Living like you're loved

 

John 17: 6-19
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 16, 2021

The gospel of John is the wordiest of the four. Jesus has deep conversations, one with a Pharisee about what it means to be born anew and how God loves the whole world, another with a Samaritan woman about living water and never being thirsty again. Jesus makes long speeches about himself, teaching moments about his relationship with his disciples, that he is the vine, the good shepherd, the bread of life. The gospel begins with “In the beginning was the Word…”, how creation was brought into being by the spoken word. Jesus speaks words of forgiveness and healing, justice and mercy, love and resurrection, and they are no longer just words but transformative change in human lives. In our conversation with the Jesus story, we begin to realize the weight our words have, even our prayers. We too have the power to shape reality by what we say and what we don’t say.



In his prayer for his disciples, his friends, with his words, Jesus hopes to shape their reality as they face a future without him. The author of John’s gospel uses this prayer to shape the reality of a faith community that has only secondhand, thirdhand knowledge of Jesus. John’s gospel was written sometime around the year 90 to 120 CE, long after any of these events may have taken place. More than anything, Jesus wanted his friends to know that his love for them would not end with his death, that the sacred mystery that bound them together would live on in them and in their life together.

Prayer itself is a mystery. Kierkegaard said that prayer does not change God, but it changes the one who prays. Madeline L’Engle wrote that prayer is not magic but an act of love. I have heard many of you say how much it means to you to know that people are praying for you and the very real power that has in your life. If it is one thing social media does well it is the response to a request for prayer, healing thoughts, good mojo. The gospel in four words: you are not alone. It is empowering to know that people have our back, that there is a web of care around us, that people are thinking about us. We hear the phrase “thoughts and prayers” mocked in the media and by social activists only because when it comes to the responsiveness of leadership and policy change, that is where the action ends rather than begins.



Covenanted community understands that freedom and responsibility not only go hand in hand but are the very nature of love. The apostle Paul likened it to a body in which no one part is more important than any of the others but each in solidarity with the whole. When one suffers, all suffer with that one. When one rejoices, all rejoice together.



Now is the time we need to uplift one another, even more necessary than this past year. We have reached out to one another, helped one another, prayed and grieved and cried with one another, to get us to this point. We need to carry that energy, that strength forward as we make plans to re-open the building. Worship will not be what we remember, what we might be tempted to call ‘normal’. Because there are those in our covenant community who will still need to be cautious, we will all need to be cautious. Some of the very things that make worship and church meaningful to us will not yet be possible like singing, holding hands in our benediction circle, sitting close, a common loaf for Communion.

And it is good and right that we grieve these things. As I wrote this, I had to stop several times and let the tears come. Sometimes it is hard for me to be sanguine or find silver linings. Even as I have great hope, I also feel great loss. I know that in order for my imagination to kick in, I can’t overlook or downplay my heartbreak. As much as we would like to avoid pain, it is pain that often draws us into solidarity with each other and with those whose pain is different than ours. And that is a vital part of what makes us the church that we are.



This is by far the healthiest church I have ever served. I know that you have had your conflicts and tough times in the past. Like any other relationship, that is also part of being healthy. You took time to acknowledge the pain and mistakes that were made and that you are a people with strong personalities and deep convictions. We have come through a difficult set of years with losses of people we dearly love, being separate from one another, many of us having to adapt our livelihoods in complicated and challenging ways, as well as our life together as a covenant community. And I believe it is love—foundational, prayerful, active love that has carried us through and it is love that will carry us into the future, whatever the future may hold.

To live like we’re loved means that we can do hard things together.



To live like we’re loved means we can make mistakes, be vulnerable, forgiving, compassionate with others and ourselves.



To live like we’re loved means we can try new things, imagine possibilities.



To live like we’re loved means knowing none of us does this alone.



To live like we’re loved means knowing there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.



To live like we’re loved means God’s love is enfleshed, embodied in each of us and in our life together.



To live like we’re loved means we are a body, all of us together, no one more important than the other, and yet a special regard for the most vulnerable and marginalized among us and beyond us.



To live like we’re loved means we get vaccinated and wash our hands and wear a mask and keep physical distance because we know it’s not just about us but the communities we live in. And we want to go on loving each other for as long as we can.



To live like we’re loved means to not only acknowledge but joyfully accept that we are many ages and genders, colors and sexualities, many distinctive ways of perceiving and thinking and feeling, many different means of movement and ability, each of us with our own ideas and beliefs and philosophies.



To live like we’re loved means we intercede for each other, celebrate each other, pray for and with each other, grieve with each other, help each other, advocate and agitate for each other.



To live like we’re loved means we strive to live this way in the world, with the world, even though the world is behaving as though it hates to be loved.

To live like we’re loved means that we declare that evil has no home with us and we are to call it out whenever we witness it—apartheid in Israel and Gaza, withholding healthcare to trans youth, more than 300 communities in California without clean drinking water, police violence against Black, brown and indigenous people—because none of us are free until all are free.



To live like we’re loved means we are willing to disrupt our lives, make our lives a sacrament, render love tangible and extravagant in human lives and in this world.



May it be so. Amen.



Benediction – enfleshed.com


Whatever challenges go before us,
so, too, does Holy Wisdom.
We are sent to pay attention.
With subtlety, God nudges.
With beauty, God entices.
With boldness and audacity,
God provokes towards love and justice.
That evil may not deceive us,
the Spirit goes with us and helps us to perceive.