Learning To Love
Sermon
Just before Fiona our eldest daughter was married, we dug out the old cine films, and the whole family sat down together to wallow in an evening of unrestrained nostalgia.
We had considerable footage of our two eldest children, Fiona and Alex as toddlers, and oohed and aahed all over again at their bright blond curls and their cute little antics. But by the time Rebecca appeared on the scene, seven years later, the cine camera had lost some of its appeal. So we had only one or two films of her, notably being bathed in the washing-up bowl on a camping holiday in Wales.
The films brought back some memories of those far-off days, but mostly I find that other than photographs and cine films, it's all something of a haze. I have a very few snapshots in my mind of the childhood of my family, but most of it has gone. I'm left with a general feeling about it all, but few really clear memories. Such a little while, and now it's gone forever.
As a young mother, I can remember older women imploring me to enjoy those years, for they'd be gone in a flash. "The Golden Years," they said, "and they're over so quickly." At the time, I was constantly tired with the incessant demands of young children, and sometimes felt almost suffocated by their needs. And it felt like it was all going on forever, with no end in sight. So I used to laugh and think, 'Thank goodness! Maybe then, when they're grown up, I can get a life!' But now two of them are grown up and the third is well on the way, I find I'm telling young Mums much the same! Enjoy it while you can, for it's such a little while.
I now realise that during that little while, I did have a life, and a very good life, although at the time, I quite often wanted something entirely different. Although I wasn't at all aware of it, I was learning something very important, and I was learning it from my family. I was learning how to love. I was beginning to learn what love is about.
I was one of the lucky ones. I had a secure and loving and Christian childhood myself, so I had a good base on which to build. You might have thought, with a background like that, I'd know all about love. I'm sure, at the age of twenty-something, married a few months and with the first baby on the way, I was absolutely certain I knew all about love! How wrong can you be?
My husband and my children taught me what love was really about. I learned that no matter how short-tempered I was, because I was unbearably tired and I couldn't stand the children's noise any longer, they still loved me. I learned that no matter how much I hurt their feelings, because I hadn't understood in some way quite what their needs were, they still loved me. I learned that however unjust I was at times, they still loved me.
And I discovered I couldn't help but respond to that love. Gradually, gradually, through the grindingly hard work, and the joys, and the fun, and the delights of childhood, through the pride and the pleasures, and through the upsets and the hurts and the irritations and the anger, and all the rest that go to make up family life, a bond was being forged in our family. And it was a bond of love. We were all learning to love in different ways, because at different stages of life your experience of love changes and deepens and matures.
At the stage of early parenthood you learn something about selfless giving. About going the extra mile, because your children need that. About putting your own needs after those of your family, because you want them to grow up as good people and to reach and enjoy their own potential. And I also learned that my 'selfless giving' had limitations. That although it involved supporting and protecting my family, it also involved protecting me, sometimes selfishly.
So looking back now and reflecting on that time, on that "little time", I can begin to look at God's self-giving love, shown through the person of Jesus, and marvel that it's a love without limitations, that it will even accept death without drawing back.
Today's reading starts with: When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified." It was at the Last Supper, and it was Judas who had just gone out. Judas the traitor. Yet somehow, Jesus is aware that very act of treachery ushers in the time when his self-giving love can be shown to its fullest extent.
You might have thought his love was shown best through all he was able to do for other people. His healing, his concern for them, his teaching, his attractive personality. Just being with Jesus must have been a healing experience, as the woman with the haemhorrage realised.
Yet Jesus chose to die through the act of a traitor. How does that indicate love for humanity?
Perhaps it was something about choosing to follow the path of suffering. We all suffer in this life one way or another. We suffer many little pains and many little deaths, and at some point, we all suffer that major pain of bereavement, the death of someone we love. Jesus knows what major pain feels like. He's been there and experienced it. Perhaps he chose to experience it so that he could share our pains and sufferings. That's a self-giving love without limitations.
And perhaps it was something about submitting to human wishes, even though those wishes were selfish and thoughtless and shallow. "What evil has this man done?" asked Pilate. "I have found no crime in him deserving death " But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified (Luke 23:22f).
Almost as though Jesus was saying, "You want me dead? All right, then I'll die, if that's what you really want. I am prepared to give you what you want, whatever it is you're asking for." And through all that terrible time and that terrible experience, he went on loving those who caused him to be executed, and those who executed him. And he went on loving all his friends who deserted him, and even Judas who betrayed him. That's a self-giving love without limitations.
In today's passage from John 13, Jesus says, "yet a little while I am with you." Such a little while. Three short years, which the disciples must have thought would be going on forever. But they didn't. Such a little while.
And what were they doing during that little while? They were learning to love. Living with Jesus, they were learning to love like him. "A new commandment I give to you," said Jesus, "that you love one another. Even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
And that's what the Church should be about - learning to love one another. About not necessarily being "nice" to each other all the time, but honestly facing contentious issues together, and going on loving each other despite the contention. About allowing people, including ourselves, to make mistakes, and sensitively helping to pick up the pieces afterwards. About bringing problems and difficulties out into the open, instead of sweeping them under the carpet and pretending they don't exist. About having the courage to move out of the comfort zone and into those tricky areas of real honesty, because without truth healing can't occur. About going the extra mile, and constantly pushing out the limits of our self-giving. About forgiving and going on forgiving and coming back for more.
That's the sort of love Jesus has for us, and the sort of love he asks us to have for each other. That's the sort of love family life enables us to learn.
Perhaps that's why we refer to the "family" of the Church, because the Church provides us with so many opportunities to experience and to learn that sort of love. Let's learn it while we can. For we have such a little while to learn to love one another.
We had considerable footage of our two eldest children, Fiona and Alex as toddlers, and oohed and aahed all over again at their bright blond curls and their cute little antics. But by the time Rebecca appeared on the scene, seven years later, the cine camera had lost some of its appeal. So we had only one or two films of her, notably being bathed in the washing-up bowl on a camping holiday in Wales.
The films brought back some memories of those far-off days, but mostly I find that other than photographs and cine films, it's all something of a haze. I have a very few snapshots in my mind of the childhood of my family, but most of it has gone. I'm left with a general feeling about it all, but few really clear memories. Such a little while, and now it's gone forever.
As a young mother, I can remember older women imploring me to enjoy those years, for they'd be gone in a flash. "The Golden Years," they said, "and they're over so quickly." At the time, I was constantly tired with the incessant demands of young children, and sometimes felt almost suffocated by their needs. And it felt like it was all going on forever, with no end in sight. So I used to laugh and think, 'Thank goodness! Maybe then, when they're grown up, I can get a life!' But now two of them are grown up and the third is well on the way, I find I'm telling young Mums much the same! Enjoy it while you can, for it's such a little while.
I now realise that during that little while, I did have a life, and a very good life, although at the time, I quite often wanted something entirely different. Although I wasn't at all aware of it, I was learning something very important, and I was learning it from my family. I was learning how to love. I was beginning to learn what love is about.
I was one of the lucky ones. I had a secure and loving and Christian childhood myself, so I had a good base on which to build. You might have thought, with a background like that, I'd know all about love. I'm sure, at the age of twenty-something, married a few months and with the first baby on the way, I was absolutely certain I knew all about love! How wrong can you be?
My husband and my children taught me what love was really about. I learned that no matter how short-tempered I was, because I was unbearably tired and I couldn't stand the children's noise any longer, they still loved me. I learned that no matter how much I hurt their feelings, because I hadn't understood in some way quite what their needs were, they still loved me. I learned that however unjust I was at times, they still loved me.
And I discovered I couldn't help but respond to that love. Gradually, gradually, through the grindingly hard work, and the joys, and the fun, and the delights of childhood, through the pride and the pleasures, and through the upsets and the hurts and the irritations and the anger, and all the rest that go to make up family life, a bond was being forged in our family. And it was a bond of love. We were all learning to love in different ways, because at different stages of life your experience of love changes and deepens and matures.
At the stage of early parenthood you learn something about selfless giving. About going the extra mile, because your children need that. About putting your own needs after those of your family, because you want them to grow up as good people and to reach and enjoy their own potential. And I also learned that my 'selfless giving' had limitations. That although it involved supporting and protecting my family, it also involved protecting me, sometimes selfishly.
So looking back now and reflecting on that time, on that "little time", I can begin to look at God's self-giving love, shown through the person of Jesus, and marvel that it's a love without limitations, that it will even accept death without drawing back.
Today's reading starts with: When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified." It was at the Last Supper, and it was Judas who had just gone out. Judas the traitor. Yet somehow, Jesus is aware that very act of treachery ushers in the time when his self-giving love can be shown to its fullest extent.
You might have thought his love was shown best through all he was able to do for other people. His healing, his concern for them, his teaching, his attractive personality. Just being with Jesus must have been a healing experience, as the woman with the haemhorrage realised.
Yet Jesus chose to die through the act of a traitor. How does that indicate love for humanity?
Perhaps it was something about choosing to follow the path of suffering. We all suffer in this life one way or another. We suffer many little pains and many little deaths, and at some point, we all suffer that major pain of bereavement, the death of someone we love. Jesus knows what major pain feels like. He's been there and experienced it. Perhaps he chose to experience it so that he could share our pains and sufferings. That's a self-giving love without limitations.
And perhaps it was something about submitting to human wishes, even though those wishes were selfish and thoughtless and shallow. "What evil has this man done?" asked Pilate. "I have found no crime in him deserving death " But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified (Luke 23:22f).
Almost as though Jesus was saying, "You want me dead? All right, then I'll die, if that's what you really want. I am prepared to give you what you want, whatever it is you're asking for." And through all that terrible time and that terrible experience, he went on loving those who caused him to be executed, and those who executed him. And he went on loving all his friends who deserted him, and even Judas who betrayed him. That's a self-giving love without limitations.
In today's passage from John 13, Jesus says, "yet a little while I am with you." Such a little while. Three short years, which the disciples must have thought would be going on forever. But they didn't. Such a little while.
And what were they doing during that little while? They were learning to love. Living with Jesus, they were learning to love like him. "A new commandment I give to you," said Jesus, "that you love one another. Even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
And that's what the Church should be about - learning to love one another. About not necessarily being "nice" to each other all the time, but honestly facing contentious issues together, and going on loving each other despite the contention. About allowing people, including ourselves, to make mistakes, and sensitively helping to pick up the pieces afterwards. About bringing problems and difficulties out into the open, instead of sweeping them under the carpet and pretending they don't exist. About having the courage to move out of the comfort zone and into those tricky areas of real honesty, because without truth healing can't occur. About going the extra mile, and constantly pushing out the limits of our self-giving. About forgiving and going on forgiving and coming back for more.
That's the sort of love Jesus has for us, and the sort of love he asks us to have for each other. That's the sort of love family life enables us to learn.
Perhaps that's why we refer to the "family" of the Church, because the Church provides us with so many opportunities to experience and to learn that sort of love. Let's learn it while we can. For we have such a little while to learn to love one another.
