Staying human

 

John 15: 9-17
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 5, 2024


Photo of a dozen brown eggs in a plastic holder, each with a different face drawn in black marker: unsure or anxious, determined or mischievous, nervous or excited, happy/laughing, silly eyes with tongue out to the side.




Earlier this week I was thinking about emotions, feelings like joy and love, sadness and anger and fear. As much as they are anything else, emotions are also chemicals, aided by neurotransmitters, going to and from our brains to organs and cells in our bodies and back again. There’s also interpretation of our emotions and how we attach meaning to what we are feeling and experiencing. Then there’s our ability to self-regulate our emotions and to be able to experience something negative without allowing it to affect us personally. That’s a level of being human that I have yet to master.



Speaking only for myself, it seems to me that many of my emotions can be attributed to longing, a deep sense that things are not as they could be for so many, that there are things—realities, people—that I have lost, that we all have lost. Our culture tends to water down our longing into nostalgia, to deal with our anxiety about moving into a changing future by trying to hold on to a familiar past. I long for wholeness, for peace that rises from dissent and disorder, for everyone to experience safety and the knowledge of their own worth. I long for justice, for the righting of wrongs done, for healing for those who have suffered from those wrongs. I long for broken systems to be revealed for what they are and replaced with holistic ones.



And yet I also have occasions of profound satisfaction, being in the moment, immersed in God’s love, recognizing I have all I need, dipping into that undercurrent of joy. I feel great pride that there is so much good work being done by amazing human beings, including all of us who call the New Ark our spiritual home, each in our own way.



I think we were intended for satisfaction and contentment, that we have everything we need, that each day is a gift. And yet it seems to be part of the human condition to want more, to protect ourselves and others from pain and suffering, to long for a place and time where pain and suffering are no more and every tear is wiped away. Because pain is also part of the human condition.



Jesus knows this. He knows what will happen to him and what the disciples will be in for themselves. And yet he still has joy. The world didn’t give it, the world can’t take it away. Jesus abides in God’s love; God’s love abides in him, and from that love he gives himself away. The Greek word for that love is agape. It is a love that is found in community, in communion with others. It is a love that accepts that we cannot be everything, not even close on some days; rather that we are made whole in community. I don’t know who said it but my favorite quote about our life together is this: “The gift of community is to be absolved of the burden to be complete”.



Perhaps today you are not able to be joyful. That’s okay. We will hold your joy for you until you are ready to hold it. Perhaps today you are not able to pray or to have faith in God or human beings or yourself. That’s okay. That’s why we pray together, why we worship together, serve together, have community together. Part of community life is humor, what Anne Lamott calls “carbonated holiness”, laughter shared, where we don’t take ourselves too seriously but maybe just enough to remember our humanity is our divinity.


Why did Jesus go to the Japanese restaurant?

Because he loves miso.


Love you, Church. Amen.



Benediction – enfleshed.com

What is Holy Love inviting you towards today? 
Courage, softness, action, rest?
May you seek it wholeheartedly, beloved.
Because our liberation is bound,
we must move in many ways.
Go boldly with the God of Possibility.
Amen.

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