c.s. lewis – Salvaged Faith

Shoulder to Shoulder

Posted on May 9, 2021Leave a comment

Text: John 15:9-15

Exactly one month before the pandemic began, I got away for a few days with some of my best friends in the world.

Stasia and I have been friends since Kindergarten.

Cara and I were assigned to the same table group in fourth grade.

Jana moved into town in seventh grade.

And somewhere in between, Anna and Theresa rounded out our small group.

We forged our friendship in those awkward and complicated years of middle school, where boyfriends changed all the time and school work increased and you never knew who was in and who was out.

But we fit together. We somehow found a way through high school and cheered one another on. We made mistakes and had fights and stayed up way too late making silly home videos.

When we all went our separate ways in college, we began to drift and build new lives…

To be honest, there have been times when there is little that we hold in common, but the bond that we forged is stronger than acquaintances that have come and gone.

Even after twenty-five years, we still try to get together at least once a year to catch up.

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve texted and called and been more connected than perhaps we have been in the last few years.

Somehow this time of isolation has also been a time to really touch base with your people.

The ones that you know will always be there.

Through thick and thin, and joys and struggles.

I know some of you have friends like that in your life.

Whether it is your sister or bible study partner or neighbor or your friend from elementary school.

People that are there for you no matter what and who make you a better person.

And people for whom you are willing to do the same.

As we continue this week to think about what it means to practice resurrection, we find ourselves once again in the farewell speech of Jesus in John’s gospel.

And if we didn’t get the message last week… or the week before that… or any of the other twelve times it shows up in the New Testament… here it is again:

“This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)

This isn’t a suggestion or a recommendation.

The Word of God is standing before the disciples and giving them a new commandment.

A commandment on par with the greatest commandment – to love God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

This goes one step farther.

We are commanded to love others in the way Jesus has loved us.

And then Jesus goes on to tell us what that love looks like.

It looks like sharing your life with your friends… putting your life on the line for your people.

If we do this… we are his friends.

Now, I don’t know about you, but usually my friends don’t go around commanding me to do things.

When I hear the word “command” my mind goes to the word “obey.”

And I obey largely because someone or something has authority over me.

Because I recognize their power to speak truth and direction into my life.

But Jesus turns this idea upside down.

He rejects the idea that he is our master and we are slaves or servants.

Jesus calls us friends.

I think to understand this, we might need to go back and remember what it means to be a friend in the time of Jesus.

If we go back to the original Greek, Jesus uses the word philos to describe this kind of relationship.

It is rooted in philia, one of the four ancient Greek words for love, and the one usually referred to as “brotherly love.”

Think – Philadelphia.

When Aristotle wrote about philia, some three hundred years before Jesus was born, he described friendship as a kind of mutual affection between two parties.

But it goes beyond simply feelings; philia is wanting good for another person, for their sake and not your own. And, it is actively working, as far as you can, to help that good come into being. (Aristotle, Rhetoric)

That is deeper than mere camaraderie or getting together to watch a game or share a hobby.

C.S. Lewis, as he reflects upon these four types of love says that in romantic love, eros, two people stand face-to-face, eyes on one another.

But in philia love, you stand shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the world. You find your place alongside another and your strengths become their strengths. You urge one another on to accomplish something larger than yourself.

“To the Ancients,” he writes, “Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it.”

We can all think of acquaintances and people that we hang out with… people we might call friends.

But it is far more difficult to name those people who stand by our side, shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the world.

The ones we choose to walk alongside through triumph and tragedy.

The people for whom we are willing to set aside our own needs for theirs.

People that know us intimately… all of our secrets, all of our warts, all of our dreams… and who we know intimately in return.

But this is the kind of relationship that Christ wants to have with us.

Jesus knows us inside and out… and he wants us to know him fully.

He wants us to throw in our lot with him, to abide in him, to give 100% of our lives to his cause.

He wants to stand side-by-side with us, shoulder-to-shoulder, working to build the kingdom.

He wants to help us navigate the ups and downs of life and believes that when we walk together, abiding in God’s love, our joy might truly be complete.

You see, like a philos, like a friend, Jesus was willing to lay down his own life for our ultimate good.

Not for his sake, but for ours.

In a relationship between a master and slave, the slave obeys out of fear or out of duty.

They obey because their life or work depends on it.

It is an entirely self-serving and self-interested kind of response, rather than focused on what is good for their master.

A slave is not able to see the bigger picture, merely the next step in front of them.

And a master always puts their own needs above those of their servants.

But we know the great love that God has for this world.

A self-giving, sacrificial, grace-filled love.

As people of the resurrection, we understand the journey of redemption and new creation that God has initiated in Jesus Christ.

We find our joy and our hope in the Kingdom of God, where all people are invited to the table, where death is no more, where we are finally free from the power of sin.

So, when Jesus commands us to abide in his love and to love others in the same way…

To “unselfishly seek the best for one another,” as the Amplified Bible puts it…

we obey, we act, we do so not out of fear, but because we have claimed God’s vision and made it our own.

We love others because we have decided to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Jesus and put the good he seeks above our own life.

And we choose to work for the good of every person Jesus has put in our care.

To love others in the same way he has loved us.

How do we practice resurrection?

We love.

We love in ways that are embodied and deal with the real needs of real people.

We build relationships with people… the ones we know and the ones we don’t know yet.

We draw close to God and let God’s grace and love fill us up.

And then we give it all away.

We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with all of these people, knowing that our joy is found in their good.

We don’t have to wait for heaven.

We get to experience God’s resurrection life right here and right now.

And we do so every time we choose to love.

This Is Love: Friends of God

Posted on May 19, 2019Leave a comment

Text: John 15:9-17

On the last day of school in seventh or eighth grade, six friends walked home from school together. Some of us had known each other since kindergarten. Others came into our lives along the way.
But our friendship was forged in those awkward and complicated years of middle school. The drama of boyfriends. The stress of school work. The cattiness of who was in and who was out.
The six of us spent that afternoon on the last day of school planning an amazing summer and spent nearly an hour rearranging the first letters of our name to discover the perfect acronym for our little group: JSTACK. Jana, Stasia, Theresa, Anna, Cara, Katie.
Together we survived high school and more than a few relationship ups and downs. We thank God every time we get together that YouTube wasn’t invented yet, because we made the silliest videos on sleepovers and no one needs to see them. We celebrated one another’s successes even as we pushed each other on.
And now, more than twenty years later, we still try to get together on a regular basis. We have busy lives, our own relationships and professions and children… but we know that those five other individuals will always be someone that we can turn to. They might live halfway across the country… but they are also only a phone call or a text away.
When I am really struggling with something… they are the first people I turn to.

Have you had friends like that in your life?
People who have always been there for you?
The ones that you have walked through fire with and come out on the other side?

When the great theologian C.S. Lewis wrote about love, he turned back to the Greek words that all get subsumed in our one English word today. In doing so, he helps us to recapture the rich complexity of relationship.
One of the types of love that he lifts up is philia, or companionship. This kind of love usually revolves around some common interest or activity that draws individuals together for a common purpose.
Think back to high school. All of the groups and cliques that formed were a result of philia, some kind of shared love. There were the jocks and the band geeks, the popular crowd and the nerds. These relationships, whether we liked it or not, were to some extent exclusive. The jocks and the nerds rarely showed up at the same parties. The very nature of philia or being drawn together for a common purpose, it means that others who don’t share in your love will not be a part of the group.

And for the most part, that’s okay because we have multiple circles of friends: our golf buddies, and the people we play cards with; our co-workers.

Philia love, however, is deeper than mere camaraderie. When you and others share philia love, you are passionate about the things you do together. You can’t wait for your next opportunity to be with one another.

In romantic love, two people stand face-to-face, eyes on one another. But in philia love, you stand shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the world. You find your place alongside others and their strengths become your strengths. You urge one another on to accomplish something larger than yourself.

In this season of Eastertide, we have been exploring the depths and heights and breadth of the love of God.

Love that is stronger than death
Love that stewards life for future generations
Love that pours out amazing grace

Today, as we dive into this passage from the farewell address of Jesus in John’s gospel, we hear about the greatest love of all: to lay down your life for your friends.
In fact, we are commanded… we are charged… we are urged to embody with one another the kind of love that Jesus has shown us.
We are invited to abide in that love… to make our home and persevere in that love.
And when we do… Jesus calls us not servants, but friends.

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been wrestling with this passage and what it means for us to be called a friend of God.
It is an honor reserved for very few within the scriptures…
Abraham is named as a friend of God in both James 2:23 and Isaiah 41:8.
David also seems to have this very special place in God’s heart.
Were they perfect people? No
But they embodied the same spirit that Jesus invites us to embody… a spirit of obedience.
As Jesus tells the disciples in “If you keep my commands, you abide in my love.”

Keeping commandments…
Obeying orders…
These sounds to me like things that a follower, a servant, or a slave might do.
And yet it is clearly in this context that Jesus says we are NOT servants.
What gives?

I think when we go back to our experiences of friendship in this world that we find a way to navigate this difficult passage.
Friends, after all, are those people with whom we have chosen to throw in our lot with.
They are the ones that we stand with – shoulder to shoulder – facing the world.
Our friends are the ones we walk alongside through triumphs and tragedy.
Our friends know us intimately… and we know them intimately in return.

This is the kind of relationship that Christ wants to have with us.
He wants us to throw in our lot with him, to abide in him, to give 100% of our lives to this cause.
He wants to stand side-by-side with us, shoulder-to-shoulder, working to build the kingdom.
He wants to help us navigate the ups and downs of life and believes that when we walk together, our joy might truly be complete.
He knows us intimately… and he wants us to know him fully…. Every plan, every detail, every reason and rationale.

In a relationship between a master and slave, you obey out of fear or out of duty. You obey because your life or your work or your livelihood depends on it. It is an entirely self-serving and self-interested kind of response. You don’t see the bigger picture, merely the next step in front of you.

But when we see the great love that God has for this world and we choose to abide in that love, our self-interest fades away.
We see the journey of redemption and new creation that God has initiated in Jesus Christ.
We find our joy and our hope in that vision of the Kingdom of God, where all people are invited to the table, where death is no more, where we are finally free from the power of sin.
We obey not out of fear, but because we have claimed that vision and made it our own.
We obey because we, too, want to share that love with others.
We are willing to set aside our own self-interest, move out of our comfort zones, and step forward, with Jesus at our side, to share love and hope and healing and life with others.

Christ has chosen you.
He picked you out of the crowd and declared – you are my friend.
And when we respond and stand by his side, abiding in, remaining in his love,
Then we truly are friends of God.

Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve

Posted on December 4, 2016Leave a comment

In the beginning…

Most years when we get to the season of Advent, we dive deep into the gospel texts. We want to hear about the shepherds and angels, about Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, the magi and the star.

Yet, as Heidi Haverkamp will share with us in this week’s reflections in her book “Advent in Narnia”, the medieval church also focused on Adam and Eve.

They went all the way back to the beginning to remember who we are and why God needed to come to redeem us. December 24^th was the feast day of Adam and Eve… a time to rehearse once again the story of the creation and the fall.

And that tradition continued in the seasonal Lessons and Carols of Kings College… which will be presented next Sunday at Simpson College. There, too, the story of love and light begins where it should… in the beginning.

In the first chapters of the book of Genesis, we find out who we are. We were created by God. We were created for relationship and to care for this world. And having been given the world, we want more, we desire more, we test our boundaries and more often than not… we cross them.

This is the human condition. It is our story.

And so maybe it is not so surprising that when the Pevensie children stumble into Narnia and the magical creatures of the land discover these humans, they are called the “Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve”.

They, and we, are full of goodness and knowledge and love.

Last week, we met Lucy, the youngest child whose heart is full of longing and hope. Her love was so strong that it cut through the fear of Mr. Tumnus and helped to transform his life.

The prophecies of Narnia talk about how these four children will bring hope to the land and break the power of the White Witch…

But they, and we, are also full of temptation, mistakes, and sin.

The next child who makes his way into the wardrobe has a much different experience.

Edmund is the next youngest and he often feels left out and unappreciated. He is jealous and hurt and when he finds himself in Narnia the first to cross his path is the White Witch.

We find in their encounter a parallel to our story in Genesis chapter 3 this morning.

First, there is this figure that is on the edges of our main characters story… a figure that at first seems completely neutral.

On the one hand, we have the serpent, the craftiest and most intelligent of all the creatures who strikes up a conversation with Eve. The serpent asks questions, raises intrigue, and starts Eve wandering about that tree in the middle of the garden.

The White Witch is beautiful, arrives on a sleigh and plies Edmund with warm beverages and questions. She invites him up onto her sleigh and tempts him with his favorite treat: Turkish Delight.

Both are lured in by what is pleasing to the eye and good to eat…

But even more than that, they are both lured by the possibility of what might away it they say yes.

Eve is told by the serpent that she will not die as she supposes, but she will become like God – knowing good and evil. All of creation is at her fingertips, and yet she longs for the one thing that has not been given to her. She is not satisfied with the blessings that surround her.

Edmund is likewise tempted by power… and a life apart from his siblings. “It is a lovely place, my house,” said the Queen. “I’m sure you would like it. There are whole rooms of Turkish Delight…. I want a nice boy whom I could bring up as a Prince and who would be King of Narnia when I’m gone.” As the youngest son, he glimpses in this offer approval and power, love and prestige… to finally have the chance to lord it over his brothers and sisters.

Overcome by the temptation, he agrees to lure his siblings to the palace.

And like Adam and Eve, as soon as Edmund is away from the witch and realizes what he has done, he begins to be filled with shame.

He encounters Lucy in the woods, who tells him the truth about the White Witch and he begins to feel sick to his stomach… That, and he ate too much Turkish Delight.

As we continue our story over the coming weeks, we will experience Edmund’s journey. He will make more mistakes.

Like any good Christmas movie, there has to be a bad guy… a Scrooge, a spinster, a grouch…

But eventually Edmund will experience mercy and forgiveness, life and love. The delight of a Hallmark Christmas move is to watch that characters life turn around. Scrooge finds his generosity. The Grinch’s heart grows. A prodigal son returns home.

We are the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. We have an infinite capacity for good and for evil residing in our souls.

Maybe that is why some of our most popular Christmas songs ask us to reflect upon the state of our souls.

“He’s making a list and checking it twice, Gonna find out whose naughty and nice….

He sees you when you’re sleepin’ He knows when you’re awake.

He knows if you’ve been bad or good… so be good for goodness sake.”

The truth is, we are both.

We are simultaneously sinners and saints.

Our lives are full of mistakes and missteps, but also acts of kindness and generosity.

We are tempted by the glitz and glam and our comfort zones, but occasionally find our way out to be in real relationship with people who are struggling.

The reality of our souls is not as simple as making a list of who is good and who is bad.

And the good news is that while we were yet sinners… while we were still weak… while we are this complicated jumble of goodness and evil… God entered our lives to redeem all of the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve

As we sing in “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” we yearn for the Christ Child to be born in our midst to cast out the sin of our lives. We yearn for new life, for joy, for an end to the tears and the loneliness and the pain.

This season is about transformation and embracing what is good and holy and pure… letting go of the past that has haunted us.

God has come to offer us mercy and forgiveness and life abundant.

Thanks be to God.

What's Your Story?

Posted on April 5, 2015Leave a comment

Living, Risen God, May the words of my mouth be your words, and may I be blessed with the courage to say them. May the thoughts of all of our hearts and our minds, be your thoughts, and may we be blessed with the courage to live them. Amen.

This morning, I invite you to hear our gospel reading from Mark once again…

We know the story, about how the three women made their way to the tomb just after sunrise. They went expecting to finish the funeral rites for their beloved teacher… but what they discovered forever changed their lives.

In that tomb, they discovered not their teacher, but a man in dazzling white who whispered to them:

Don’t be afraid! You’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth, but he’s not here! He has been raised, just like he promised. Go – tell the disciples and Peter that he will meet you in Galilee. He’s waiting for you!

What surprises us about this story, however, as Mark tells it is that the women freeze. They had come to honor a dead body and they were met by a mystery. He has been raised?! He’s… waiting for us? Was it a trap? Was it true? Could it possibly be?

It was all so completely overwhelming. They felt like they were standing in the presence of the holy – like Moses before the burning bush – like Elijah standing on the side of the mountain and hearing God in the silence… and yet nothing made sense.

The world was turned upside down for these three women by this radically holy encounter. Terror and amazement seized them and they turn and fled from the tomb.

Was it unworthiness?

Was it the weight of the message that they were called to proclaim?

Was it fear and awe that come from being face to face with God’s power?

The world may never know. But Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome said nothing to anyone… for they were afraid.

They said nothing to anyone… for they were afraid.

Believe it or not – that is the way that the Gospel of Mark ends. Jesus never shows up in his resurrected glory, there are no witness from the disciples, no sharing of the good news. Mark ends his account of the life of Jesus with three women, fleeing from the scene because terror and amazement had seized them and he tells us they said nothing to anyone.

We, of course, can say this probably didn’t actually happen for a number of reasons.

First of all, Every gospel has Mary Magdalene there at the tomb, witnessing first hand the resurrection of Christ. And every other gospel tells us how she and other women who may have been with her shared the good news with the disciples.

Secondly, if we believed Mark’s account above the others – if that truly was the end of the story – then how did we get here? If they didn’t tell anyone, then how was the church born?

No, Mark has a reason for telling his story this way. His goal, in writing the gospel, is to teach us about what faithfulness looks like. Every time the disciples make a mistake, we learn something. Every time they fail, we find out what it truly means to follow God.

And this cliff-hanger ending functions the same way. Mark tells us the women were afraid and said nothing to anyone… so that WE are invited to live the rest of the story. So that WE are invited to take up the call and tell the story ourselves.

Peter was also called to take up the story. Even after his failure on the night of Jesus’ trial, he was called by Jesus to tell the story of resurrection wherever he went. And he found himself in the home of Cornelius… a Gentile… someone who was never part of the plan of salvation that Peter had imagined… and he found him telling the story of how God saves to even such as him.

We are all called to tell the story, and we are called to tell it to anyone and everyone we meet.

Because the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus… it is your story!

From the Sunday School teacher that first taught you the words to Jesus loves me…

to the grandparent who always encouraged your faith…

to the girlfriend who made you get up and come to church this morning…

Someone, somewhere along the way shared the good news with you. You heard the story and you believed it enough to show up. You have responded. You are here.

And because you are here this morning, you have a story to tell.

Your story might not be as dramatic as peering into an empty tomb and being a first hand witness to the resurrection, but you do have a story to tell.

A story about how God has been present in your life. Your story doesn’t have to be filled with drama… it just has to be yours.

Sure, God chose some people with wild stories, like Moses the murder and Jacob the deceiver and Rahab the prostitute… but God also used people like the farmer Amos and the fishermen James and John and the midwives Shiphrah and Puah, to pass along the good news of salvation to the world.

And we are here because they did.

We are here because they were not afraid to speak about what God was doing in their lives.

Over the next two months here at church, we will be following some of the first disciples of Jesus who were not afraid to talk about what they had seen. And along the way, we will use their stories to help us claim our own story of faith.

We discover in that book of Acts that the message moves from Jerusalm to Samaria and to the ends of the earth… all the way to Des Moines, Iowa in 2015!

But here is the real question we have to wrestle with this morning.

What if they women really had been silent?

What if the disciples had never left Jerusalem?

What if Peter had not gone to Cornelius?

… who would have shared the story?

And who is not hearing the story today, because we are too scared to tell it? Who isn’t hearing the good news of God’s love and mercy and grace and forgiveness because we have been overcome with terror and amazement and haven’t figured out what to say?

We have fear in our hearts because we have come face to face with the holy and we are no longer in control. And any encounter with the holy rightly puts awe and trembling in our hearts.

It is the kind of fear portrayed in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, as the people rightfully fear and revere Aslan the Lion. He is dangerous, he is righteous and there is no escaping him, no containing him, no forgetting him. He is wild and wonderful.

And the wild and wonderful Christ, who cannot be escaped or contained or forgotten is calling our names and has a word for us to proclaim. That on an old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine, Jesus suffered and died to pardon and sanctify us all….and…. AND… this is the part we leave out of the song… AND death itself has been defeated.

Sharron Riessinger Lucas calls this: living in the tension of holy fear and prodigal joy.

We are filled with joy because God has run out to meet us like a father who destroys all barriers in order to welcome home us wayward children! Christ is Risen! Jesus destroyed death in order to give us life! The tomb is empty! Amen!

But in the midst of that joy, that holy fear is present… Because with the empty tomb comes the amazing and awesome announcement that “Jesus is risen and on the loose in this world” (Lucas).

And if God is really out there – really present in this world that we live in… then as the great theologian Karl Barth once said… “each of us has some serious changes to make in our living.”

This morning… you have encountered the presence of God and witnessed the miracle of the resurrection…

So, what will you do?

Will you let fear close your mouths?

Will you roll the stone back in front of the tomb and conveniently forget that this all happened?

Will you be silent?

Or will you find the courage to risk it all to share the good news with the world?

As Mark asks us: when – not if, but when the terror and amazement of the gospel seizes your life – what are you going to do?

The Gift of Joy

Posted on June 27, 2010Leave a comment

How many of you are happy all the time? Every waking minute of your lives? C’mon now… raise your hands! No one? No one at all?

How many of you are joyful? How many of you have the joy of the Lord in your heart every day? Maybe a few?

This morning – we have the blessed opportunity to remember the Spirit’s gift of JOY in our lives. This IS the day that the Lord has made, so let us rejoice and be glad in it… Let us pray.

The first question that comes to my mind when we think about this thing called joy is: What is it? In the scriptures, we read about joy all the time. We hear familiar scriptures about how we are supposed to rejoice always, about how the faithful break out into joyful song and shouting… but really… what is that allusive thing called joy… and how do we experience it?

Let’s take a journey back into time and revisit one of those familiar stories from our childhood. Shari has already reminded us of this tale of adventure and miracle, as Moses led the people through the waters of the Red Sea.

I want you to imagine yourself for just a second as one person among the masses of people waiting there on the edge of the water. You are tired, you are completely out of your element, and suddenly you realize that the very people you are escaping from are about to over take you. You can see the dust from their chariots rising up into the sky and they are coming closer… and closer… and you are camped by the water and there is no where to run.

Are you experiencing joy? Do you have any sense of happiness pouring through your veins? Probably not.

But then, something amazing happens. Behind you, there on the edge of the water, Moses raises up his arms and the winds start to blow. And though you can hardly believe your eyes, the waters are pushed to the side by this blustery breeze and a path of dry ground begins to appear in the midst of the sea.

The people around you begin to shout and Moses commands you to move through the water and fearfully at first, but then in absolute wonder you pick up your pack and move. It is a long journey across, but something propels you. There were signs and wonders done back in Egypt, but this is something else. These walls of water that surround you and threaten to fold in any minute is proof – is a witness – to the fact the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is with you!

Tired you reach the other shore and turn yourself around to see how far you have come. Your people are still making their way across, but they are making it! And that is when you realize the Egyptians have reached the other shore and are about to come through that same miraculous path that was just your salvation.

But then it happens. That strange pillar of cloud and fire that has been traveling before you and behind you descends upon the Egyptians and their chariots get stuck in the mud. They fearfully turn to make a retreat, but the last of your people have reached the shore and Moses steps up to the waters and in an instant, the sea covers the Egyptians and leaves you safely on the other side.

What do you feel now? Standing there in the awesome presence of God’s mighty works… what comes to your heart… go ahead – shout out the first thing that comes to your mind!

As Shari helped us to remember, the first thing the Israelites did was sing… they sang a song to the Lord saying: “The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation”

This song of praise is but the outpouring of joy in the lives of these people. They have witnessed first hand “God-with-them” and like the hymn we just sang… Joy to the World… in the presence of our God, joy fills our hearts.

In Greek – the word for joy is chara which comes from the word “charis” which means grace. Joy is not a state of emotional happiness… joy does not come from within or from other people or from things… joy is the experience of the presence of our God.

That’s not so hard to believe, is it? As King David pours out his heart in the scriptures, he reminds us that he is filled with joy in God’s presence (Psalm 16). As Paul writes to the Philippians from a prison cell – he knows he is surrounded by God’s presence and so he is able to say “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)

The joy that comes into our lives by the grace and presence of God is not the happiness of this world. For in the midst of some of our most painful and trying and difficult times – in the midst of times of grief and sorrow and tears… sometimes that is when joy surrounds us.

Joy comes to us in those dark times when we recognize that the Spirit of the Lord is still with us. Standing on the edge of the Red Sea, looking back and recognizing their salvation… the Israelites sang for joy. Standing at the graveside of a loved one and yet feeling the comfort of God’s presence – we find the strength we need to sing out of joy a song like How Great Thou Art. In the midst of a battle for health, when all else seems dim, we know that we are surrounded by prayer and by God’s spirit and so a smile does come to our face and laugher does echo across the room.

William Wordsworth wrote about being “surprised by joy”–when the grief and pain from his daughter’s death vanished and for a moment he forgot she was no longer with him. He experienced this amazing feeling of joy and it so overwhelmed him that he turned around to share it with his beloved daughter – only to remember again that she was gone. While the poem is about the grief that he feels nearly constantly… even that dark grief and longing is broken into and light could pour into his heart – even if for a moment – because of joy.

C.S. Lewis took that phrase from Wordsworth and he wrote a book describing his conversion to Christianity called Surprised by Joy – in which he pointed to his “accidental discovery and consequent search for the phenomenon” that he came to know as “JOY.” In Lewis’ mind – joy was something akin to the idea of longing… an experience of something so good and so unattainable that it could not be explained.

Joy is what we experience when we know we are in the presence of God. And joy is also our longing to know that presence of God more fully – each and every moment of our day.

So maybe the question that remains is: why aren’t we joyful every minute of every day?

Let’s go back to that familiar story of Moses and the Israelites and the Red Sea. Because, it’s easy to end the story there and have it all wrap up nicely and neatly. God saved the day and the people rejoiced! YAY!

But, this is not an episode of Veggie Tales Tthis is not some isolated story. . Chapter 15 in Exodus goes on with verse 22: Then Moses ordered Israel to set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went for three days in the wilderness and found no water. 23When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. That is why it was called Marah. (which is Hebrew for bitter) 24And the people complained against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’

Three days. Just three days of walking into the desert and already the Israelites have forgotten what God did at the Red Sea. Just three days in the wilderness and they forgot that God was with them. They forgot that God was on their side. The songs of joy in their hearts drifted into songs of despair.

Now, I don’t know about you… but if I learn a new song – it gets stuck with me for quite some time. I think I’ll be singing those VBS songs about God being my hero for weeks to come. In just three days, could they really forget the presence of God?

Apparently they could. And I must acknowledge, apparently we can, too. No matter how beautiful the sunrise is in the morning – sometimes I forget the joy of the Lord by lunchtime. Other things of this world crowd into my mind and my heart and I let the presence of God go unnoticed in my life.

The Israelites began thinking of their calloused feet and their dry lips and the weight of their packs and they thought less and less about how God traveled with them. And so when they reached a place of water and it was bitter, it was the last straw. They sat down and threw a temper tantrum. What are we going to drink?!?!

And in the midst of their despair, they were reminded again of the presence of God. Moses cried out and God showed him a piece of wood, and when Moses threw the wood into the water, the water became not only drinkable… but sweet.

When we believe that God has left us… and when we forget his presence, then joy is not our friend. As Jesus prepares his disciples for his death, that is his reminder. In John, chapter 16, Jesus tells them very plainly that when he is gone from their sight at his time of death – they will weep and mourn. There will be no comfort for them… because everything they think they know about him will have vanished… But that pain would turn into joy for very shortly they would see him again.

In the presence of God, we experience joy. Our hearts are filled with the knowledge that the one who made us is with us… that the one who saved us stands beside us… that the one who loves us leads us on to perfection.

We may not always see God. We may not always recognize God’s presence. But open up your hearts and mind… sit still for just a moment and you will know that God is with you – and you will rejoice.

Amen and Amen.

Four Loves

Posted on February 13, 20102 Comments

** Note: This is a sermon done in pieces throughout the worship service, interspersed with scripture and songs. Also – many thanks to UCC Worship Ways for help with the liturgy that ties all these pieces together (parts are found in the Eros II section) **

A few years ago, I was in Nashville and most of my ministry was to young adults in the congregation. Valentine’s Day was approaching, and I was surprised by the ways in which people without “significant others” felt like they were being left out of the festivities. Left out of the celebration of love. They were depressed and heart broken and lonely. So as we got together to talk with one another about all the mushy, gushy stuff that surrounds this month, we tried hard to remember that love is not an emotion or an action reserved only for two people who “love” each other. It is more than that. It is deeper than that. Love is essential to who we are as human beings. We are creatures who both need to give and receive love. All of us need that.

C.S. Lewis is a great Christian theologian and he wrote a book about love. About four loves actually. The poverty of the English language is that we only have one word to describe this whole range of experiences. And so when this word is co-opted by a holiday or defined in a particular way, we leave out all of the other expressions of this complex and varied thing called love. But C.S. Lewis looked back at the different Greek words that all get subsumed under our conception of love today – and realized that love is a many splendored thing.

PHILIA

As much as our culture talks about individualism and self-identity, the truth is that we would not survive very long in this world without the people around us and the relationships that we have. David would have been absolutely lost in Saul’s court, if it were not for the bond that he had with Jonathan. And love, of one form or another is a part of all of these bonds. It is the glue that cements us together. Perhaps the most common and varied way in which we experience love is through the Greek word, philia, or companionship. This kind of love is always about something, some common interest or activity that draws individuals together for a common purpose.

Just think back to high school. All of the groups and cliques that formed were a result of philia, some kind of shared love. There were the jocks and the band geeks, the popular crowd and the nerds. These relationships, whether we liked it or not, were to some extent exclusive. The jocks just didn’t hang out with the nerds – unless of course you went to a small school like myself, and the jocks were the band geeks, who were the popular kids and they dated the nerds. Anyways. The very nature of philia is that it is exclusive. When you are drawn together for a common purpose, it means that others who don’t share in your love will not be a part of the group. And for the most part, that’s okay because we have multiple circles of friends: our golf buddies, and the people we play cards with; our co-workers.

I do want to say however, that Philia love is deeper than mere camaraderie. When you and others share philia love, you are passionate about the things you do together. You can’t wait for your next opportunity to be with one another.

This is how we think if David and Jonathan. In romantic love, two people stand face-to-face – eyes on one another. But in philia love… those two people… or more… are standing shoulder-to-shoulder, facing their common interests. Both David and Johnathan cared for one another, but their common passion was for Israel even more. Jonathan was willing to give up his claim to the throne, because he knew that David would make a better leader. And as the king, Saul, becomes more and more disturbed and seeks to end David’s life – it is the relationship between Jonathan and David that ends up saving David from death. (Photo by: Mateusz Stachowski)

When we find others who truly care about the same things we do, we find our place. I think that this is truly what it means to be the church. We are drawn into community because we have found others who are in relationship with Christ and because we share a common understanding of what that means. We are connected to something larger than ourselves and find others to travel that journey with us. There is a downside to this Philia love, however. It can become very exclusive. It can shut others out. And when the church only has this kind of love in mind, it is no better than a high school clique. We need to be continually transformed by God’s love, so that our love for one another and Christ will draw us outward and will open the doors of the church.

STORGE

The next type of love is storge, or the affectionate love that we find within families. It is the completely natural warmth we feel towards those people who have also become like family to us – it is a love that cannot be coerced or bought but it is simply present through time. When thinking about storge, I often think about how I felt towards my brothers growing up. My mom would often tell me, “You don’t have to like your brothers, but you do have to love them.” With this type of love, who the person is or what they believe or how they act doesn’t matter. It is our relationship to them and the fact that we are in this together for the long haul that forms our bonds of love.

As I have watched my nephew Aden grow over the last three months, I have witnessed this kind of love. It is the bond between a mother and her child as they nurse. It is the bond between a father and his child as they play. It is made through eye contact, and soft gentle touches, and a warm arm to cuddle into. We enter this world fragile and vulnerable and we need the love of our families to grow and develop. In fact, children who do not receive this kind of love can fall behind in development and have a “failure to thrive.”

This kind of love is about giving and receiving. When families break apart, or when we do not receive love from the people who are supposed to care for us in this way, there is great pain involved. Parents, as hard as they try not to sometimes have favorites and the story of Jacob and Esau shows how it can tear a family apart. But the good news is that we become part of new families throughout our lifetimes; co-workers come to feel like brothers; that wise couple next door, like grandparents. When we open ourselves to others, when we are vulnerable and listen for the vulnerability of others, we can experience this kind of love.

EROS

Eros is about the beloved. It is being in love with the beloved. And it is something we don’t like to talk about in church. When we think of eros love, our minds immediately jump to a sort of passionate sexuality that the church defines, constrains, and then ignores. But physical sexuality is not the sum and total of this kind of love. It is a part, but not the whole.

To love someone with this kind of love is to love them, not because of what we might receive from the relationship, but simply because of who they are, simply because they are the beloved. It is about intimacy with another that is fostered through all sorts of mundane tasks: taking walks, sharing meals, conversing with one another. As Kathleen Norris writes in her book, The Cloister Walk, some of the most sexual people that she knows are celibate monks. She says, “When you can’t make love physically, you figure out other ways to do it.”

This kind of love is a sort of glimpse into divine love. I’ll admit, that I do watch South Park on occasion, and one of my favorite episodes is when Cartman starts a Christian rock band. I thought about showing you a clip of this episode, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find one without horrendous language, so I’ll just have to describe it for you. The kids take popular romantic love songs and simply insert Jesus into the lyrics.

While that may seem sacrilegious… the language of Eros love has often used by mystics to describe their relationship to the divine – as they come to see God as the beloved. Just hear these words from the diary of Beatrice of Nazareth, a thirteenth century mystic: “…the holy woman’s affection was so tender that she was often soaked with the flood of tears from her melted heart, and sometimes because of the excessive abundance of spiritual delight, feels a great closeness to God, a substantial clarity, a wonderful delight, a noble liberty and a ravishing sweetness…”

As we think about God as our beloved… we suddenly remember all sorts of hymns and songs that are in essence, love songs to our Lord… let us join together and sing one of them now… Oh How I love Jesus…

Eros Part II

As we think about the transfiguration of Christ, we often place ourselves in the shoes of the disciples. And we are filled with wonder and awe and love towards this glorious thing taking place right before our very eyes! But the problem is that we can become overwhelmed by the passion that we experience there. You see, even in the presence of God, Eros love, by itself, is never enough. A blind devotion to the object of our affection can be dangerous, be it to our partner or our conception of the divine. And it is because Eros love always begins with ourselves. While it may be directed towards whatever we come to see as the beloved, its source is within us and as such, is far from selfless.

When we fill our lives with Eros love, we become consumed by our passion for the beloved. Peter wanted to stay there in that moment forever. But Christ wants our love to not only be for God, but for others as well. Christ wanted them to leave that mountaintop. He wants to move them to a deeper sort of love.

We often find ourselves searching for these dramatic and holy experiences of God. We want to go up the mountain with Peter, James and John and experience God’s glory. And when we get there, if we have the ability to experience it, we want to say, “it’s good for us to be here… let’s get comfortable.”

We are too often tempted to keep the experience of God’s awesome love to ourselves. We want to enjoy the company of the saints instead of going back down the mountain to continue the work of God. God knows this is a temptation of our hearts, and so I want to invite us now to confess this temptation and to pray for forgiveness together…

God of glory and light, forgive us when we are complacent and comfortable
with keeping the riches of your love to ourselves.
Keep calling us down from our mountains of privilege.
Keep expecting more of us as your disciples.
Keep reminding us to listen to your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.

God’s perfect love surrounds us. And it calls us to stretch and to grow and to always look to the concerns of others. The needs of our world are too numerous to name. Shelter, food, clean air and water… Our gifts touch these needs, but the biggest gift we can give is to love the world so much that we give of ourselves.
Nothing will transform need more than sacrificial love. So as you place money in the offering (plate, basket, etc.) today, don’t let your giving be done. Start planning to go deeper. May God now bless our hopes and dreams.

AGAPE

The highest of all the loves is Agape love. It is the kind of love that within the church we talk the most about and find the hardest to practice. It is a completely self-less love, always directed towards others. It is a love that has no pre-requisites, no conditions; agape love doesn’t depend upon any lovable qualities at all. Simply by being, you may receive this kind of love.

As Christians, we are called upon by God to exhibit this kind of love in our daily lives. Agape love is often referred to as charity – a complete giving of oneself without any expectation of reward or acknowledgement – a complete giving of oneself that reflects the love of God towards us. This is the way that God loves.

One of the most important aspects of our tradition, particularly the Wesleyan tradition, is that there is nothing you or I can do to deserve the love of God. We do not possess any quality that deems us worthy of being “beloved” by God. Whether we say this is a result of our fallen nature, or original sin, or simply because we are mortal and God is divine, we do not deserve the love of God. And yet, the scriptures continually remind us, that God loves us anyway. God speaks us into being and sustains us through her spirit. God provides for our every need, fully knowing we can never repay that kind of love. And God does so, not by standing above us, but by walking beside us in Jesus Christ.

This love, agape love, is so great that I often felt in my life like the others just didn’t matter. Why should I care about storge, philia and eros if I can experience and share agape love?! But C.S. Lewis reminds us that we do not need to throw away silver to make room for gold. Yes, agape love is the highest, and it is the truest love in that it comes from God. We simply need to acknowledge that it is superior, and allow it to be a part of our other expressions of love.

As the scriptures that Jack just shared remind us – we are called to live out that same kind of love toward others. We are called to allow God’s agape love to transform our relationships with friends, with family, and with our beloved. We only find the strength to forgive family members when we can love them unconditionally. Friendships based on our common goals wither up without humility and a genuine desire to care for the other. And the relationships we have with our partners need the charity and grace of God in order to love unconditionally and in truth. We are called to love others not because of something good in them, but because God first loved us.

Benediction: While Valentine’s Day is known as a time for lovers, today, we come together as people who love and desire a relationship with God, to celebrate all of the loves in our life. Let us acknowledge those people who have nurtured us, walked beside us, share common passions, and those who have known us most intimately. As we journey down the mountain, we will struggle to embody Godly love, agape love, with all of these people. It is not an easy task– we continually need to be infused with God’s grace and spirit….. God will make our love holy, if only we ask.