Author: Rosemary Lovelace

Seventh Sunday of Easter – Bill Harkins

John 17:6-19

17:6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 17:7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 17:8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 17:9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 17:10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 17:11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 17:12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 17:13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 17:14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17:15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 17:16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 17:18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning friends, and welcome to Holy Family on this Seventh Sunday of Easter. I am glad you are here. In the passage for this Sunday, we hear a heartfelt passage as Jesus looks to the heavens, praying for his friends. Surrounded by his loved ones, Jesus begs God to watch out for his friends while he’s gone. “I am asking on their behalf,” Jesus says as he offers his supplication. “Now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.” He pleads for God to “protect them in your name.” With both crucifixion and ascension on the horizon, the thought of being gone, and his awareness of this comes from his soul; “While I was with them, I protected them,” he says to the stars, “I guarded them.” For the third time in this short passage, Jesus pleads for God’s protection— using the same word again and again. He has lived his life for them—“for their sakes”—and now glimpses a future without them. His spirit is in pain because he can’t imagine being away from them; “you in me, and I in you.” All of this is a very difficult trail to be on.

Julian of Norwich, the 14th-century theologian, is compelling in her vision of Jesus’ thirst for reunion with his friends. “We are his joy,” she writes in chapter 31 of the long text of Revela­tions of Divine Love:

“He has longed to have us.” Julian explains: “For this is the spiritual thirst of Christ, the love-longing that lasts and ever shall do until we see that revelation…. Therefore it seems to me that this is his thirst: a love-longing to have us all together, wholly in himself for his delight.

As Julian says, Jesus thirsts for companionship with us. We are his delight. Our union with him is his hope, and his burden. “For that same longing and thirst which he had on the cross—a longing and thirst which it seems to me had been in him from eternity—those he still has,” Julian comments on the passion of Christ, “and shall have until the time when the last soul which is to be saved has come up into his bliss.” On this Mother’s Day we give thanks for all who have been mothers to us—including Julian of Norwich and her many spiritual sisters.  Christian theology is in this sense a love story. “For God so loved the world,” the Gospel of John declares at the beginning (3:16). That love is Jesus. And in chapter 17 he reveals that his heart beats with this longing for communion with us. This love proclaims the truth of the gospel, the truth about us: that we are the beloved of God, and that in Christ the eternal love of God longs for connection with us.

In his wonderful book “Tattoos on the Heart,” Father Greg Boyle, recently awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom, tells of his work with “Homeboy Industries,” a gang-intervention program in Los Angeles. In one chapter he quotes Mother Teresa, who said that most of the world’s ills can be traced to the fact that we have forgotten that we belong to each other. With kinship as a goal, Boyle says, we would no longer be promoting justice, we would be celebrating it. Boyle describes kinship as a “circle of compassion… outside of which no one is standing, and we gradually move ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there,” he says, “with those whose dignity has been denied…we locate ourselves among the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join with the easily despised…we situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.” At Homeboy Industries they seek to tell each person this truth: they are exactly what God had in mind when God made them. I think Jesus is saying the same thing to us in today’s Gospel. And I think he is talking to me and to you, and asking what walls we may have been building, and why, and when.

Boyle tells the story of driving on an errand with three members of the community when he says to the one riding in the front seat, “Be on the lookout for a gas station.” The companion leans leftward toward the gas gage and says “You’re fine.” “Como que’ I’m fine—I’m on ECHALE, Cabron,” Boyle says. Waving at him, Boyle says “Hello, E means empty.” JoJo, his friend, looks at him with shock. “E means empty?” “Well, yeah, what did you think it meant?” Boyle asked. “I thought it meant ‘Enough’.” “Well, what did you think F stood for?” Boyle asked? “I thought it meant ‘Finished’,” JoJo says. Boyle writes, “After I thank him for visiting our planet, I realized this is how the journey from change to transition has to play out. When others stare into the mirror and pronounce EMPTY, our collective kinship task is the suggest instead ENOUGH—enough gifts, talent, goodness, enough love to go around…and when the verdict is “FINISHED” we are called to lead instead to fullness—that place within—where Boyle suggests we find in themselves, in ourselves, what God had in mind. Dear friends, in this season of transition at Holy Family, can we practice a theology of abundance—can we say there is enough love and empathy and connection to go around when, in our anxiety we might be tempted to say we are on “empty”? I believe we can. I believe we are. But we have to work together.

I’ll never forget my sophomore year of football at Sandy Springs High School, entering the stadium with my teammates at mighty St. Pius for the Regional play-offs on a cold November night, and hearing 6,000 screaming Catholics telling us to go home. I knew we were in trouble, even though we had beaten them at our home field earlier in the season. I will never forget what it was like to be the opposing team on that night. And, I was to remember that night for other reasons as well. Just before this big game, the senior wide receiver in relation to whom I had been apprenticed that season was injured. I was given the task of filling in for him until he recovered, and I was scared. St. Pius—a stadium reminiscent of Clemson, or LSU’s “Death Valley”—is a tough place to play, and the game was hard fought until the end. I remember how, late in the game, a ghostly, menacing fog emerged out of the ivy covered ravine on the visitor’s side of the field, a fog into which a deep post pattern took me with only a few minutes left to play. In my fear, and in front of those 6,000 fans, I dropped a pass that I usually would have caught. My coach called me to the sideline and said, “Harkins! You’re killin’ me!”—which was actually an excellent but painful example of hyperbole for effect as a pedagogical tool. For the next week I had to stay after practice with my right arm duct-taped to my chest while the receivers’ coach fired passes at me almost, but not quite, out of reach.      

My coach sat me down at the end of the week and said, “William, the point of this exercise is not that you should never drop a pass. The point is that you let your being afraid compromise your ability to be in right relationship with your teammates, and with yourself. You let being anxious about starting on first string unexpectedly—about change, cause you to give in to fear.” I have successfully avoided thinking about this memory for a long time, but it came back to me in the reading of this text, and I found myself wondering why, in the context of this Gospel, it resurfaced. This made me curious, and I’ll say more about that in a moment, but any way you slice it, these passages are hard to hear. It is hard to bear witness to Jesus’ painful, heartfelt prayer. And yet, he is fully present to his pain, and he does not allow his anxiety and pain to mask what he is feeling. It’s all right there, and he’s giving it over to God. As we should, too.  Friends, when we are in a time of change, we are more tempted to give in to anxiety, which Family Systems Theory reminds us can spread like a virus. I am so very proud of each of you—of the members of the vestry, and the nominating committee, and everyone who continues to show up here each Sunday and serve in the choir, as Eucharistic Ministers and Vergers, as members of the various committees so engaged in sustaining and nurturing this parish. Let’s remember that as the author William Bridges has said, change is inevitable, while transition is not. Transition is not just a nice way to say change. It is the inner psychological process through which people come to terms with a change, as they let go of how things used to be, and reorient themselves to the way that things are now. In an organization, transition means helping people to make that difficult process less painful and disruptive. Family Systems Theory helps church leaders see the congregation as a system of interrelated parts. This asks of us that we be more self-aware and self-differentiating—paying attention to healthy boundaries, engaging in “good gossip” rather than allowing anxiety to be the occasion for spreading unhelpful gossip in parking lot conversations…it can help us be better equipped to identify those in our congregation with good leadership skills, as we are doing, and for each of us to consider how we might grow and contribute to Holy Family in generative and life-giving ways. We can better recognize and deal with unhealthy anxiety in the system; longing, for example, for the past in ways that keep us from what God is calling us to in our time. When we manage our own anxiety it enables us to function more effectively as a whole. So let’s give freely of ourselves, and our gifts and graces. Let’s promise to go above and beyond financially, and examine our hearts to see if there are other ways we might give to the common good. A robust financial picture, and an engaged, enthusiastic congregation positions us in the best possible way to call our new rector, whoever she or he may be.

Oh, and one more thing. The night after my first post-practice one-armed catching drill I went home and told my parents I was quitting football. I was ashamed, and angry, and anxious about being seen as a failure. They wisely suggested I give it ‘till the end of the week, and that I not make a hasty decision about something that was so important to me. The next day, with my right arm taped to my chest, I took my place on the goal line, ten yards from my coach, and we began the drill. Then, he suddenly stopped throwing passes my way, and looking toward the field house, I saw why. Headed back out onto the field were three of my teammates in the receivers’ corps, each of whose right-arm was duck-taped to his chest. Without saying a word, they took their places on the goal line, where for the next three days they could be found after practice in solidarity with me. I’m sure they had better things to do, but each of them stayed an extra hour, in friendship and loyalty. I had threatened in my shame to consign myself to the alienation of estrangement—and instead, because of the generous, extravagant searching of their hearts—because they “read between the lines” of the football field and said “enough” when I was saying “empty”—I found instead on that field a little bit of heaven; a vision of beloved, blessed community, and the connection for which Jesus prayed in our Gospel for today. May it be so for us as at Holy Family, as well. Amen.   

Sixth Sunday of Easter – Bill Harkins

John 15:9-17

15:9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.

15:10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

15:11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

15:12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

15:13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.

15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

15:16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.

15:17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

Good Morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this Sixth Sunday of Easter, and a day on which we consider what it may mean to call one another “Friend” as Jesus now refers to his disciples and, by extension, to each of us. In this passage from John’s Gospel, we hear again about the importance of abiding in love, and the core value of Christian fellowship as “friendship.” I believe Jesus is calling us to lives of integrity—and my favorite interpretation of this is “wholeness.” In responding elsewhere as he does to the Pharisees—and in referring as he does to the heart, thought to be the center of one’s capacity for courage and compassion—Jesus is asking us to consider the heart of our own faith and tradition, and the practices and disciplines that sustain it in “wholeness.” What activities, ritual and otherwise, help us be in “right relationship” with our neighbors, practicing hospitality, and grace, with a spirit of friendship? What allows us to maintain and deepen what theologian Paul Tillich referred to as “self-integration,” that process of finding our center of spiritual health and moral integrity? For Tillich this corresponded to a therapeutic model familiar to pastoral counselors…that one’s spiritual health is the wholeness of a person’s center, or “the ground of one’s being” as Tillich called it. What does it mean in this sense to call another one’s “friend”? What might be your examples of true friendship and, conversely, what might we learn when we miss the mark, and how might we seek forgiveness? I don’t know about you, but I can think of examples of both in my life.

In the synoptic gospels the concept of friend is not nearly as prominent as it is in the gospel of John. In Luke and Matthew, the concept is found in rather negative contexts. Luke refers to friends as handing over Christians in times of persecution (21:16). In Matthew, Jesus as friend is a source of criticism for his opponents. They accurately accuse him of being “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (11:19). He is criticized for recognizing no boundaries in friendship, for disregarding ritual purity. (Ford, 108) I see myself in these less positive images too, and they call upon me to recognize times when I have not been the kind of friend I would prefer to be, but, I’ll say more about that in a minute.

The gospel of John is a different story. Here the word friend (philo) occurs six times. Jesus mentions the “friend of the bridegroom” in a positive context in 3:29. Jesus refers to Lazarus as “our Friend” (11:11). We are told that the good shepherd “lays down his life for his friends” (10:11). The disciples are elevated from servants to friends in John 15:13-15. The crowd taunts Pilate, calling him “no friend of the emperor”—if if he releases Jesus—in John 19. Then there is the verb to love: phileo. The Father loves the Son and shares his plans and purposes with him, which is what friends do (Jn. 5:20). Jesus loves his friend Lazarus (11:36). The one who loves his life will lose it (12:25).

In this week’s text, John 15:19-17, immediately following on the metaphor of the Vine and the branches, Jesus teaches the disciples that discipleship means friendship with him and with God. Discipleship is being a branch of the vine. It is ultimately relational. Hence Jesus’ use of the term “friends” for his followers: “I no longer call you servants . . . I have called you friends” (v. 14). Jesus distinguishes friendship from servanthood. To be a friend is to share a personal relationship and to be made aware of the plans and purposes of the other. And he states the core value of friendship in the community of followers: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn. 15:13). In this love, we are understood as who we are without mask or pretension. The sometimes superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away; one can be authentic. Where we are understood, we are at home. And understanding nourishes belonging, and hospitality, values we seek to embody here. I wonder how thinking of ourselves as friends, gathered together as the Body of Christ that is Holy Family, might inform our understanding of hospitality. What might it mean to be a “soul friend” or, “anam cara” as John O’Donohue called it? In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam cara. It originally referred to someone to whom one confessed, revealing the hidden intimacies of one’s life. With a soul-friend, we could share our inner-most self, our mind and our heart. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. This art of belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship. I would add here that one can be a soul friend to canine and other animal companions. They have certainly been among my best friends. And I wonder how we might be better friends to the natural world that, after all, nurtures and sustains the very lives we live. Say what you will about those who hug trees—and I have been among them—but trees literally eat sunlight, and in so doing produce oxygen that gives us life. Anam cara indeed.

Of course, there are precedents for this sacrificial notion of friendship. If we do a historical rewind, we encounter the notion of friendship in the Old Testament, in Jewish writings between the Testaments and in Greek and Roman philosophy. For these contexts, competition and rivalry have no place in friendship. Trust is essential. Falsehood is not to be born. Much of this Pythagorean thought was adopted by the Stoics and by the early Christian communities as well. Socrates viewed friendship as the most precious of all possessions, the greatest blessing that a person can possess. A friend shows generosity and courage in caring for her or his friend. Being an anam cara requires of a purposeful presence — it asks that we show up with absolute integrity of intention and often, without the need to “fix” or change the other. It means giving ourselves away in love and friendship. I am so grateful to call my wife Vicky my best friend, and my sons and daughters-in-law have become adult friends as well. They continue to teach me. I hope to live long enough to be friends with my grandchildren. And I’ve recently returned from Nashville where with three friends from graduate school where we working on a book about the friendships born there some 40 years ago. I continue to learn from all of these anam cara friendships. I also continue to learn from times when I fell short of true friendship. These, too, can be teachable moments.

In the fall of my senior year at Sandy Springs High School a new student arrived. He was from southern California, and he fit the stereotype perfectly. With blond surfer good looks and an easy manner, he quickly stole the hearts of the girls at school and was the envy of all the guys, only we didn’t want to acknowledge his presence among us. And when he asked for permission to join the football team, along with my teammates I was not happy. After all, he had not suffered through the 2-a-day practices in August; he had not been among us all those years of Gray-Y and Pop Warner football at Chastain Park; he was a stranger among us—he was the “other.” We felt it unfair for the coach to let this latecomer to our little kingdom on the team at this late date. Not this year. This was our year. And so the cadre closed its ranks in an effort to ignore his existence. He didn’t seem to mind this, and quickly made friends with others at school who, according to the proscribed rules of a football oriented society, were also social outcasts. Truth told; we were jealous. And when the coach let him join the team, it only made matters worse. Problem was, he was very good. Lightening fast with excellent hands, he was perfect for our power-I option offense at the position of flanker. This also happened to be my position. So we shared starting duties over the course of a very good season, and I came to admire and learn from him. But I would not let him in. I was a reporter for the school paper during basketball season, and admired from the stands the translation of his skills from the gridiron to the basketball court—a gift I did not share. When track season began in the spring he replaced a dear friend on the sprint medley relay team, of which I was a member, and partly due to his speed we finished third in the state at the GHSA finals in Jefferson, setting a new school record in the process. One afternoon, late that spring, I found him sitting alone in the locker room. He was crying. I sat down next to him and asked him what was wrong. Slowly, his story unfolded: his father was a prominent LA psychiatrist who was an inveterate womanizer. My teammate had moved with his mother to a religious commune in northern California—what we would now call a cult, after his parents divorced. Slowly her mental health began to unravel, and he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Atlanta. His mother had just that week been committed to a state mental health institute, and his father was divorcing, yet again. He worried about his younger sister, who was becoming involved with drugs and alcohol, and he did not really want to go to college. It meant yet another change. He missed home back in California. I sat there and listened, and stewed in the juices of my own self-righteous jealousy. I realized that his good looks and easy manner had hidden his pain and that we, all of us who might have been his friends, had been instead effective gatekeepers to his emotional prison. I felt deeply ashamed. I tried over the last weeks of school to befriend him, but it was too late. The forces of time and destiny swept us up in a river of change, and after graduation I never saw him again. When our only measure is friendship with those who think like us, look like us, share our history and context, we become, dear one’s, victims of the very idols we create in the service of this way of being in the world. We lose touch with a sense of God’s grace and compassion and hospitality. And these outward and visible signs of integrity are not about who deserves what; not about our envy which is, after all, nothing more than a mask for the fear that we aren’t somehow enough to obtain whatever earthly kingdom we seek to secure us in our anxiety. Jealousy does not allow for the abundant grace and radical compassionate justice of the kingdom of heaven, and it prohibits true friendship…true love expressed through friendship. A Friendship Blessing from John O’Donohue reads this way: May you be blessed with good friends. May you learn to be a good friend to yourself. May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness. May this change you. May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you. May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging. May you treasure your friends. May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey. May you never be isolated. May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam ċara. May I live this day Compassionate of heart, Clear in word, Gracious in awareness, Courageous in thought, Generous in love.”Amen.

5th Sunday of Easter – Bill Harkins

John 15:1-8

15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.

15:2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

15:3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.

15:4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

15:6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you,

ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

15:8 My Father is glorified by this,

that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning! And welcome to Holy Family on this 5^th Sunday of Easter, and blessings to those of you who in any way have given of themselves in the service of compassion, the Hebrew word for which is, after all, Rachamim, meaning “wombish” or womb-like. So whenever we reach out to another in the womb-like embrace of compassion, we are, each of us, abiding with the other, just as Jesus abides with us. Begging the question, what does it really mean to “abide” with someone? How do we recognize this quality in others and perhaps more important, cultivate it in ourselves and live this out in our commitment to Holy Family?

Some time back Vicky and I attended a clinical conference in San Francisco, and we visited Grace Cathedral for the early morning service. We were entranced by this remarkable place of worship high atop a hill overlooking the city. Inside, we explored its various chapels, a labyrinth, lovely murals depicting the history of the city, and stunningly beautiful stained-glass windows. One is invited to enter this holy space, and to allow one’s spiritual imagination to come alive. The last available window space has recently been filled with an incredible stained glass piece, depicting a spiral nebula—a lovely galaxy much like our own milky way, spinning beautifully deep in outer space. I was reminded again of the words of Eucharistic Prayer C—“the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.” Somehow the depth and expansiveness of the cathedral seemed to contain a hint of all that, and more—a kind of mysterious engagement with the holy, as if the Spirit blew gently, constantly, lovingly through the cool depths of the very soul of the building holding us in its embrace.     

After the celebration of the Eucharist we emerged into the brilliant northern California sunlight on a cool April morning. On a plaza just below the doors of the Cathedral is an outdoor labyrinth, encircled by Japanese Maples only now in full leaf, and luminous in the morning light. On the perimeter of the labyrinth nine or ten Cantonese women from a Buddhist monestary down the hill engaged in their morning ritual of Tai Chi, the lovely, synchronous form of worship, exercise, and meditation. We stood for a long while at the top of the steps, entranced by this rich, resonant sychronicity of worship and culture: our own celebration of the Eucharist, this labyrinth of ancient Celtic origins, and the deeply moving Chinese ritual of Tai Chi, all brought together by the grace-filled welcoming embrace of one of our Cathedrals.

My primary feeling was that of gratitude—a deep, abiding appreciation for the moment of Kairos we experienced. It was moment when the Spirit seemed so present, so close, so available. And that Spirit-time, that Kairos, points us to something that lies at the very heart and soul of who we are—what the world is, the very force that emanates from God and gives life to us all. This morning—in this light-filled space—we hear the remarkably poignant words spoken by Jesus, Abide in me as I abide in you. Put simply, Jesus’ incarnation of the ancient ideal of abiding, and love embodied in this term, was to become the pattern of how the disciples, and that includes us, were to love one another, the pattern, that is, of how we ought live our lives. St. Augustine once observed that Jesus loved each one he ever met as if there were no other in the entire world to love. He radically individualized and made incarnate the affection he acted out toward others. I was reminded on the steps of Grace Cathedral that morning that we are all made in the image of that extraordinary love—all of us—and this Holy space was an outward and visible sign, if you will, of the love which led Jesus to say that he would take us into himself.  

That is the place he prepares for us. Jesus’ love for us was not just a radically incarnate, individual love. It was also a universal love, and it includes this planet earth, our island home, and everything in it, including Grace Cathedral, and this sacred space, and each of us, who are called to be earthen vessels of that love. The eyes with which he looked upon the world were never filled with disdain or contempt. We must never forget that the opposite of love is not anger, but rather indifference. Jesus loved each of us as if we were the only ones in the world, and he loved all as he loved each. And this speaks to the wisdom of C.S. Lewis, who made a distinction between what he called “need love” and “gift love.” Need love, says Lewis, is always born of emptiness—a kind of possessive acquisitiveness that is the relational, spiritual equivalent of a vacuum, like a black hole in outer space, sucking everything into its dark center. Lewis acknowledges that many times when we humans say, “I love you,” what we really mean is “I need you, I want you…you have value to me that I desire to make my own, regardless of the consequences to you.” Over against this image, Lewis contends that another form of love is radically, ontologically different. It is what he calls “gift love.” Rather than being born of emptiness, or impoverishment, and the needs to which they point, this form of loving is one of fullness, and grace, and gratitude. Its goal is to enrich and enhance the beloved rather than extract value. Gift love moves out to bless and increase—to enliven, nurture, and sustain the other. It is more like an ever-flowing spring than a needful vacuum. Lewis concludes by saying that the uniqueness of the biblical vision of reality is that God’s love is “gift love,” not “need love.” He reminds us that, “we humans are made in the image of such everlasting and unconditional love,” we are created Imago Dei—in the image of God. Not only are we loved by God in this way, we can choose to live our lives this way. We are most likely to fall into “need love” when we are feeling scared, or vulnerable in some way—when faced with new situations or people who are different in one way or another. But even then, in the midst of our uncertainty, we can choose, with God’s grace, to grow into the wonder of “gift love.”

Sometimes the examples of this come from places we might not expect—sources that catch us by surprise, origins that fill us with awareness of the fullness of that “gift love.” On a summer day in 1998 more than 300 PBS stations across the nation aired a very special episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood that featured KoKo, the sign-language-using gorilla. Mr. Rogers’ visit to KoKo’s home at The Gorilla Foundation helped launch a week of programming entitled “You and I Together” which addressed the confusion and fears of young children when confronted with new situations or people who are different. The weeklong theme of “inclusion” featured KoKo and helpful talks about feeling included, no matter the nature of one’s disability, infirmity, skin color, race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. It turned out that “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” was one of KoKo’s very favorite TV shows. And when this gentle Presbyterian pastor, beloved by so many, entered KoKo’s room, she immediately embraced him in a gentle gorilla hug, and in sign language said, “Love you, neighbor, KoKo love.” KoKo then bent down to help Mr. Rogers remove his shoes, as she had seen him do every day, for so many years, on his show. She then helped him remove his sweater. So, you see, gift love is available to us all, and can come from unexpected sources. And with the grace of God we can choose to embrace that love, just as KoKo embraced Mr. Rogers. The Spirit of that love infuses and energizes and enlivens. It was present in the Cantonese women doing Tai Chi—and no doubt they will be there this morning. It was present in the seekers walking the labyrinth that day. No doubt they will be there again.

It was present in those who gathered for the celebration of the Eucharist, 2000 years ago, and at Grace Cathedral and all such places, and it is present for us, here and now, in this sacred space we have come to love. In some versions of our Eucharist the priest may say “Behold what you are…become what you receive.” This phrase goes way back to St. Augustine, who in the 5^th century preached a sermon in which he reminded us all that by our participation in the Eucharist we are transformed into the Body of Christ, broken and blessed, and given for the world. Like the bread we break this morning, each of us is broken too—we each have places of loneliness, fear, disappointment, shame…And so accepting and making friends with this part of ourselves, is a part of the journey of giving ourselves to something bigger than we are…we call this entrusting ourselves to God’s care, and allowing the Holy Spirit in Her wisdom to guide us. And when we know ourselves as God’s beloved, like KoKo and Mr. Rogers, we become the love we have received. With the help of that Spirit, and God’s ever-present and unfailing grace, we can grow into the deep mystery of loving each one as if there is no other in the world, and loving all, as we love each. As Wendell Berry has written:

The Incarnate Word is with us,

is still speaking, is present,

always, yet leaves no sign

but everything that is.Amen. 

3rd Sunday of Easter – Bill Harkins

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all. Amen.

Good Morning and welcome to Holy Family on this the 3^rd Sunday of Easter! I’m so glad you are joining us today.       

In this chapter of our lives at Holy Family, I find myself empathizing with the Disciples in ways perhaps new for me. Maybe you do so as well. We know they have been scared, and in the reading for today, they don’t recognize Jesus when he appears. Begging the question, when we are in a season of uncertainty and transition, can we recognize Christ in the face of the other, our sisters and brothers, and can we remain relatively non-anxious enough to lead with wisdom, and resilience? And, let’s remember we have only recently emerged from an unprecedented time of social distancing and quarantine, and we’ve all been on a post-pandemic journey of sorts. One of our daughters-in-law is an epidemiologist with the CDC, now working remotely from Houston, and so I pay attention to CDC notices of various kinds. Not only are we all still adjusting to life after the pandemic, we are also in what the Surgeon General has called an “epidemic of loneliness,” exacerbated by the pandemic and the real and ambiguous losses, as well as the anticipatory grief and anxiety we all feel to varying degrees. We are also in a season of political discord which, while not unprecedented, is quite real. The loss of life in Gaza and related conflicts add to our sense of dislocation. Let’s covenant to pray for one another, for the world, and for resilience and patience in this time together. And let’s seek to look for life-giving ways to contribute to Holy Family with love, and when needed, forgiveness. We need one another.

On Tuesday night of this past week our vestry and nominating committee met with Scott Kidd, an old friend of mine and rector at our neighbor church Resurrection, in Sautee Georgia. I’m so glad to be on this journey with you all, and I am grateful for those serving on these committees. I am also aware of being in a new leadership role among you. A few days ago I was walking out to the car with Andy Edwards after services. Now, Andy and Melinda were here many years ago, back when I was a Postulant at Holy Family, many years ago, and he said “Well, your priesthood has come full circle from here, to the Cathedral, and now back again.” And so it has. My first thought was one of deep gratitude for this parish, and for all it has meant to me and my family. I was also aware of a moment of anxiety, being as I am in a new role among you all.  Because of the overlapping relationships we have had, it has been a kind of developmental challenge. I am reminded of this continuity and overlap of life themes in the story of the mother who was getting breakfast ready for her son. She noticed that he not only had not appeared but he seemed to be making no sounds of preparation upstairs. She went to his room and, finding the door closed, asked if he was OK. He said he was fine but that he was not going to school today. The mother, being of the modern sort, decided to engage her son in reasonable conversation, and asked him to provide three good reasons why he should not go to school. The son obliged: “Number one, I don’t like school; number two, the teachers don’t like me; number three, I’m afraid of the kids.” “Okay,” said the mother. “Now I’m going to give you three good reasons why you are going to school. Number one, I’m your mother and I say school is important. Number two, you’re 40 years old and, number three, you’re the principal!” 

Well, truth told we are, each of us in a new role at Holy Family, and I am only one among many asked to step up in this season. As our beloved Katharine Armentrout said on the occasion of her retirement, lay leadership will be—for many reasons—increasingly important in the coming chapter. We’re not alone in this. The new mission statement in the Diocese of Colorado is “Lay Led…Clergy Supported.” This is the new zeitgeist in the church for many reasons. We will each have to discover in ourselves opportunities for leadership, and this may mean facing fears, uncertainty, and leaving our comfort zone to be an integral part of the Body of Christ in this place. We each have an opportunity to grow in new ways. Let’s covenant to do so, shall we?

And so, like the disciples in the Gospel for today, we are each walking, talking with one another about what has happened, finding some meaning in what we’ve been through, and trusting that God is listening to us and bearing witness to our concerns and fears. Carl Jung once said that the soul rejoices in saying out loud what we feel inside, just as our Psalms teach us to do, even when it is hard to do so. As the disciples experienced in this Gospel, Jesus is available to hear both, and we are called to do likewise.

Jesus invited the disciples tell about their anxieties and pains; he let them grieve and mourn. Jesus listened to them, as they poured out their fear, uncertainty, sadness and grief. Jesus patiently guided the disciples “from hopelessness and sadness to celebration, to hope, to relationship restored and renewed; in short, to resurrection.”    

And yes, we are living in a time of transition and change. Rabbi and family therapist Ed Friedman has reminded us that grief and loss that are not transformed get transmitted.  We’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Anticipatory grief is a general sense of unease. I suspect the disciples felt much the same as we do now, a king of not knowing with the sense of dislocation that attends it.

The author Rachel Naomi Remen has suggested that “The way we deal with loss shapes our capacity to be present to life more than anything else,” she says. And when we tell each other stories of hope and resilience, they tell us about who we are, what is possible for us, what and who we might call upon. They also remind us we’re not alone with whatever faces us and that there are resources available to us. But we must each be committed to hope, and compassion, and grace. As Goethe said, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth…the moment one definitely commits oneself, the Providence moves too.”  The Disciples believe Jesus to be a stranger, and their eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread. In this text and related passages, this is a common theme. What does it mean to really see? How often do we miss what is right in front of us and how often do we miss the face of Christ in the stranger whom we encounter on the road?  In the Gospel story for today we have a signpost of sort; a guide through the uncertainty in this season of transition at Holy Family.

Last summer a friend and I were hiking and trail running high in the mountains of Colorado, and at certain points above the tree line where the trails can become diffuse, cairns, towers of rock guiding the way, were so very helpful. “Inuksuk”—or little people—as the Inuit tribes call these signposts, can be like lighthouses on a distant shore, guiding us along. Jesus is just such a guide in the Gospel for today, and as such he helps the disciples move from grief and loss and despair to hope, and to compassion.  “My peace I give you.”

On Tuesday night this past week, our consultant gave us a list of things we must do together as we seek our new rector—and this list included coming to terms with our history; acknowledging the past, being honest about the DNA in that past… and dealing with both grief—letting go—and moving forward together…holding on; beginning to discover a new identity; allowing for and empowering new leaders among us; strengthening relationships and enriching hospitality; asking ourselves where we have been, and where we are going, and what kind of leadership is needed in this new chapter…and we are called to love one another with grace, and compassion. And with love.Well, some time ago a dear friend and clergy colleague died after a courageous, year-long struggle with leukemia. A priest for more than forty years, he was gifted in the areas of ministry he most deeply loved; contemplative prayer, spiritual formation, and liturgy. We served on the Cathedral staff for several years, both of us part-time, and in some ways we were very different…and we became close perhaps not in spite of this, but because of our differences. He was a wise and gentle mentor to those of us younger in “priest years,” and a gift to each parish he served. After several hospital stays, two extensive rounds of chemotherapy, and a joyful but short lived remission, the cancer returned with new vigor. My colleague, in consultation with family and friends, decided to cease all but palliative care, and to die on his own life-giving terms. In one of our last conversations on his back porch, with the birds singing in the early spring air, he said to me “Bill, I have had so much love.” I said “Yes, there are many who love you, and I am among them.” “That may be, “he replied, “but what I mean is that there are so many whom I have loved. I have so much gratitude for the love God has enabled me to give away.” Dear ones, we are given by God the freedom to love—and this requires release from any fears and the bondage of unnamed grief that would keep us from giving this love. It requires the peace of God, breathed on the disciples and each of us. We are rightly suspicious when we are called only to joy. Yes, and even amidst our struggle with various forms of loss and uncertainty, we can find life-giving possibilities, in conversation with each other, widening the circle of care, and guided by love. And remember, as Jesus taught us, that wholeness includes all of our wounds, just as it included all of his. It includes all of our vulnerabilities. This is the way we connect to one another. Our shared humanity allows us to be available to one another. In sharing his wounds, and in the breaking of the bread, Jesus was known to the disciples, and to us. Let us go and do likewise. Amen.