Love and Let Go: A Sermon for May 9, 2010

Lydia, the seller of purple cloth, is one of my favorite Bible characters. Perhaps that’s because purple is my favorite color. Or, perhaps it’s because I was once a seamstress, and couldn’t manage to pass through a dry goods store without lingering long over the many colors and textures. All too often, I went home with yardage that was already fashioned into something wonderful in my mind, but that ended up in a drawer, one of many unrealized projects.

I imagine Lydia, her colorful goods spread around her, leaning forward to listen eagerly to Paul preaching the Good News (Acts 16:9-15, NRSV). The workings of the Holy Spirit often seem hidden from human eyes. But the power of the risen Lord was quick to show itself through Lydia. Her heart was opened; she and her household were baptized. Then, having brought her household into the faith, she brought Paul and his mission team into her household.
                                                                                                                                                                  

I don’t know if the designers of the lectionary predicted the possibility of the 6^th Sunday of Easter falling on Mother’s Day, but they couldn’t have made a better choice. Lydia was a mother of the church in more ways than one.

She Worketh Willingly With Her Hands by Elspeth Young

Some sources say she was Paul’s first convert in Europe. As a merchant, she was no doubt a woman of some influence in the community. She not only brought her own family into the faith, but also turned her home into the beginnings of the church in Philippi.

Today’s lessons are full of “good things,” of which the work of the Holy Spirit in leading Paul to Philippi and in opening Lydia’s heart and mind are but two. “Good things” is even the theme of today’s collect. It begins, “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding...” (BCP, p. 225)

For the writer of today’s Psalm (67, BCP p. 675), the good things include God as equitable judge of all peoples and guide of the nations. They include a good harvest. These verses are all about interactions between a loving Creator who sheds light and generous blessings on those who love and praise God.

Light is also a big part of “the good life” in the new Jerusalem of John’s vision in Revelation (21:10,22-22:5). This holy city, which descends from heaven, needs no sun or moon because “the glory of God IS its light and its lamp is the Lamb.”

The gates of this wonderful place are never closed. The river of the tree of life runs through it, and the tree of life feeds the peoples and heals the nations. And all the people will bask in the light and worship the Lamb.

“O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things!”

In today’s Gospel lesson (John 14:23-29), Jesus is also in the business of handing out good things. The first is a promise: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,” he says, “and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

The second good thing Jesus hands out in this passage is an outright gift: “Peace I leave with you,” he says, “my peace I give to you.”

Wow! The peace of the risen Christ freely given! And in return for our love, God the Father and God the Son in the person of the Holy Spirit take up residence in our lives.

What more could we ask? Yet so often, our lives do not seem the least bit peaceful. They are too full of unreasonable demands and unfair situations, death and destruction, and conflicts of all sizes and shapes, from road rage to the news of yet another oil spill and yet another suicide bombing in the Middle East.

Who could ask for a better deal than God-With-Us, in exchange for nothing more than our love? Yet so often, we can’t love God for all the unlovable people in the way! From the guy who curses our hesitation in traffic to the suicide bomber, from the slow cashier determined to test our patience to the teenager whose appearance and mannerisms are designed solely to shock our sensibilities—the children of God come to us disguised as the unlovely.

 “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things… as surpass our understanding.”

Hmmm. We are accustomed to not understanding evil things. But good things? What’s to not understand?

I love chocolate and ice cream. I love cool mornings to work in my yard. I love my son. These are good things. What’s to not understand?

Perhaps what is difficult about good things from God is that we can only have them by giving them away.

This is in rather stark contrast to many of the good things the world has to offer. We work hard to earn the money to have a good life: the chocolate and ice cream, a yard to work in, Mother’s Day dinner at a nice restaurant with our children.

Especially in a society such as ours, in which economic growth depends on our purchasing of goods and services, we learn to understand “good things” as things we can possess.

We get so confused at times that we think we possess the lovable people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then something happens that drives home our utter lack of possession of the people in our lives. Children grow up and leave, and we must let them go. We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season.

 “To love” is a verb! It is a way of being in the world that is a lot like breathing: half taking in and half letting go, taking in, letting go. We breathe in God’s love for us, and breathe it out in our love for one another. We breathe in our love for one another, and breathe it back to God.

During this Eastertide, we have heard Jesus over and over attempt to prepare his disciples for the fact that he must soon leave them… again. Last Sunday he reminded them that he was going where they could not go, at least not yet. This Sunday he says, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” How mystified they must have been!

How mystified we still are at this good thing from God that can only be had by giving it away.  Love in relationship with God and the people of our lives—the lovable and the unlovely—has its being in moment by moment and day by day interactions. We must live it rather than try to possess it.

AMEN.