I’ve
always found special meaning in preaching on Mother’s Day, or
the Festival of the Christian Home as we call it in church, because
this day is a celebration of love. And our faith holds love as the
greatest reality, the highest value in this life God has given us.
We know that parental love is fundamental to our developing our own
sense of self-worth and capacity for love. Nothing else has quite
the same impact in shaping us. And so on this special day we recognize
the vital role that both mothers and fathers have in being agents
of love in their families, and ask for God’s blessing in your
fulfilling this calling.
Most of us grew up with
parents who gave us love at least in some measure. Some were better
able to give it than others; and some of us were better able to receive
what we got than others. But most of us did not grow up totally without
love. And spiritually speaking none of us has been deprived of the
fullness of God’s love. Again, some of us have been given a
fuller awareness of it than others; and some of us have been better
able to claim it for ourselves. But Jesus’ ringing affirmation
to his disciples and to us in John’s Gospel is that we are never
spiritual orphans, without the sustaining love of our Maker. God’s
Spirit is always present to help us know the love in which we are
held.
Yet despite these realities,
I am struck by how often the orphan mentality seems to creep into
our thinking. A surprising number of us do think of ourselves as “poor
wayfaring strangers” on life’s path. We sense that whatever
human love we have received falls short of what we need. Often we
question whether others really care for us that much; and therefore
we have doubts about our own self-worth. And whatever sense we have
of God’s love may seem distant and abstract. We may acknowledge
it as a theological truth, but we have no sense of being held close
by a loving Creator. I’ve been there myself, and I’m sure
many of you know what I’m talking about. It’s a painful
and also a very spiritually debilitating place to be. For what it
results in is a mindset that questions whether we really count that
much and whether we have anything significant to offer anyone else.
It can leave us with a default position that says, I’m going
to focus on getting more of the love that’s owed me before I
consider what I might give to others. Don’t talk to me about
being a Christian change-agent; I’m fixated on what I’m
lacking—even as I despair of getting it.
If and when we find ourselves
in such a place, how will we respond? One option of course is just
to go along with our fate of being the unfortunate orphans we perceive
ourselves to be. So easily we can fall into the trap of thinking we
have no choice but to live with our fate—alone, sad, lacking
in love and worth—so we just have to tough it out. But friends,
we really do have another option. Rather than resigning ourselves
to our fate, we can decide to refuse to be a spiritual orphan! We
can act as if God’s amazing love for us might just be true,
and therefore our lives have great worth. And that just might give
us courage to open ourselves to the human love that others may have
to give us. Instead of passively waiting to receive, we can put ourselves
into the give-and-take with others out of which expressions of love
are most likely to emerge. On two occasions in the last two weeks,
I got a fortune cookie with my lunch. The “fortune” in
my first cookie read, “You are guided by silent love and friendship
around you”; and in the second cookie it read, “You have
many friends when you need them.” Now maybe the restaurant was
just wanting to make their customers feel good. Yet I believe there
is more truth to those “fortunes” than we often recognize;
and we do well to live trusting as if those words are indeed true
for us.
Let’s look first
at God’s love for us. The writer Henri Nouwen once proposed
that to take God’s love seriously means choosing to live in
the “house of love” that God has established among us.
The last verse of today’s Gospel reading from John gives us
Jesus’ promise that for those who open themselves to God’s
love, “we (namely Jesus and his Father) will come to them and
make our home with them.” And indeed God’s house is a
house of love where we know ourselves to be secure, protected, and
cared for. It’s what home is meant to be. To live in God’s
house is to say no to being a spiritual orphan. It is to say yes to
the good news of God’s coming among us in love. And so it is
a conscious choice to abide—to make our home—in the house
of love that God has initiated for us.
Now to be sure taking this
option does call for a leap of faith on our part. Increasingly we
are hearing strident voices around us questioning the whole premise
of a loving God as we Christians have held dear. There are always
tragedies and disasters around us that can be argued as pointing to
the absence of divine love. And of course when those claiming to be
God’s people engage in violence and hatred in the name of religion,
this does not enhance the cause of faith in a loving God. So it’s
better just to stick with a secular humanitarian approach, some advocate.
But for me that’s settling for the lowest common denominator,
and it amounts to living as a spiritual orphan. Why should we settle
for that when we have been given so much richer a possibility for
our lives? Living in the house of God’s love doesn’t guarantee
us an idyllic life, but at least it opens the door to a whole range
of opportunities for finding meaning and purpose and love. And that’s
the side I want to be on.
But as important as living
in God’s love is, we also need an awareness of human love if
we’re not to be spiritual orphans. We need it for our own spiritual
health; and certainly we need it if we are going to have any love
to share with others. How basic this is for you who are actively parenting;
you need your quota of love so you can share it fully with your children.
A self-giving mode of parenting that leaves you no time or room to
take in love is not likely doing your children any favors. So how
can we position ourselves to claim the human love we need?
I know there are some of
you for whom this is not an issue. You are blessed to see yourselves
as very loved human beings, and what a grace that is. It’s a
grace not only for you personally but to all who know you. You not
only have a full measure of love to share, but you also bear witness
that others can know the fullness of love for themselves. You are
living testimony that we are not predestined to be spiritual orphans.
But for many of us, knowing our belovedness stands as a bigger challenge.
And speaking out of my own experience, I think the hardest thing for
us to do is to let go of our facade that we are doing just fine on
our own, and to be willing to communicate our openness to engage with
others on a feeling level. Without this communication, in whatever
form, others may well see us as aloof or undesiring of their attention,
which signals them to keep their distance. To go for love, we need
to send a different signal that is more open and inviting.
The writer Henri Nouwen
whom I quoted a few minutes ago at one time served as a chaplain on
the staff of L’Arche, a residential community of handicapped
persons in Toronto. One day, shortly before one of his prayer services
was to begin, one of the residents named Janet came to him and asked,
“Henri, will you give me a blessing?” In a rather perfunctory
way, Nouwen responded by making the sign of the cross on her forehead.
“No, that doesn’t work,” Janet responded. “I
want a real blessing!” Nouwen realized then she was asking for
something more significant than a ritualistic gesture, though he wasn’t
sure quite what. So he promised her he would give her something more
in the course of the prayer service. When the time came, he announced
to the group, “Janet has asked me for a special blessing.”
And before he could say more, Janet got up and walked toward Nouwen
with her arms wide open. She threw her arms around him and her head
against his chest; and he in turn enfolded her with the sleeves of
his robe. And as they held each other, Nouwen said to her, “Janet,
I want you to know you are God’s beloved daughter. Your beautiful
smile, your kindness to the people in this house and all the good
things you do show us what a beautiful human being you are. I want
you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by
God and all the people who are here with you.” Janet’s
broad smile showed she had received the blessing of love and affirmation
she wanted. Immediately other residents were emboldened to ask for
and receive a similar kind of blessing. And finally one of the staff
assistants raised his hand and said, “And what about me?”
And he too came forward to hear the words of affirmation he longed
for; and with tears in his eyes, he said to Nouwen, “Thank you—thank
you very much.”
Each of us will need to
find our own way of reaching out for the blessings of love we want.
Yet as Jesus has promised us the presence of God’s Spirit to
keep us from being orphaned, I believe that Spirit will help us in
our search for human love as well as divine. Surely a God of love
cares that we know our belovedness in both forms. But I’m also
convinced that we must be ready to share ourselves with others at
the same time we seek love for ourselves. For so often it is in the
sharing that love comes to us. I am struck but not surprised by how
our three Gulf Coast work teams this past year have been life-transforming
for many of you who have gone. In investing our time and money and
energy on behalf of the storm victims, we have been given so much
love in return. A key reason for my decision to “retire”
once again is so I will have more opportunity to travel and involve
myself in situations of service where I know I will be blessed in
the process.
Friends, there’s
no future in being a spiritual orphan—and so much to gain in
knowing we are beloved. Going for love is worth what it costs. And
surely it’s what God wants for us. In the early challenging
days of the Methodist movement in England, Charles Wesley often complained
to his brother John about what he perceived to be a lack of the signs
of God’s love in his work. “If the Lord would give me
wings, I’d fly,” he would say. To which John Wesley would
reply, “If God bids me fly, I will trust him for the wings.”
Surely a God who bids us live in love will help us find the sustaining
love we need to make that possible!
©Larry
Young, 2007. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
Refusing
to Be an Orphan