Can These Bones Live?

“Ezekiel connected dem dry bones, Ezekiel connected dem dry bones, Ezekiel connected dem dry bones, I hear the word of the Lord…. Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’, dem bones gonna walk aroun’, dem bones gonna walk aroun’, I hear the word of the Lord!” [sung by the Delta Rhythm Boys and played on Ipod deck.] It’s a great song, a great spiritual, isn’t it? But, do you believe it? Are dem bones really gonna walk aroun’?

Did the exiled Israelites who heard Ezekiel’s prophecy believe it? It was the sixth century BC. Ezekiel, a prominent priest and prophet, was in exile in Babylon, along with the king and the elite of his people. Jerusalem and the temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Along with his people, Ezekiel was in deep mourning. Episcopalians don’t hear much from the prophecy of Ezekiel. In our three-year lectionary this passage occurs in Lent in Year A, and here as an alternative on Pentecost. Another closely related passage from Ezekiel can be heard at the Easter Vigil. That’s it. But Ezekiel is an unusual, even exciting book. Traditionally one had to be a seasoned scholar to be allowed to read it. Why? Because the book – and I commend it to you for your own reading – is filled with arresting images that turn up again and again in later visionary writing. Blown about and lifted up by the Spirit, Ezekiel begins the book with stunning visions of angels, of wheels within wheels, and of God’s glory. He then goes on to catalogue the many ways in which the Israelites have broken their covenant with God. Finally, in the last third of the book, Ezekiel offers a stunning vision of the renewal and restoration of Israel, and of a return from Babylon that would be nothing short of a second Exodus.

Perhaps drawing on the vision of a bone-littered battlefield, Ezekiel suggests for the first time ever in history that resurrection might be possible. Is Ezekiel talking about physical, bodily resurrection? Probably not. Rather, it is the renewal and restoration of the people of Israel that Ezekiel is describing here. As captives of the Babylonians, deprived of the sacred temple, the people who heard this prophecy had every right to say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” When God asks Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel surely thinks, “No way.” But face to face with God, he gives the only – and the truest – answer he can give, “O Lord God, you know.” Only God can make or create new life, so God takes the initiative and orders Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones. God tells Ezekiel to call the bones back to life and assure them that bone would join with bone (“Your toe bone connected to your foot bone, your foot bone connected to your ankle bone….”), and that muscles and skin would grow on them.

The Hebrew word ruach means breath, spirit, and wind, all three. So, we have here a wonderful play on words that calls to mind the creation stories of Genesis (“a wind from God swept over the waters” and “then the Lord formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”). Using this play on words, God further commands Ezekiel to bring the breath from the four winds and “breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” And the newly restored house of Israel clatters to its feet and stands there, “a great multitude,” eager to hear the promises that God offers to the people, to bring them back to the land of Israel, to their own soil, forgiven, restored, and renewed.

Though the prophet uttered the commands, the miracle, of course, was all God’s doing. The agent of the miracle was God’s Spirit. It was a new outpouring of this same spirit that Jesus promised to his disciples on the night before he died. It was a new outpouring of this same spirit, complete with what felt to them like a “rushing wind,” that the gathered disciples experienced on Pentecost. It was the same spirit that equipped them for mission and blew them out into the squares and synagogues of Jerusalem to proclaim new life in Jesus’ name. It was the same spirit that led to the gathering together of the writings we call the New Testament and that has continued to inspire, renew, and empower the community created through the spirit.

Can these bones live? As we look around at the church today, our answer might be the same as that of Ezekiel. We too might want to say, “No way.” However, if God is doing the asking, we just might have the humility to say, “O Lord, you know.” There is no question that we have reason for despair. Although we have tended to see the swelling of church membership in the post-World War II period as the norm, it is more likely that that influx of members was a blip in the long history of the church. Now it is clear that church membership is declining again in North America and Europe. There are fewer and fewer full-time clergy, clergy sexual abuse in parishes and religious orders is coming to light, every level of the church is struggling to make ends meet, parishes are closing, and most members of the current younger generation couldn’t care less about organized religion. They claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” and the vast majority of them claim no religious affiliation whatsoever. Doesn’t Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of the dry bones describe us too? Where is God’s miraculous life-giving spirit?

Perhaps we need to take the long view. Church historians, most recently Phyllis Tickle and Diana Butler Bass, tell us that the church seems to have experienced a major shift about every 500 years. The fifth century saw the beginning of several centuries of a stagnating church, as the Roman Empire declined, classical learning diminished, the eastern and western churches drew apart, and the torch of learning burned feebly in Europe, mostly in monasteries and convents. At the turn of the first millennium the church experienced a renewal of scholarship, mysticism, and devotion. The great cathedrals were built, and many historic religious orders were founded. Five hundred years later the Reformation fractured the western church yet again. But it also engendered a great upsurge in learning, translations of the Bible, and liturgies in the common languages. Ordinary people were able to have more direct and deeper direct access to God. Following the Reformation, in much of Europe, and even in North America until the American Revolution, church and state were tightly intertwined, and religious diversity was rare. Even with the rise of science, secular culture largely supported church membership. Now it is clear that we are entering a new phase of church life and identity. God is doing a new thing, and we are struggling to find new ways of being church. New spiritual groups are arising: intentional communities, storefront churches, street church for the homeless, groups gathering for worship at times other than Sunday morning. We may not know what’s coming next, but we continue to trust God to breathe life into “these slain,” to restore and renew the church that the Spirit birthed on Pentecost.

Can these bones live here at St. Peter’s? Don’t we have some of the same reasons to ask that question about our parish as we do for the wider church? Our congregation is smaller than it was a generation ago, our budget perhaps half of what it was, your priest is half-time, and there isn’t a single twenty-something whom we can say belongs to this church community. Are the bones of this limb of the Body of Christ dried up? Have we lost hope? God willing, the answer to both those questions, is at least, “O Lord, you know.” Hear again God’s promise: “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live … then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.” Hear again Jesus’ promise to his friends: “When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth,… he will declare to you the things that are to come.” As surely as God is doing a new thing in the wider church, I believe that God is doing a new thing at St. Peter’s.

Are we open to what God might be doing here? Ezekiel’s vision reminds us that God alone restores life. Our psalm reminds us that God creates and renews all. Can we give up our preoccupation with the church as it was, and begin to consider the church as it might be? Can we begin to see with God’s eyes and seek out those new paths to which God might be calling us, both in the wider church, and at the parish level? Can we pray that, just like the prophet Ezekiel, we too can be instruments of God’s life-giving power, and we too can say to those who are dispirited and who have lost hope, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live?” And finally, can we answer with the Psalmist, “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being?”

Sing one more time with me: “Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me, Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me; melt me, mold me, fill me, use me; Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me.” [Sung by congregation.] Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on us.

They Prayed

Jesus was gone! The forty days since the disciples had realized that he was alive again, after his crucifixion, had gone by so fast. Luke tells us that Jesus had spent most of those forty days preparing the disciples to carry on his mission. Jesus reminded them that he couldn’t stay with them forever, and that he would empower them for mission by sending them the Holy Spirit. Even so, the disciples weren’t prepared for what happened in Bethany that day: Jesus just disappeared from sight. Even though two angels told them Jesus had at last returned to heaven, and that he would eventually come back, they were still confused. Jesus was gone! What would happen next?

We recognize the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry and his return to heaven on Ascension Day, always forty days after Easter, and therefore always on a Thursday. Ascension Day was, and really still is, a major feast in the church. In some parishes, it’s still a day for a festal Eucharist and, often, a potluck feast. Now, though, Ascension Day is usually passed over or commemorated on the following Sunday.

Certainly it’s important to remember Ascension Day. Even though the whole idea of Jesus’ ascension into heaven is hard to grasp, the Ascension is a core part of our faith. Indeed, we continue to affirm its importance every time we repeat the Nicene or Apostles’ Creed. Even so, there’s also a good reason to keep this Sunday as the Seventh Sunday of Easter, as the middle of a special time between Ascension Day and Pentecost. We need to pay attention to where Jesus’ disciples were – and we are – in this in-between time. For this was a time of uncertainty for Jesus’ first followers. They had absorbed his teaching, and they had experienced his departure. Now they were back in Jerusalem, waiting for the fulfillment of his promise, the coming of the Holy Spirit. There were actually quite a few of them. The verses preceding the ones we’ve heard this morning remind us that the remaining eleven of the original twelve, minus Judas, several women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, Jesus’ brothers, and many other disciples had come together in Jerusalem. Indeed, as we heard, there were altogether “120 believers” waiting for the beginning of the next act, waiting to be empowered by the Holy Spirit and sent out to carry on Jesus’ mission. We might wonder where indeed they actually were. Do you remember the Adam Hamilton DVD? Perhaps they were all gathered in that huge upper room. They knew they were in a time of transition, and so they patiently waited – together.

Aren’t we at St. Peter’s in a similar time of uncertainty and waiting, a similar time of transition? In some ways, the church is always in a time of transition, as we live in that “middle time” between Jesus’ resurrection and his return, and as the secular culture continues to change around us. And, of course, liturgically we are in a transition time. During this Easter tide we too have again been instructed as to the meaning of resurrection, and we too look forward to being infused anew with the gifts of the Spirit. However, I think that we are in a time of transition as a parish too. This parish has seen much change in the last two decades, even in the last few years. Clergy leadership has changed several times, many key lay leaders are gone, some to death, some to relocation, much of the next generation is gone too, and even with part-time clergy leadership, the budget is not balanced. And yet, aren’t there also signs of new life among us? For one thing, we’re still here! Plus, in the past year, we’ve been blessed with two new families. Even so, we too might be wondering: what’s next?

Perhaps there are some clues in that upper room. Let’s go back upstairs and take a closer look at what happened there. The first thing we notice is that, as the disciples were waiting, they came together. Although they had scattered when Jesus was arrested and executed, in this time of uncertainty, they supported and took care of each other. They devoted themselves to in-reach, staying together, studying Scripture, and teaching each other. More important, they prayed. We learn from the verse before the beginning of our lection, that “they were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.” Then, the disciples took stock of themselves. They looked at who they were, and what gifts and skills they had. They discerned who was missing, and they understood that it was important to replace Judas among the inner core of apostles. Then they prayed some more, they “cast lots,” perhaps they threw dice or flipped a coin, and they asked God to show them what God’s will was for them. We may raise our eyebrows at the “casting of lots” part, but, rest assured, that was a common practice in the ancient world for discerning God’s will. Finally, having done their best, the disciples accepted the outcome of their process and appointed Matthias as Judas’s replacement. Did the other man, Joseph Barsabbas harbor any resentment at not being chosen? The account in Acts doesn’t record any. Indeed, the New Testament says nothing more about the lives of either man.

If we come back down from the upper room and look at ourselves, are we still grieving the loss of old friends and old ways of being church? Are we wondering whether there are ministries “out there,” we need to look at? Are there ways to strengthen our internal life that we need to pursue? Those of us engaged in the Common Ministry process see it as a way of renewal for St. Peter’s. However, as we work at that process, learn new tools, and set out on the new paths to which Jesus might be leading us, we still might take a page out of the earliest disciples’ playbook. Like them, we can support and care for each other. We can gather together and pray for ourselves, for each other, and for this parish. We can discover how to listen more attentively to God. Some of us are celebrating the Eucharist and learning more about prayer on Wednesday evenings. Come and be part of the gathered ones. Secondly, we can take stock of who we are. At the Common Ministry meeting in March, the team made a preliminary scan of the talents and skills in this parish. We are an immensely talented group! I invite you to join the process on June 3rd, when we will take a closer look at all our many spiritual gifts. You don’t think you have any spiritual gifts? Believe me, we all do. We simply need to discern what they are, and where we can exercise them. We can discern too who is missing from our parish. We began to consider that question last week, and we can continue discerning who else should be in our midst.

Like the disciples we can then offer our needs up to God in prayer. All of our work as a parish is grounded in prayer. We remind ourselves of the need for prayer when we open our Vestry meetings or other important gatherings with prayer. We can also pray for specific aspects of our parish life. We can pray for our ministries. I invite you to support and pray for our young people, our worship life, our diaper ministry, and Loaves and Fishes. I invite you to pray for those who are here. A couple of weeks ago, I asked you to look around, choose a person here, and pray for that person during the week. I invite you to do that again this week. And we can pray for those who are not here. Can you pray for and then invite here those who are missing? And here’s something else you can do. Last summer, we were blessed to welcome two new families into our parish. I am now praying that two more new families will join us this year. Will you join me in that prayer?

There’s an old hymn that some of you may know, “Are ye able?” The fourth verse and refrain of it go like this:

Are ye able? Still the Master
whispers down eternity,
and heroic spirits answer,
now as then in Galilee.

Lord, we are able. Our spirits are thine.
Remold them, make us, like thee, divine.
Thy guiding radiance above us shall be
a beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

We are able. We are able, because we know that Jesus has been praying for his followers since the night before he died for them, and is praying for us still. We are able, because we know that, just as he promised to his first friends, he still promises to us, that he will empower us with the Holy Spirit, and that he will strengthen us a community able and willing to reach out to others. As we look towards Pentecost, we join our prayers with his. Come, Holy Spirit, come to us in this time and place. Come to us when we sit in silence and when we are moving too fast. Surprise us, revive us, and shape us into the Body of Christ. Amen.

Who's Missing?

“Oh my Lord,” said Peter, “it’s a second Pentecost! Didn’t God tell us through the prophet Joel, that God would ‘pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit,’ God said. And it happened to us Jews in Jerusalem, as we waited there, just as Jesus had told us to, before he left us for good. We were able to speak in the languages of the other Jews who were gathered there in Jerusalem – and they understood us! And now it’s happened again!” Peter and the rest of the Jewish disciples had indeed experienced in Jerusalem an unprecedented and astounding outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And then, just as the Spirit had driven Jesus out into the wilderness, the Spirit drove Peter and his friends out into the squares and synagogues of Jerusalem, and then, even further out, into the synagogues of other towns. At last they came to Joppa, on the coast, where Peter preached about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

A little ways up the coast, in Caesarea Maritima, a Roman city, the centurion Cornelius was praying. A “righteous gentile,” Cornelius had a vision of an angel, who told him to send for a Jewish fisherman turned preacher named Peter. Meanwhile, Peter was having a vision of his own. He saw a great sheet come down from heaven, filled with animals that Jews were forbidden to eat. “Take and eat,” a voice told him. “No, Lord,” swore Peter, “I have never eaten anything unclean.” To Peter’s astonishment, the voice replied, “Don’t call anything profane that God has made clean.” Three times this happened, and then the whole sheet was drawn back to heaven. Still meditating on this astonishing vision, Peter heard Cornelius’s servants knocking on the door. They asked him to come with them to Cornelius’s house. Now Jews and Gentiles were forbidden by Jewish law to associate with each other. By even accompanying the servants of a Roman officer, Peter was risking ritual defilement and exclusion from his community. Nevertheless, encouraged by the Holy Spirit, Peter set off for the Roman city. When Peter heard Cornelius’s story, he finally understood the vision that he had been given. He said, “At last I see that God shows no partiality – rather that anyone of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” And he began to teach Cornelius and his household about the marvelous things that God had done in Christ.

Did Peter finish his sermon? No, as we discover in today’s reading, the last part of this wonderful story. The Holy Spirit had one more surprising trick up her sleeve. Before Peter could finish speaking, the Holy Spirit descended on all these Gentiles. It was astonishingly clear, even to these law-abiding Jewish disciples of Jesus, that the Spirit had come on the Gentiles as well. Out in the desert, the Ethiopian Eunuch, as we heard last week had asked Philip, “There’s water. Is there anything to keep me from being baptized?” In the same way, seeing the clear signs of the Holy Spirit among Cornelius and his family, Peter asked, “What can stop these people who have received the Holy Spirit, even as we have, from being baptized with water?” Not only were they baptized, but Peter and his friends actually stayed in the Gentile house forging bonds with these new believers.

It’s hard for us to appreciate what a frightening step baptizing and accepting these Gentiles as fellow followers of the Way was for Peter. The closest analogies we have in our own time perhaps are people who had the courage to leap over the rigid racial barriers of the pre-Civil Rights American South, the Hindu caste system, or South Africa under Apartheid. Inclusion of Gentiles in what was initially a Jewish movement was unprecedented in the ancient world. Unquestionably, the observant Jews among Jesus’ first followers were astounded that the Holy Spirit would command them to proclaim the good news to Gentiles. And we know from the rest of the Book of Acts that the earliest Christians continued to struggle with God’s command to include all ethnicities, genders, nationalities, and social classes in Jesus’ beloved community. Eventually, Paul, or perhaps one of his disciples, would write convincingly to the Christian community at Ephesus of the decision to reach out to Gentiles. “Christ is our peace,” he wrote, “who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of hostility that kept us apart. In his own flesh, Christ abolished the Law…. Christ came and ‘announced the Good News of peace to you who were far away, and to those who were near….’” (Eph.3:14,17). However, it was through Peter’s first tentative and reluctant encounter with Cornelius, through the driving force of the Holy Spirit, that God laid the foundation for what God is seeking to create through the church in every age: a community bound together through allegiance to Christ, in which all divisions are forever broken down.

As we look around at St. Peter’s, do we see such a community? In some respects, we are a diverse community. And yet, as I look around me, I wonder who is missing from our community. Who is unable to share their gifts with us? Are we, for example, able to accommodate someone in a wheelchair? We know that some of our people have difficulty hearing. What are we doing to include them in worship? Can we do more for those who have limited vision? Are we adequately serving families with infants? Are there Anglicans from other parts of the world who can teach us different ways of following Jesus? Might we do more for those who live next door or who meet downstairs? Whose gifts and contributions are we missing, and to whom might the Holy Spirit want to send us, if only we were paying attention?

Mark Pinsky tells the story of the residents of a group home for people with developmental disabilities in western Pennsylvania.1 In their first attempts to attend church, the residents had been asked not to return: they were too noisy, they were disruptive, and their physical or vocal limitations made members of the congregations they were visiting uncomfortable. Finally, Pastor Sue Montgomery of Nickleville Presbyterian Church agreed to work with the group home residents. Nickleville Presbyterian was a small congregation with a profound sense of hospitality and inclusion. Not only had the congregation supported a family that had not institutionalized a disabled child, they had learned how to minister to “all sorts and conditions” of people, to people with disabilities, to those who wrestled with questions of sexual identity, to those who had been in prison, and to those who struggled with addiction. Four people committed themselves to a ministry with the group home residents that the congregation called Training Towards Self Reliance.

Within two years the group home residents were active members of the congregation. They are now full participants in Sunday morning worship and members of the extended church family. They read the lections, play instruments or sing, assist with prayers, and receive offerings. Now the congregation is ministering to residents of other group homes, with on-site services and worship in church. Even staff members, who had never before attended church, have blossomed in their participation as they lead the group home residents in proper worship behavior. People with disabilities have even participated in raising funds for the town’s food pantry. Pastor Montgomery admits that including people with developmental disabilities into their parish life has not been easy. The congregation has had to make changes to accommodate the group home members. Regular members have had to overcome their fear, uncertainty and discomfort. They have had to learn tolerance, understanding, and acceptance. They have had to come to see the group home residents the way Jean Vanier came to see the residents of the L’Arche communities: as beloved children of God, who have their own gifts to give us, their own joys to teach us, and their own deep sense of God’s love to share with us.

“At last I see that God shows no partiality…. What can stop these people who have received the Holy Spirit, even as we have, from being baptized with water?” Who is missing at St. Peter’s? I invite you to take the slip of paper in your bulletin right now. There’s a pencil in every pew. I invite you right now to answer these questions: who is missing from St. Peter’s? Who would I like to invite here? Where would I be willing to go and help lead a worship service? Put your paper in the offering basin. Sign your name if you can. And give thanks to God, that God shows no partiality, that Christ has broken down the barriers that separate us, and that the Holy Spirit is with us still, sending us out to share the Good News with all our sisters and brothers.

1. “A Spirit of Hospitality,” Alban Weekly, April 23, 2012, accessed at http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9913&utm_source=Alban+Weekly+2012+April+23+A+Spirit+of+Hospitality&utm_campaign=amazing+gifts+facebook&utm_medium=email on May 10, 2012. Adapted from Mark I. Pinsky, Amazing Gifts: Stories of Faith, Disability, and Inclusion (Alban Institute, 2012).

Beloved, Let Us Love One Another

Who is God? What does God expect of us? Around the turn of the first century, a beleaguered Christian community in Asia Minor (in what is now Turkey) struggled with these questions. Within their fledgling community people were arguing with each other. Even though they were deeply committed to Jesus they still disagreed about the nature of God, whether it was possible to know anything about God, who Jesus was, and how they were supposed to live out their faith. Worse yet, these Christians were a tiny minority in the vast sea of Jews, Greeks, Romans, and people of other ethnicities. Unlike those around them, they welcomed into their midst both Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free. They let both women and men lead them. They were mostly despised by their neighbors, who thought them at worst insane, or at best misguided. Amidst the tension within and the disdain and persecution without, their leaders wondered if they would survive as a community of Jesus’ disciples. And then a series of letters arrived. It wasn’t clear exactly who they were from. The writer just called him or herself “the elder.” The letters helped the Christians answer some of their questions about God and begin learning how to live out their commitment to the Way of Jesus.

Today we know these letters as the first, second, and third letters of John. In our Bibles they now come close to the end of the New Testament. While the second and third letters seem to be truly letters, the first letter, from which our Epistle reading comes this morning, seems to be more like a sermon or essay than a letter. Don’t be confused by the name! It’s unlikely that the Gospel according to John, these letters, and the Revelation to John were all written by the same person. John was a very common name in the ancient world! What is likely, though, is that the writer of these letters and the writer of the Gospel according to John shared many ideas, may have been part of similar Christian communities, and may have known some of the same accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Certainly, they used similar language to convey their ideas. If you’ve been hearing echoes of the Gospel of John in our Epistle readings, you’re in good company!

Even though as disciples of Jesus we live in a very different time and place from those ancient Christians who first heard “the elder’s” letters, we may have some of the same questions they did. As I listen to what people share in our weekday Eucharists or in our study sessions, I hear people wondering who God is for us now. Many of us are still grappling with who Jesus is, and we certainly wonder what God expects of us in the twenty-first century. Perhaps this part of “the elder’s” letter can give us some clues.

Actually, “the elder’s” first letter is hard to follow. Like Jesus’ speeches in the Gospel according to John, the writer does not follow the linear arguments so familiar to us moderns. Instead, following the high-toned rhetorical style of the ancient world, the writer keeps spiraling back and forth over similar themes. Fortunately, the portion we’ve heard this morning gives us the heart of the letter, allowing us to hear what it is truly most important. To begin with, the writer reminds us of God’s love. Indeed, we are God’s beloved. God loves us, and all creation, with a deep, active, sacrificial love. God loves us without any quid pro quo, without waiting for us to love God first, and without any expectation of a return of God’s “investment” in us. How do we know this? We know it because we believe that Jesus was truly the Word of God, who became flesh and moved into our neighborhood. We know it because we have seen in Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, the depth and breadth of God’s love for the world.

How then do we respond to the discovery of God’s sacrificial love, love which was manifested most clearly to us in Jesus’ sacrifice? If we are committed to being Jesus’ disciples, if we “abide in him,” then we respond by attempting to love, albeit perhaps feebly, in the same way that Jesus loved. And right now, let’s be clear: the love “the elder” is talking about is not a mushy, romantic love. The love “the elder” is talking about is a verb, not a noun, an action, not a feeling, a sacrifice of self for the sake of another. And, what is more important, the love we are attempting to act out in our lives goes in two directions. We are called to love God, to praise God, and to thank God for all that God has done for us. And, no surprise, we are called to love those around us, the brothers and sisters we can see. In the Gospel of Matthew we hear that loving God is the first and greatest commandment, and that second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. Here “the elder” goes one step further and suggests that love of God and love of neighbor are the same, that they are inseparable, indeed that we express our love of God through our love of our brothers and sisters. And we express our love with this assurance: that God will continue to deepen our love, continue to transform us, and continue to enable us to become more and more like Jesus himself.

Is it easy to love others in the same way that God loves them? As the community to whom “the elder” was writing knew well, it is very difficult. For that community, as for us, it is often difficult to love those who are right in our very midst. Those who live in convents and monasteries – communities dedicated to practicing and modeling God’s love – know that even in the best families and Christian communities, some of us are harder to love than others. Perhaps, though, knowing already that all of us are loved by God can help us to see that all are valued by God, and that all have a place in the Body of Christ.

I have struggled in my own life with understanding the value to God of all of God’s children. I often feel as if I have taken only baby steps in learning to love my brothers and sisters as fellow beloved children of God. As some of you know, I spent the summer of 2006 at Children’s Hospital in Columbus doing what we call clinical pastoral education, i.e., serving as a pastoral care intern. During that summer I met many severely disabled children, children who would spend their lives blind or deaf, children who would never walk, children who might never be able to dress or even toilet themselves. I struggled with how to be pastorally present to these children, children who were so different from my own competent and successful grown children. Then I began to pay more attention to the parents of these children. I remember one young mother, who patiently held her infant day by day, loving him despite his uncertain future. I remember the parents of a twelve-year old girl, lovingly giving her the most basic services as she lay inert in her bed. I remember the foster mother of two disabled children. Although she and her husband had two “normal” children, they especially felt called to foster those children whose disabilities made them unlovable for other foster parents. As I saw real love in practice in those parents, I began to share their love for their children, began to get an inkling of the goodness and value of these children, despite – or maybe because of – who they were.

I began seeing these disabled children through their parents’ eyes after reading Henri Nouwen’s account of living in a L’Arche community. The L’Arche communities were founded in France in1964 by Canadian philosopher Jean Vanier. L’Arche is the French word for shelter, and the L’Arche communities enable “normal” people to live with severely mentally challenged people. “The purpose of these specifically Christian group homes, says Vanier, is not to ‘normalize’ the disabled according to the standards of society, or to solve all their problems, which is never likely to happen, but rather to celebrate them as sacred gifts of God who have their own gifts to offer us.”1 When we first meet disabled people, suggests Vanier, we may be afraid of them. Or we may think we need to leap in and help them. But when we meet severely handicapped people, they really want to ask us just two questions: do you consider me human, and, more important, do you love me? If we meet the disabled on their own ground, says Vanier, “we behold them with wonderment and thanksgiving. We embrace them as fully human and love them for who they are. We can even see the face of God in them, for God uses the weak to confound the strong.”2

“We love because he first loved us…. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” And so we trust that as we continue to draw nearer to Jesus, as we continue to deepen our relationship with God, as we let God’s love flow through us to others, as we begin to see God in the faces of those around us, we will continue to mature in our ability to love: God’s love will be perfected in us. May it be so.
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1. Daniel Clendinen, “A Father, A Son, and Two Important Questions,” Journey with Jesus, May 6, 2012, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml
2. Ibid.