Fifth Easter - May 14, 2006

    A woman’s husband had been in declining health for some time and had now become bed-ridden.  She had stayed by his side day and night during all this time.  One morning, he motioned for her to come nearer.  As she sat by his bedside, he said, “You know what?  You’ve been with me all through the bad times.  When I got fired, you were there to support me.  When my business failed, you were there.  When I got shot on that hunting trip with that high ranking elected official, you were at my side.  When we lost the house, you gave me support.  When my health started failing, you were still by my side.  You know what?”

     “What dear?” she asked quietly.

     “I think you bring me bad luck,” he said.

      Love is not always rewarded.  Not on this side of eternity, anyway.  The great reward for those who give genuine love comes in God’s time, on God’s timetable, and in a dimension about which we can no little.  We have God’s promises, shared most exquisitely in the mission, ministry, and message of the Incarnate One, Jesus the Christ.  To get a glimpse of the degree of God’s love means we must see it as demonstrated in a particular life.  It may well be two thousand years old, but it is as fresh and alive as the morning sunrise.  The deepest meaning of the claim that “the Lord has risen indeed” is that we continue to see God’s love in a particular life that is present with us every moment of every day.  The requirement to see that deepest meaning, of course, is faith.  Faith makes the love of God concrete for us.

     Our problem with the commandment Jesus gave that we live lives characterized by love is precisely that.  We can accept it in the abstract, but we have great difficulty loving in concrete terms.  We love in general, not in particular.  We love in theory, not in practice.

     It is very difficult in the living of our Christian lives to remember that “love” is a verb, not a noun.  Oh, yes, I know you would find it in Webster’s with a small “n” after the definition, but that deals with a grammatical fact, not a theological proposition.  Love is what we do, not so much what we think or feel or make.  Love was and still is the favorite word ever spoken by Jesus the Christ.  It is central to our Christian journey that we make it our favorite word and put that word into concrete practice.

     So, how do we do that?  As we are loved in particular, we, too, must love in particular.  We can start by remembering how important names are.  Jesus loves each one of us in particular, by name.  Those people whom God puts in our path every day have names.  This person is the one whom God loves and even if we do not like them, we must love them, ask God to bless them, pray for them, and wish every blessing for them.  That may be particularly difficult if it is someone who may have wronged us, someone who may have done something with which we disagree, or someone who has abused or belittled someone else.

     I would suggest to you that the newer plagues at the D-Day Memorial, like the rows and rows of names at the Vietnam Memorial, attest to the power of recalling particular names.  Those “Bedford Boys” have family, friends, neighbors, classmates who remember them.  These particular names bring to mind not just heroes, but brothers, sons, husbands, friends who gave the “last full measure of devotion.”  In loving some of them, we grow to love and be grateful to each one of them. 

     We are also reminded that we live out our love in deeds.  Love is not so much a thought as it is an action.  The power of our ecumenical, community-wide effort at Bedford Christian Ministries, the Christian Free Clinic, Shepherd’s Table, MedsHelp, and several other outreach ministries is that deeds of love, through your generosity, are done to particular people.  Often the only reward is that those who receive do loving deeds in return.  Sometimes it is just a smile, a hug, a tear, or a grunted “thanks.”  It is enough.

     It is sometimes said that we live in an impersonal world.  That can never be true for the Christian community.  Our very faith says that in the Incarnation God loves each of us in particular, that God sent the only Son into the mess and mire of this world, that we might know beyond words, beyond thought, and beyond feeling that we are loved.  

     Finally, we live out our love in words.  This is perhaps the most difficult one for us.  We don’t always think before speaking.  We don’t guard our words and measure them before unleashing them into the arena of sound.  Just as our words have the power to heal, so they have power to wound and destroy.  We must always strive to avoid idle gossip that can easily wind its way over into character assassination.  I challenge us to say only positive things about others, speak directly to them should we have some concern or issue, and walk away or hang up if conversations venture into slander or gossip. 

      All the loving deeds in the world can be unraveled by the misplaced word or unfounded criticism.  There is an old piece of advice that says, “We have been given a brain and a mouth; don’t use the second before fully engaging the first.”

     It is my firm belief that all of us want to be more loving people.  We can grow toward being a more loving person if we love particular people, whose names we know, if we engage in loving deeds, and if we guard well the words we use.

     Jesus did say, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  And what does God require of us but to love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with our God.  Amen.