Ordinarily I am a lectionary preacher. That is to say I follow the calendar of Bible readings that hundreds of thousands of Christians observe in their weekly services of worship. On special occasions like this, my first Sunday in a new call, I feel free to use other Bible readings that provide a framework for what I want to say.
The first lesson, which Bev Thompson read, is very obviously about love, a word we sometimes use too easily in the Christian church, and in life generally, for that matter. But it is a word that points us to some basic understanding of our good news, our gospel, as Christians.
During the months after my retirement, it was inappropriate for me to worship in the church I had served for twenty-seven good years, so I took the opportunity to visit lots of Presbyterian churches in the part of New Jersey where my wife and I maintain our principal home. I learned many things, some of which I will share as we become acquainted in time. But this morning I will tell you I discovered that a lot of preachers should all over their congregations Sunday after Sunday. By that I mean their sermons are mostly ethical imperatives. "As Christians we should be doing so and so." I believe good preaching should contain ethical imperatives, but always after there has been a clear statement of the foundation for Christian behavior, after the good news has been proclaimed.
If I could summarize our good news, it would be something like this:
God, as we know God through Jesus, is a God of love—a God of righteousness and judgment also, yes. But first and foremost a God of love—love that is astonishingly inclusive in its scope, love that is affirming and accepting, love that reaches out to care for all people, especially people on the fringes of society, love that invites dynamic relationship as response.
Our good news is about God, about the nature of reality. We need to keep hearing that truth and internalizing it. I believe everything we do as a church should be related to proclaiming our good news to the world around us. Every other aspect of church life is derivative from that. We proclaim our good news by what we say, by what we do, and by what we are as a faith community—by the way we relate to one another, by the way we treat one another, and by the way we relate to people different from ourselves. And we tell our good news in words as well as in deeds.
Our second lesson, the one from Mark's Gospel, presents one of the occasions on which Jesus enacted his message of love. In Jesus' time, children didn't have the protection and dignity that we have come to believe they are entitled to. In our lesson, people were bringing children to Jesus, so that this new, charismatic teacher could touch them and in some way impart a blessing to them. The disciples, representing the decency and in order wing of their faith, rebuked the people bringing children to Jesus.
But Jesus rebuked the disciples, saying, "'Let the children come to me. Don't stop them, because their innocent trust is something that can teach us all.' And he took the children up in his arms, and put his hands on them in blessing."
I don't know about you, but I was raised by good people who saw their parenting as being primarily about providing for their children as an expression of the love they clearly felt. But they weren't into touching or hugging. I didn't get much of that as a child, and so I am drawn in a powerful way to Mark's story of Jesus and the children. "He took them up in his arms, and touched them in blessing."
In her letter of introduction sent out to the Rutgers family, Christine Gorman mentioned that I value story-telling as part of discipleship. Jesus often told stories or parables as a way of conveying his truth, and I believe stories can touch us at a deep level. Some time ago I found something in the writing of Rachel Naomi Remen that opened up the truth of God's unconditional love, which is the essence of our good news. Dr. Remen is a physician, about my age, who has been working with cancer patients and their families for several years on the West Coast. Let me share this story with you. It comes from the beginning of her book, My Grandfather's Blessings, and says something about her early childhood.
On Friday afternoons when I would arrive at my grandfather's house after school, the tea would already be set on the kitchen table. After we had finished our tea my grandfather would set two candles on the table and light them. Then he would have a word with God in Hebrew. Sometimes he would speak out loud, but often he would close his eyes and be quiet. I knew then that he was talking to God in his heart. I would sit and wait patiently because the best part of the week was coming.
When grandpa finished talking to God, he would turn to me and say, "Come, Neshume-le." Then I would stand in front of him and he would rest his hands lightly on the top of my head. He would begin by thanking God for me and for making him my grandpa. He would specifically mention my struggles during that week and tell God something about me that was true. Each week I would wait to find out what that was. If I had made mistakes during the week, he would mention my honesty in telling the truth. If I had taken even a short nap without my nightlight, he would celebrate my bravery in sleeping in the dark. Then he would give me his blessing and ask the long-ago women I knew from his many stories—Sarah, Rachel, Rebekah, and Leah—to watch over me.
These few moments were the only time in my week when I felt completely safe and at rest. My family of physicians and health professionals were always struggling to learn more and to be more. It seemed there was always more to know. It was never enough. If I brought home a 98 on a test from school, my father would ask, "And what happened to the other two points?" I pursued those two points relentlessly throughout my childhood. But my grandfather did not care about such things. For him, I was already enough. And somehow when I was with him, I knew with absolute certainty that this was so.
My grandfather died when I was seven years old. I had never lived in a world without him in it before, and it was hard for me. He had looked at me as no one else had and called me by a special name, "Neshume-le," which means "beloved little soul." There was no one left to call me this anymore. At first I was afraid that without him to see me and tell God who I was, I might disappear. But slowly over time I came to understand that in some mysterious way, I had learned to see myself through his eyes. And that once blessed, we are blessed forever.
As the Church of Jesus Christ, we are people who have come to know that God loves us the way Dr. Remen's grandfather loved her—unconditionally, as we are—that we are good enough already. Many of us grew up like Dr. Remen, believing we needed to be very good or do very well or be something other than our authentic selves in order to be loved. The Christian Gospel teaches us something radically different: God loves us as we are and desires the very best for all creation. The foundation of discipleship love is God's accepting, affirming love for the world, what Dan Migliore of Princeton Seminary calls God's "shocking inclusive love."
Jesus calls us to love in ways that stretch us and involve us in taking risks and reaching out with imagination and energy. That is our ethical imperative, and it is our response to God's love for us. As we continue to understand God's gracious love for us, we become freer in our expressions of care and concern for other people. We love out of strength, not out of weakness; out of joyful confidence, not out of burdensome duty.
Christians everywhere are wrestling with the challenge of living as disciples of the risen Christ in the twenty-first century. It is always challenging to discern how to "proclaim" our deep spiritual truth to a world that is changing at unprecedented speed. We need to stay flexible about the way we function as a congregation, about the way we "do church," as the theologians say. And staying flexible requires openness to change.
I offer you my enthusiasm, my support and my prayers as we move ahead in our life as Easter people. As we do God's work, we will be strengthened by our assurance that God loves us unconditionally, loves the world that way, and in Jesus has touched us all in blessing.
Thanks be to God.