper (6th Sunday after Epiphany, 15th February, 2015, Mark 1:40-45)

 The Leper 

 6th Sunday after Epiphany, 15th February, 2015, Mark 1:40-45

          The Gospel of Mark doesn’t shilly-shally. It’s short and to the point. It starts in the middle of the action, and it moves fast, wasting no words. In the first chapter, just a page and half in a typical bible, this is what we get:
     John the Baptist preaches in the desert;
     John baptises Jesus;
     The Spirit of God descends upon Jesus;
     Jesus announces that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand;
     Jesus calls four disciples to follow him;
     Jesus teaches in the synagogue at Capernaum;
     Jesus casts out an unclean spirit from a sick man;
     Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law;
     Jesus heals many other people;
     Jesus goes into the desert to pray;
     Jesus preaches in other synagogues in Galilee;
     Jesus heals a leper;
     Jesus withdraws into the desert to escape the crowds.

     That’s quite a list. Mark doesn’t give us much in the way of dates and times; he wasn’t writing an essay for a history course. But it’s clear that this first chapter covers a lot of ground and time, many miles, and many days if not weeks.
     Mark also doesn’t give us much in the way of help about how to understand the stories of Jesus’s ministry that he has chosen to tell us. He simply tells us what happened, sometimes saying it was the next day, sometimes not. For example, he mentions in passing that John was put in prison. We are left to infer that some time must have passed between Jesus’s baptism and this event.
     Then there’s Mark’s narrative method. In some places he uses dialogue to move the story along, for example when Jesus tells Simon and Andrew he will make them fishers of men. In other places, he uses dialogue to slow down the story, so that we will dwell on that event a little longer, as in the healing of the leper. And many things are merely mentioned, such as the teaching and preaching in the synagogues. Jesus did that, but Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus said. In many ways, Mark’s Gospel is more of a chronicle than a history. History deals not only with what happened, but with why, with people’s motives and desires and goals, how they achieved their goals, or not. And so on.
   Mark usually just tells us “This happened, then this happened, then that happened.”

     So we have to pick up every hint of meaning that we can. There are two here that I noticed among many. First, in the second half of this chapter, Jesus’s ministry consists of preaching and healing. Second, there are references to his growing fame. People were talking. People were talking a lot. And Jesus wasn’t exactly happy about that.
     What are the lessons can we draw from this first chapter of Mark?

     Let’s start with the leper. Leprosy is a nasty disease. It can be cured with antibiotics these days, but it can still cause disfigurement. In Jesus’s time, its causes weren’t understood, and there was no cure. Lepers were outcasts, they were homeless. They were allowed to beg by the roadside, but they were not allowed to live in town. No one touched them, no one even handed food to them. They had to leave their bowls by the side of the road, then go away while someone came by to bring food.
     Imagine being told you have to leave home because of your illness. Imagine people being afraid of you because of your illness. Imagine people not even looking at you when they give you a coin.
     Jesus heals the leper, and he tells him, “Don’t talk to anybody; but show yourself to the priest, and perform the sacrifices according to the law.”
     So the leper dances off. Well, I think of him as dancing off, I mean wouldn’t you dance if you’d just been healed of a horrible disease that made you an outcast? He dances off, shows himself to the priest, and starts talking to everybody whose ears are close enough about this wonderful thing that’s happened to him, and who did it. So much so, that Jesus was recognised everywhere he went, and had to go to less populated places. Yet still people came to see and hear him.
     By curing him, Jesus gave the leper his life back. He could once again be a part of his family and community. No wonder he told everybody about the wonderful thing Jesus had done. Wouldn’t you?

     Why then did Jesus tell the leper to keep it quiet? Jesus had no qualms about preaching and teaching in the synagogues. He didn’t object when people admired his insights into the Torah and the Commentaries. Mark tells us that he went all over Galilee preaching and casting out devils, and healing people of diverse diseases.
     To understand Jesus’s unwillingness to have the leper talk about his healing we have to look further. Jesus makes the same request of some other people he healed. And most significantly, he complains that people want him to perform signs and wonders.  He doesn’t want people to believe his message just because they see him doing miracles. He wants them to understand his message and apply it to their own lives. Miracles can be a distraction.

     If we consider the miracles that Jesus did, we can see a pattern, a pattern that reinforces Jesus’s message to us. The miracles weren’t merely tricks that demonstrated his power. They weren’t designed to amaze us. They weren’t even proofs that he was the Son of God. The disciples performed miracles, too. So did Elijah. Magicians do things that seem impossible. In both Jesus’s day and ours, most magicians made a living entertaining people, and some made a living deceiving people. Why would Jesus want to compete with them?
     Well, he didn’t. All of Jesus’s miracles helped people. He cured their diseases. He filled their bellies. He calmed their fears. In his very first miracle he turned water into wine at a wedding. He turned what could have been a failed celebration into a better feast than the groom had planned. His miracles all remove pain, the pain of illness, the pangs of hunger, the anguish of fear, the misery of social disgrace.
     In short, Jesus’s miracles made life better for people. That’s the first lesson for today.

     The second lesson comes from an earlier part of this first chapter of Mark: The kingdom of God is at hand, says Jesus. That’s the framework, the context, the purpose of Jesus’s ministry. Repent, and believe the good news, he says. The good news is that he’s come to make our lives better in every way, physically, socially, spiritually. And Mark’s focus throughout his account is on how Jesus does just that. This first chapter sets up two major themes of Mark’s Gospel: That the Kingdom of God is at hand, and that Jesus heals us.

     The healing of the leper touches on both of these themes. It touches on healing directly, and on the presence of the Kingdom of God indirectly. The healing of the leper is the healing of an outcast. We aren’t likely to get leprosy these days, and we no longer have rules and regulations that would make us homeless if we do get it. But there are many ways in which we can be outcasts, or feel like one.
     It’s terrible to feel outcast, to be an outsider because other people don’t want you. In my first draft of this meditation, I had a long passage about mental illness and homelessness, and the helplessness we feel when someone we love suffers from an illness, any illness at all. It was quite a downer, so I’ve decide to focus on how today’s Gospel story reassures us.
     It reassures us that Jesus will heal us, that he will be there when healing is needed. The leper faced a lifetime of slowly increasing pain and ugliness, and of being shunned by his people. His future looked dark, and looked to be getting darker. Jesus changed that. He changed that because the leper asked him for healing. Make me clean, he said, I know you can do it. And Jesus did it.

     When we are so far down that we think there’s no way up, we too can ask Jesus to heal us. And one way or another, Jesus will do that. He may help us change the way we see ourselves and our situation so that we can see a way out. He may help us trust friends and family to support us as the body and the mind heal. He may give us the confidence to hang in there until things get better. He may lead us to a healer, a spirit guide, a doctor, who will use their gifts to bring us out of the darkness. He may grant us a vision of himself that will energise us so that we can move on and up, away from depths that threaten to drown us.
     For you see the story of the leper is also a story about the power of prayer. If you pray with faith, your prayer will be answered. Prayer is not a magic spell. Prayer is a way of connecting with the Spirit, and that Spirit will enable us to recognise what has been there all along, the healing power of faith and trust in the One who embodied love.

     Accept that love when it’s offered.
     Offer that love when it’s needed.

     Let us pray.
     Lord God, who made us, saved us, and keeps us, grant us so to trust you that we will pray for your healing power. Give use the humility to recognise that healing when it is offered, and the confidence to offer that healing when we see the need. We ask this in the name of the One who healed us all by his death on the Cross. Amen.

 Repentance 

 [2nd Sunday of Lent, 21st February, 2016, Luke 13:31-35]
     Today’s Gospel story is one of the more difficult ones. Jesus says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
     That’s not exactly a happy speech. It’s one of Jesus’s harshest sayings. It sounds very much as of he’s writing off Jerusalem, and I suppose in a way he is. However, looking at it in terms of the Passion of Christ, there is what looks like a smidgen of hope:  and I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. When Jesus returns to Jerusalem, the people will welcome him with just those words. But a few days later they will shout Crucify him! Crucify him!
     What’s going on here?
     When I read the Bible, I never stop with just the facts of the story. Any story about some specific people is also a story about us, about you and me. Every story shows us something about what it means to be human, about how people behave, about what matters to them, about the choices they make and why they make them. What makes the stories in the Bible so believable is that the stories show us all these things. And that means that every story in the Bible has some meaning beyond itself. Usually, the easiest of these meanings is how the story applies to us, here and now.
     So I will talk about how this incident in Jesus’s ministry applies to us.
     But Bible stories aren’t just about humans. They are also about God. Every story shows us something about how we relate to God, about how God relates to us, and how this relationship affects and shapes the way we relate to each other. I take it for granted that understanding the Bible means understanding these aspects of the Biblical story too.
     Let’s start with the story itself.
     Jesus was expanding his ministry, and that was causing trouble. People came and listened to him, and they wanted to know what they could or should do to enter the Kingdom of God. In chapter 13, Luke includes several parables. There’s the one about the fig tree, in which the keeper of the orchard asks for one more chance to fertilise the ground so that the tree might bear fruit. If it fails, it will be uprooted and burned.
     There’s the comparisons of the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, and to yeast. You are the yeast, he tells his disciples. You need yeast to make bread. And the one about the house shut against those who claim a right to enter it, but the door is barred against them. There will be weeping and wailing among those who are on the wrong side of the door.
     There’s a healing, too. A woman has suffered for eighteen years, bent double with what we would call severe arthritis. Jesus healed her. But he healed her on the Sabbath, which annoyed the rulers of the synagogue, who complained that Jesus broke the law. Whereupon Jesus pointed out that necessary work, such as watering one’s animals, was permitted, so why not the work of healing?
     There’s also one of the most famous of Jesus’s sayings, The last shall be first and the first shall be last. There’s no way around its meaning: What we think of as being important does not match what God wants.
     One of the major themes of Luke’s Gospel is that the established order of things will be overturned. The Kingdom of God is at hand, and the Kingdom of God is not, as Jesus says, “of this world.” It’s not organised the way this world is organised. It’s not based on the values of this world. It’s not one in which it’s enough to obey the law and be respectable and behave like everybody else and not cause trouble. It’s not a Kingdom in which the great movers and shakers will rule, as they do in this world. It’s not a world in which power and wealth matter.
     It’s radically different.
     Over and over again, in his parables and in his sermons, Jesus condemned power and wealth. Over and over again, in his talk and in his actions, Jesus warned against mistaking the outward show of piety and moral worth for the real thing. Over and over again, Jesus said that to seek the Kingdom of God means giving up the things that bring success in this world.
     And that’s why the authorities were more than a little annoyed at him. That’s why Herod wanted to get rid of him. A man who preaches radical moral and personal change preaches radical political and economic change, too. Radical change in one aspect of your life requires radical change in all aspects of your life. It’s all or nothing.
     Scary, really, to commit yourself to radical change. But that’s what Jesus expects of us.
     Some of the Pharisees were sympathetic to Jesus’s teachings, so they warned him about Herod’s plans, and for a while he escaped the danger. Some time later Jesus will return to Jerusalem, the crowds will welcome him with shouts of Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of God. And then he will be arrested, charged with blasphemy, convicted, and executed.
     But now, as he leaves Jerusalem, he says that he wished Jerusalem would hear his message. He wants to gather her in, he says, like a hen that gathers her chicks under her wings to protect them. He wants to save Jerusalem from itself, but it will not listen. It continues on its way, seeking wealth and power and worldly fame. He foresees that Jerusalem will be left desolate. Because it plays the game of power, it will be destroyed by people who play a stronger game. That is indeed what happened to Jerusalem more than once in its history. Just as it has happened to every city or nation that has played the power game.
     What does this mean for us?
     Well, I think we can see here several messages. Personal ones, that apply to how we choose to live our lives. Communal ones, about how we live and work and play together. Political ones, about how we do, and how we should, use power.
     But most of all, a warning: Choices have consequences. That’s obvious, but we keep trying to avoid those consequences. We sometimes say, But I had no choice. What we really mean is that the other choice was just too hard. And sometimes it is. But too often it was merely unpleasant or inconvenient. Or, like taking your medicine, it tastes bitter, but you need it. Children have a hard time accepting that. I trust that we grownups will take our medicine without complaining.
     It’s hard enough to accept that choices have consequences we may not like. It’s harder to accept that we have bad reasons for our choices. Ideas have consequences too, because ideas govern our choices. We choose what we choose because we believe some things are worth having. We justify our beliefs in all kinds of ways, with arguments, with appeals to habits, with excuses of one kind or another.
     And here is where it gets tricky. It gets up close up and personal. Because when we make a bad choice, we then try to excuse ourselves. Or we give an apology in which we claim that we take full responsibility, and do nothing. Or we blame someone or something else. We may even attack the accuser. Kill the messenger of bad news, and the bad news goes away, right?
     No, it doesn’t.
     We like to think of Jesus as meek and mild. Charles Wesley wrote a poem to this effect:
          Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
          Look upon a little child;
          Pity my simplicity,
          Suffer me to come to Thee.
     But as Luke reminds us, Jesus was often the messenger of bad news. Like John the Baptist before him, he reminded people that they had made the wrong choices. Powerful people don’t like to be told they are doing bad things. Neither do we, the less than powerful people. If we can’t ignore the messenger, we turn on him:  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her.
     Lent is the time the Church has traditionally set aside for us to contemplate the bad news, that we make bad choices, that we fail to love each other, that we resist the reminder that we have sinned and need to repent. Gloomy and dark, right? Well, it’s not completely gloomy and dark. Tied up inside that bad news is the good news: That by God’s grace we may repent, and so enter into the Kingdom. Jesus does not condemn the sinner. He warns the sinner. He offers a way out: Repent!
     I’ll end with a few thoughts about repentance.
     It’s not enough to feel guilty. For that matter, feeling guilty is merely a kind of shame. It doesn’t get you very far. When Jesus says Repent! he doesn’t mean “I want you to feel bad, because you did something bad”. The grammar teacher in me reminds you that “Repent!” is a verb in the imperative mood. It’s a command. You can’t command someone to feel a certain way. You can only command someone to act, to do something.
     So what is it that we should do when we repent?
     We should change the way we make choices. We should examine our reasons, our beliefs, our values, and when these tend to lead to bad choices, we should drop them or change them. We should put a lower value on our own convenience and pleasure, and a higher value on what’s good for us, and what’s good for other people. We should think not in terms of Will I like it? but in terms of Is it the right thing to do? We should ask Is it necessary? and not Do I want it?
     In short, we should shift our perspective, our point of view, our way of looking at things. We should try to look at other people and the world as creatures of God, and therefore worthy of our nurture, our support, our protection, and our love.
     When we take the command to repent seriously, we accept another command: To love God, and to love our neighbour.
     Let us pray.
     Lord God, you created us, you saved us, you help us. Grant us the grace of repentance, that we may think and speak and act in accordance with your will. Show us to how serve you by serving each other, so that our present life may be a foretaste of your Kingdom. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

A few thoughts about Taxes (2017-10-25)

Distilled from a sermon to provide a short meditation for a meeting.

 

     Jesus had a reputation as a teacher, as an interpreter of the law and the prophets. The Temple authorities didn’t like his teachings, so they tried to trap him. Teacher, they asked, is it lawful to pay taxes to the Romans?

     Many Jews believed that the only lawful taxes were for the upkeep of the Temple, so if Jesus’s answer was a simple Yes it could upset a lot of people.

     Bring me a coin, answered Jesus. Whose image do you see on it? It was of course Caesar’s image. Then pay to God what belongs to God, and pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, said Jesus.
     And like so many of Jesus’s answers, it raises more questions. Here, the questions are, What belongs to God? And what belongs to Caesar? Jesus leaves it up to us to figure it out. Like a Zen Master, Jesus wants us to think for ourselves.
     It seems to me the obvious answer is, Everything belongs to God, including Caesar and his Empire. But this answer is a puzzle too. For if it’s true, what does it mean to say This belongs to me? And That belongs to you? What is ownership, anyhow?

     We humans have developed a lot of rules and customs around ownership. There’s the negative rule, Don’t steal. That is, don’t take what does not belong to you. You need the owner’s permission to take that thing; for example, he may be willing to trade.
     There’s also the positive rule, Share what you have. Again, every society we know of has complicated rules and customs around that. You are supposed to give things away, but not just anything, and not just anytime. The rules of gift giving are mostly unwritten, and they constantly change. But as with buying and selling, we expect something in return, if not now, then later, and if not from the one we give it to, then from someone else.
     Oh, yes, ownership is a complicated business. So what looks like a simple answer is really a complicated one.
     Basically, ownership is a specific kind of control over the use of some thing or other. In trade and gift-giving, we expect things to balance out, to be fair. Give to God what belongs to God, and to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. That’s nicely balanced advice. Sounds fair, right?

     But what if it’s not really ours to give? If everything is a gift from God, it’s not really ours, is it? William Howe wrote a hymn about that:

     We give Thee but Thine own,

     Whate'er the gift may be;

     All that we have is Thine alone,

     A trust, O Lord, from Thee.
     Note that word “trust”. It reminds me of the parable of the talents. The master gave his servants money to take care of for him. Two were rewarded for investing the money and making a profit. One was punished. He did nothing with his capital.

     I came across a saying some time ago which goes like this: What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.

     There’s the same idea as in the parable. We must invest what God has given us so that we may return it to him showing a profit. How do we do that? By living according to his law, which is to love him and love our neighbour. We each have different talents, so we each have different ways of fulfilling the law.
     And oddly enough, when we do that we also render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. For Caesar too has a gift to invest, the gift of power and authority. Government is one of the methods we use to love our neighbour. We do this by keeping the peace, regulating trade, providing for common needs and wants, defending against those who would harm us, and so on. That’s what those taxes are supposed to be for.

     Lord God, show us how to use our treasure, talents, and skills to do the work of love you have given us to do. In Jesus’s name. Amen
     2017-10-25

The Road to Emmaus (3rd of Easter, 2024-04-14)

The Road to Emmaus

Easter 3, 14 April 2024, Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:13-35
© W. Kirchmeir The Gospel is not that listed in the RCL.

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be ever acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

Dear Friends in Christ,
     Today we’ve heard one of my favourite stories, the story of the two disciples travelling to Emmaus.
     They met a man going the same way. They started chatting with him about the recent events in Jerusalem. They became so engrossed in this conversation that they didn’t notice much about their fellow wanderer. What caught their attention was what he said, the questions he asked, the way he connected their thoughts and ideas to the scriptures. They wanted to continue the conversation, and besides, it was getting dark. In those days, night was definitely not a safe time to travel. So they invited him into their home and prepared a meal. When the stranger said the blessing over the bread, then they saw who he was: Jesus, the friend they had mourned since the day of Crucifixion.
     Try to imagine the shock.
     Try to imagine the mixture of joy, astonishment, awe, and hope when they recognised him.
     You can almost feel the twinge of self-doubt, knowing they had been talking with him for an hour or more without knowing who he was.
     Quite an emotional scene, this: so much so, that they hurried to tell Peter and the others about their wonderful encounter with a stranger who turned out to be Jesus.
     Why didn’t they recognise him? Well, there’s the odd psychological fact that we don’t actually see what’s in front of us. We see what expect to see. We don’t see what we don’t expect to see. In other words, we don’t see, we perceive. This odd and uncomfortable fact explains otherwise inexplicable collisions at intersections. But I didn’t see the stop sign! Yeah, tell me another one! – But psychologists have shown that in fact the hapless motorist did not see the stop sign.
     This error of perception is so common that psychologists have given it a name. They call it “selective inattention.” That’s a very helpful name, I think. Every parent, every teacher, every married couple knows exactly what it means.
     “Selective inattention.” It certainly helps explain what happened on the road to Emmaus. Cleopas and his friend certainly did not expect to see a dead man walking along the road with them.

     Simply as a story, the road to Emmaus is an impressive achievement. There’s grief and hope. Could it be true what those women reported, that their murdered friend was alive after all? Hope aroused will be either fulfilled or denied. The disciples meet a stranger, and they talk to him about the very things that depress them, and that also give them hope. When they recognise the stranger  as the risen Jesus, hope is fulfilled.
     They now see the events that led up to this moment from a different angle. They now recall how intense the conversation was, how it led to insight and understanding, how they were absorbed in it. No wonder – for the stranger was Jesus.
     When the turning point in a story not only resolves the tension of the plot but recasts it in a new light, that’s great story telling. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve liked this story so much. A well-told tale has always pleased me.
     But as much pleasure as we may get from the sheer telling of the tale, there’s a good deal more here. There’s our reaction to the contents of the story. Surely, we think, we would have recognised Jesus! Surely we would have had some suspicions when Jesus begins his conversation with Did not the Christ have to suffer this and enter into his glory? Surely we would not have suffered from that selective inattention that plagued Cleopas and his companion?

     H’m. Really?

     It’s easy to forget that we have the benefit of 2000 years of hindsight. We suffer from a different kind of selective inattention. We don’t attend to the fact that we would have known exactly as much, and exactly as little, as those two disciples. I think it’s pretty certain that we would have behaved exactly like them.
     I’ll go further: I don’t think we have progressed much further from that incomplete understanding that the disciples had.
     We are no further along the road to Emmaus than they were.
     We too, suffer from selective inattention.
     We too fail to recognise Jesus among us.
     For Jesus is among us. He really is. I am with you always, he said.
     He’s not safely tucked away in some sunny blue heaven filled with fluffy white clouds and angels with golden harps. The right hand of God is not some place beyond this universe. Jesus has not left us behind to ascend to some unearthly planet beyond the sky, from where he watches us with some kind of super-telescope to make sure we do as we’re told.
      No, he’s here and there and everywhere. We just don’t always recognise him.
     Well, who am I kidding? We hardly ever recognise him!
     Why don’t we recognise him?
     Do our assumptions about class and respectability get in the way?
     Do our stereotypes about young and old, male and female, friends and strangers prevent us from seeing who is right there in front of us?
     Do our ideas about intelligence and smarts, about common ground, about people like us and people who are different, do these expectations interfere with our perceiving what our eyes and ears are telling us?
     Yes, and yes, and yes.

     Where is Jesus, then?
     Or maybe better, who is Jesus?

     He’s the homeless beggar sitting in front of Tim Horton’s on a busy downtown street.
     He’s the fellow parishioner sitting beside you in the pew every Sunday with whom you exchange the peace.
     He’s the bus driver taking you and 50 other tired people home after a long day.
     He’s the teacher who made you do an essay over again because he knew you could do a better job.
     He’s the girl at the checkout who rings up your groceries and smiles Hello.
     He’s the old lady who walks her dog up your street every day.
     He’s the scruffy man who holds the door for you at the post office.
     He’s the waitress who brings you a glass of water.
     He’s the neighbour who watches your house while you’re away for the weekend.
     He’s the club member who volunteers (yet again) to sit with you selling raffle tickets.
     He’s the guy staggering under an enormous backpack who’s getting on the bus to go planting trees up around Kenora.
     He’s the kid at the gas station who comes out to fill up your tank in a blizzard, while you wait in the warm car for him to finish.
     He’s the young man, oh so handsome in his uniform, who’s been deployed to Afghanistan, where he will see things you don’t want to imagine.
     Jesus is all these people and more.

     There’s more.
     Marie said she thought the story of the road to Emmaus is about sociability, about companionship on the journey. I think she’s right. She’s right because we need someone to accompany us on our journey of faith, someone to open up the scriptures to us, someone who will listen to our questions and help us grope towards an answer. That someone is Jesus.
     But like the disciples, you may not realise it. And when you do realise it, it may be not so much because of the serious discussion that you had, but because of a simple gesture of faith, such as saying the blessing over a meal.
     These insights may come in other ways, too. There’s the story of  the little boy whose Sunday school class had to memorise the 23rd Psalm. Although he practised and practised, he could hardly get past the first line. When his turn to recite the psalm came,, he stepped up to the microphone and proudly said, "The Lord is my Shepherd, and that's all I need to know!"
     A charming story, isn’t it? Did the boy know the full meaning of what he was saying? Probably not. But we grown-ups are a little further along, we understand it, right?
     Well, maybe we do. These aha! moments are very satisfying. Finally, we’ve seen a truth we didn’t see before. But they are also troubling, for how many truths have we not yet seen? How much have we not understood?

     When a grown-up presumes to teach us what we need to know, we are less likely to be charmed. We may even be offended. Every pastor knows that sooner or later a sermon will upset someone in the congregation. Every preacher has felt the temptation to soft-pedal a hard message, to use the familiar words that comfort us because they are familiar, and won’t raise questions.
     Why? Because we all have different takes on what the Bible teaches. When we read the Bible we often suffer from selective inattention, and it prevents us from reading what we don’t want to hear.
     There is one message among many that these days seems to be selectively ignored: What you do to the least of these my brothers you do unto me. We like to think in terms of those among the poor that deserve our help and those that don’t. Not surprisingly, we tend to think that most of the poor don’t deserve our help. They aren’t like us, you see.
     There are those who believe that Jesus has gone away to some other place, and will return on some specific date to judge us all. He will take those who have the true faith up to heaven with him. For some reason, those who make this prediction are convinced only they will be among the elect. Well, we can scoff at these and other notions as the effect of misunderstanding biblical language. But when we do so, we may be selectively inattentive to the core of the message, which is that Jesus has risen, and lives.

     Remember what Paul wrote to Timothy, that all scripture is given to us for our understanding, that we may learn what we need to know. I think Paul really did mean “all scriptures”, that is, all written texts. Paul knew that the old texts he had studied as a young man were written by people long dead. But the insights and knowledge of those long dead seekers after truth were just as valuable as anything he heard anyone say. Writing is speech preserved for us, that we may hear what our ancestors have said.

     We need to listen to each other. We need to discuss, not argue. We need to share, not declare. Jesus showed Cleopas and his friend how the old writers from Moses onward had told the same story. How they had spoken of the Anointed One who heals us from sin. How asking the right questions leads to the best answers.
     We all have insights and understandings, and those insights and understandings are gifts of the Spirit. We need to pray that our eyes may be opened, that our selective inattention becomes more complete perception, that we may know Jesus in whatever form and person he reveals himself.

     We are on a journey; we have not yet reached its end.
     We are surrounded by travelling companions; Jesus travels with us.
     We wonder whether what others have testified is true; Jesus will reveal the truth.
     We are anxious about where the journey will lead us; Jesus assures us that we will arrive home safely.

Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, show yourself to be present among us. Give us the grace to see you in each other. Give us the heart to have compassion as you had compassion. Give us the wisdom to recognise your truth, and the humility to know how little we know. Guide us by your Holy Spirit, that we may live as you have shown us how to live, so that in our words and deeds your glory and your love may be revealed to all the earth. We pray in your name, O Lord, you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Love (5th of Easter, 2010-05-02)

 Love 5th Sunday of Easter 2 May 2010 [John 13:31-35]

Love one another. That was Jesus’ last command to the disciples. Love one another as I have loved you, he said.

     I wish we would. I wish we could.
     What’s love anyway? Everybody knows that the word “love” refers to many things. What comes to mind when you hear the word? What does “I love you” mean to you? The Summary of the Law says you should love God and love your neighbour as yourself. What do you think that means? How do you imagine doing that? How do you imagine feeling about yourself? How do you imagine feeling about your neighbour?
     These are not easy questions to answer, but we have to start somewhere. So here are some random thoughts about love, which I may be able to tie up in a nice neat bundle at the end. Or not, as the case may be.
     James Thurber said that love is what you’ve been through with somebody. Someone who loves chocolate may have that in mind when they decide to have another piece. Or not, as the case may be.
     One thing is for sure. Love, however you define it, is risky. Tina Turner has a song What’s Love Got to Do with it? It’s a lover’s lament, a very common kind of love song, especially in country music. Lovin’ hurts. The love Tina sings about is painful:

What's love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love, but a sweet old-fashioned notion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken?

     Leonard Cohen has a song about the pain of love, too:

There ain't no cure for love, there ain't no cure for love,
All the rocket ships are climbing through the sky,
The holy books are open wide, the doctors working day and night,
But they'll never ever find that cure for love.
There ain't no drink, no drug, ah, tell them, angels,
There's nothing pure enough to be a cure for love.

     If pain is a sign and symptom of love, then love is a disease. Or not, as the case may be.
 

     I've been reading Gwynne Dyer's book about war. He wrote it in 1982, basing it on a television series on war that he made for the CBC and PBS. It's a gloomy and depressing subject, but anyone who wants to understand how the world works has to take account of war. Dyer’s thesis is that civilisation and war were both born of the agricultural revolution in neolithic times, around 10 to 15,000 years ago. That change in food production led to an increasing human population, and eventually to the invention of cities. Cities have to be defended, so humans invented war. War and wealth accelerated developments of technology and science, and now war has become a suicidal institution.

      One thing is for sure: war is not an expression of love between nations. Maybe if nations could love each other the way people love each other, war might come to and end. Or not, as the case may be.

 

     Love can cause strife. Jealousy is a twisted, possessive form of love in which the lover cannot accept that his beloved may have a focus other than himself. He can’t tolerate the thought that someone or something else matters to his beloved

 

      Well, we could go on, but I don’t think we would find an answer to help us understand what Jesus is commanding us to do. The reason is simple: all the notions of love that I’ve touched on so far can’t be commanded. Love as understood in these examples is a condition, it’s a state of mind or emotion, it’s an attitude towards someone else, it’s a need or desire. You can’t command these, because they are not actions. You can command people to do something, but it’s pointless to command them to feel good about it.

     That’s the first insight: that love is an active verb. What Jesus is telling us is to do something, to perform certain kinds of acts, to make things happen.

 

     So what is he telling us to do? The fact is that the desires and feelings mentioned earlier do make us behave in certain ways. When we feel love for someone, we want to do things for them and with them. Do any of these desired actions fit what Jesus wants us to do? Maybe they do. But to answer the question, we have to understand somewhat better what we mean by the word “love.”

     C S Lewis wrote a book called The Four Loves. In it, he discusses what people refer to when they say “I love”. He ignores the casual use of the word in expressions such as “I love chocolate”, because what we really mean is “I like chocolate a lot.” He talks about four kinds of love between and for other people.

 

     The first is affection, that good feeling we have towards people in our social and family circle. It’s affection that makes us happy to see them, and grieve when they are in trouble. It helps us get along with each other, it forms the bonds that make us into communities. Affection enables us to overlook and tolerate the minor flaws and quirks that would otherwise annoy us. It’s basic, and human, and starts and ends with familiarity. It’s that basic good feeling that grows out of living together in a family or community. It strengthens those ties, and that’s what makes it valuable. But we feel affection only towards those whom we know. Affection depends on physical presence; affection for someone you don’t know is impossible.

 

     Many of us think of affection as the basis of friendship, but Lewis says friendship goes further. Lewis was a great befriender. He knew that friendship can be a source of pleasure, joy, and satisfaction. He says that friends have in common a love for something outside themselves. You discover that someone else shares your pleasure in some activity, some aspect of the natural or human world, and that’s where your friendship starts. You like the same books, you meet on the golf course, you are both quilters or hunters, something draws you together. Friendship consists of doing things together, but the focus is outside yourself. That external focus makes friendship selfless in way that affection is not.

 

     A stronger love is eros, or being in love. That’s the love that Tina Turner and Leonard Cohen sing about. Lewis knows perfectly well that this love can be extreme or twisted or too self-centred, that it may be no more than an attraction to or a desire for an imaginary person, an ideal that we’ve formed. When we are first in love, we see the beloved not as she or he is, but as we want them to be. But at its best, eros changes into something stronger and more lasting than this fantasy attraction. It can make us aware of another person as a person. We love him or her because of who and what they are, with all their flaws and weaknesses, even despite their flaws and weaknesses.

     This love is powerful. Merely being in the beloved’s presence may be enough to make a bad day good. Eros may move us to sacrifice ourselves for the happiness of the beloved. Like friendship, eros may be selfless.

 

     The fourth love is charity. Lewis does not mean simply writing a cheque or dropping a toonie in the Sally Ann’s Christmas basket, although these actions may be valuable and necessary. He means love for other people just because they are people.

     And at this point action does become important. Charity is above all doing things for others. That’s why we think of charitable organisations as helping people, and automatically think of volunteers. You donate to the Cancer Society to help them help cancer patients and support research. You help out at Community Days. You volunteer to serve food at a parish supper. And so on. You do these things not because you like the people that will be helped, although you may in fact like them a lot. You do these things even if you do not know the people you are helping. And if you do know them, you may not like them, you may think they aren’t good or respectable enough, they aren’t your kind of people. This makes it difficult to help them. But you help anyhow. It’s what Jesus would do. It’s what Jesus actually did.

     And one of the odd things is that when you perform these acts of loving kindness, you may well develop affection or fondness for the people you help. You may even begin to see them as persons, not just as recipients of your charity. That’s why personal acts of charity are so important.

     And of course, charitable work is rewarding. People feel good about themselves when they see the good they’ve done for other people.

 

     These four kinds of love and loving and all their variations do feel good. Affection, friendship, eros, charity –  these all can and do make us feel very good. Life is better when we love. I think it’s this good feeling that makes it easy to think of love as simply a feeling. It’s also this good feeling which makes us seek love. But that good feeling may shift our focus from the person we love to the good feeling of loving. We may do what we do less for the sake of the other person, and more for the sake of ourselves. That’s when we discover that the good feelings of love don’t last, and we say that love doesn’t last, that our hearts can be broken.

     But what really happened is that we thought those feedings were the whole of it, the point of the game, what love is all about. We failed to see that love is what we do, not what we feel.

 

     So we come to the love of God, which in Greek is called agape  (ah-gap-eh), selfless love. The word agape is used in John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. It’s used in the Gospel we heard today.

     In the Christian context, agape refers to God’s love for us. That love is in itself an action. God’s love is seen in the act of creation. It’s seen in his gift of free will. It’s seen in his self-sacrifice when we misused that free will.

     We can aspire to return that love by loving each other with a selfless love. It’s not easy. It’s hard to feel affection for a person who is unlovable, and so it’s hard to do things for them. But that’s exactly what Jesus wants us to do. It’s not only here, as he takes leave of his disciples, that he says so. He has already said, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, turn the other cheek, if someone needs your coat give him your shirt too. Love your neighbour as yourself.

     Those are hard sayings, they go against our natural inclinations and then some. But we can try to do as Jesus has commanded. Start with little things. Practice the virtues of love. Patience is one. When someone for the 3,027th time does one of those little things that irritate you so much, bite your tongue, and say nothing.

     Kindness is another. Hold the door for someone who’s carrying two large bags of groceries. Better yet, carry them for her. Or him, as the case may be.

     Be generous. When the Kidney Foundation canvasser comes to the door, and you haven’t got a five dollar bill, give her a ten. If you have a fight with a family member, don’t insist on being right, but try to understand why they are angry. Plan how you will avoid causing that anger again.

     We could take all day sharing little nuggets of advice like these. But really, what have I said that you didn’t already know? We all know what to do. We learned it in kindergarten. We just need the will and the strength to do it. For that we need help. Jesus will provide that help, we only have to ask. We won’t change into perfect examples of loving kindness overnight, or even by the end of our lives. But we can and will do better.

     Jesus commands us to love each other as he loved us, selflessly, not because it feels good, not because it raises our self esteem, not because it’s rewarding, not because it’s fun, not because we like someone, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Let us pray.

Lord God, loving Father, Brother, and Friend: help us learn our failings, that we may correct them; and by your grace strengthen and guide us in the works of love that you have commanded us to do, that by our actions we may show your love and glorify your name. Amen.