On Leaning In to Love
March 17, 2024
Traceymay Kalvaitis
John 12: 20-36
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.”
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”…The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.
Jeremiah 31: 31-34
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
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Today’s sermon is titled On Leaning In to Love.
Love is truly an amazing phenomenon. For something untouchable and unseeable, love can overpower us in an instant. I was overpowered this morning. I woke to a message from a Friend whose life has been interwoven with mine for 36 years; she is dying. Even though we live 5000 miles apart, there has never been distance between us…ever. Love transcends all distance. I know that I am physically here in New Hampshire, but most of me is now with her. Love is truly an amazing phenomenon.
For three hours I sat looking from the computer screen to my notes without one coherent thought forming, so now I have begun to just write. Now I have begun to just trust. There is so much I wish to say on this fifth Sunday of Lententide. We are offered a treasure box full of tender wisdom from the scriptures this morning, from John and the prophet Jeremiah.
The Hebrew word for “prophet” is navi, נביא, meaning “one who sees.” The Jewish foundation of our Christian tradition is supported in three main ways: by the covenants (or promises), by the law, and by the prophets. We have been traveling through time over the past four Sundays, tracing the progression of events and teachings that shaped the Jewish culture that in turn shaped the life and ministry of our teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. We began with the ancient promises or covenants offered to Noah and then Abraham, then the law handed down in the commandments that grew into over 600 laws. Today we hear the words of one of the many prophets, the prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah lived some 500 years before the birth of Jesus. Jeremiah was an advisor to the king, King Zedikiah, when invasion from the Babylonians was imminent. Once again, all that the Hebrew people had established was under threat. What is essential for us to hold in our minds is that the two greatest symbols of God’s protection for the Hebrew people were their temple and their king. In 587 B.C. they lost both to the Babylonians and along with it their security and their freedom. All of the brightest lights of their culture, all those who were most capable of reorganizing and rebuilding and restoring what they once had… all those people were forced into exile to Babylonia. The workers and laborers and farmers were allowed to remain and the prophet Jeremiah, released from prison and guaranteed safe passage to Babylonia, chose to stay with them in their time of need. Conquered, occupied, scattered and overruled, Jeremiah sought to offer them hope. He tells them, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant… It will not be like the covenant that I made with your ancestors …—a covenant that they broke. But this is the covenant that I will make… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people… I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” Thank God for Jeremiah! His words would begin the mending that the people so desperately needed. They were a people mourning many losses…loss of life, liberty, governance, and protection. Jeremiah remained with them in their darkest night and held for them the light of hope for a better future. Love is truly an amazing phenomenon.
The prophet Jeremiah died 500 years before the birth of Jesus. By the time Jesus was born, many Jewish people had returned to Judea and the temple reconstruction had been completed just 70 years before Jesus’s birth. Like in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, the Jewish people faced oppression, this time under the occupying Roman Empire. Jesus instructed them to care for one another and to put no political leader above God. Even as Jesus faced his own death he prayed for God to be glorified. Even as Jesus could clearly see the forces of darkness at work in his world, he turned his followers to the light. Jesus said, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” Love is truly an amazing phenomenon.
What is it, Friends? What is it inside of us that moves to love? What is it inside of us that can hold on to the light hope even though the future seems ominously dark? What is it inside of us that drives us to want a better world for the children? Paul Bloom, a psychology professor at Yale, has found that whatever it is within us that desires to do good is something that we are born with. “At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginnings of a sense of fairness. The earliest signs are the glimmerings of empathy and compassion—pain at the pain of others, which you can see pretty soon after birth. Once they’re capable of coordinated movement, babies will often try to soothe others who are suffering, by patting and stroking.
But we have found that even 3-month-olds respond differently to a character who helps another than to a character who hinders another person. This finding hints that moral judgment might have very early developmental origins.” Perhaps the laws are written on our hearts, as the prophet Jeremiah foretold.
In closing, Friends, as we approach Palm Sunday next week and the bittersweetness of Holy Week thereafter, I invite you to join me in leaning in to the phenomenon of love and all it teaches us. We are wired for it from birth and we have this lifetime to learn all we can. For the lessons from our teacher, Jesus, the embodiment of God, of love, I am eternally grateful. Jesus said, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.” To follow Jesus is to follow love; in following we are taken to difficult places where we can count on being broken open, again and again. Through life, through loss, we learn what is most important. Through life, through loss, we come to know God. In knowing God, Jesus says, we have life eternal (John 17:3). So be it. Amen.
*https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-moral-life-of-babies/
Pastoral Prayer
God of our hearts, we come as we are this morning. Your promises of acceptance and love seem, at times, impossibly generous; help us to accept them, Lord, and help us to settle, if only for brief moments, into a place of security and knowing that we are children of a most wondrous God; we are children of light. When we doubt and fear, turn our minds in trust. When we dwell on hardship, turn our minds to giving thanks for our many blessings. And when we struggle to hold weight of the many problems in our world, strengthen us to hold them long enough for our hearts to open a little more, and for our inner vision to focus on a way we can be of service to our brothers and sisters. Remind us, Holy One, that one smile can offer welcome, and one prayer can send ripples that have unimaginable effects. This we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
Benediction Beannacht Blessing by John O’Donohue
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you,
An invisible cloak to mind your life.