A Love Story
By Rev. Julie Yarborough
May 2, 2010
1 Corinthians 11: 23b-26 and John 13: 31-35
[ Audio
(mp3, 4.9Mb) ]
ildren's author, Kate DiCamillo, is perhaps best known for her books Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Desperaux, both of which have been made into movies. But she has also written a series of books about a pig named Mercy Watson, who loves buttered toast above all else, and lives with her owners, Mr. and Mrs. Watson who dote on her lovingly, referring to her as their “porcine wonder.” In each book, Mercy gets into some sort of trouble as she embarks on simple adventures in the neighborhood. And there are always a host of other odd and wonky characters that interact with the Watsons in their world: The elderly sisters, Baby and Eugenia Lincoln, who live next door, Animal Control Officer Francine Poulet (who has a nose like a chicken's!) Beatrice Leapaleoni, Officer Tomilello, and many others. In all 6 of the Mercy Watson books, regardless of what happens in the story, all of the characters end up on the final page, gathered around the table in Mr. and Mrs. Watson's home, eating buttered toast and drinking juice.
I
love the Mercy Watson books, which for me are reminders that we live in a strange
and wonderful world, inhabited by strange and wonderful, wonky people, all of
whom are invited to the table, where there's plenty of buttered toast and juice
(or bread and wine) to go around.
At
Christ Church we gather around the table each
month at the first service and each week at the second service – a group of
strange and wonderful, wonky people, each with our own foibles and failings, each
hungry for the bread of life and the cup of salvation. It's a beautiful image -
if you look closely when we gather around the table together, you can glimpse a
vision of the kingdom
of God.
A
couple of weeks ago at the state funeral for Former U.S. Congressman Bob
Franks, Chuck preached a beautiful homily. In it, he told a story about Bob running for
U. S. Senate against Jon Corzine, who
was also a member of Christ
Church, in the year 2000.
I remember this story – I was here that
day – but I like the way chuck tells it, so I'm going to quote him:
The
campaign stayed on policy and when the time came
that
both of their camps started advising them to go negative,
they
stayed on policy. I was proud of them.
Came
the Sunday before the election and I suppose every
politician
everywhere goes to church on that Sunday, the
time
comes in the worship service for Eucharist, Communion.
That
Sunday, we invited the whole congregation to gather
around
the altar, the table of reconciliation. It is where we
Christians
remember the Last Supper, with its honest spiritual
lesson
that we are at our best when we relate to one another
as
forgiven sinners, as broken healers, seeking remedial lessons
in
a shared life of love.
We
are all gathered around the table, shoulder to shoulder, in
a
big throng. I look up to start the prayers and I can see Jon and
his
family over here and Bob and his family over there. And I
thought,
‘we compete 6 days a week in the marketplace, and
on
this 7th day, we come to this sanctuary, which literally
means
‘a place of refuge', ‘a place of peace' and we remember
that
we are also a community of solidarity that transcends
our
partisanship, however important partisanship really is.
Not
just in politics, but as I looked over the crowd, I thought
most
of these guys compete through their banks, their
corporations,
all week long. On the seventh day, we gather
simply
as humans in need of completion through a divine love
that
we can only experience from one another. It doesn't
abrogate
our differences but it does transcend them. For that
moment,
we come together. [1]
In
the gospel of John, the last supper is not described in detail. Instead, we have the story of Jesus washing
his disciples' feet as a final gesture of love. John does tell us that they were gathered around a table, and it is
there, after the foot washing, that Jesus announces that one of the twelve will
betray him. He dipped a piece of bread into a dish, and handed it to Judas to
indicate that he was the one, and immediately Judas went out. It is after this
story, and in this setting that Jesus tells the disciples that he gives them a
new commandment to love one another. And in the course of three sentences, he
repeats himself three times to make sure that they get it.
I
give you a new commandment… that you love one another.
Just
as I have loved you… You also should love
one another.
By
this everyone will know that you are my disciples… If you have love one for another.
And
Jesus repeats himself again in John chapter 14 and chapter 15 with the same
commandment to love one another. These
are Jesus' parting words to those he is leaving behind. “I'm leaving. Do you
love me? Then love each other. Keep loving each other, no matter what. If you
do this, the world will know that you are my followers.” In the Bible, when phrases are repeated, they
are to be read with emphasis, and taken seriously. The triple formula in
chapter 13 echoes another passage in the final chapter of John, where Jesus
says to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? … Feed my
lambs…. Simon, son of John, do you love
me? … Tend my sheep.” And a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?...
Feed my sheep.”
The
Gospel of John is full of symbolism and flowery, Gnostic language, which
sometimes makes it difficult to understand, but on this point we can be very
clear. If we love Jesus, we have to love one another.
Easier
said than done, isn't it?
I
know a woman who got into a power struggle with her 6 year-old daughter over
whether the daughter could wear a pair of high-heeled sandals out of the
house. The argument escalated until her
mother said in a rather loud firm voice, “You may wear your sneakers or your
dress shoes, but you may not wear those sandals, period! That's it!”
The
daughter stomped away as loudly as she could, muttering something under her
breath. About five minutes later she returned, and thrust a piece of paper at
her mother. On the top of the paper, she had written D-U-N, in the middle of
the paper was a drawing of a heart with a big dark X through it, and at the bottom of the paper were the words “loving
you.”
“What's
this?” her mother asked.
“I
am done with loving you for today!” the little girl replied.
Yes, love is hard work.
There
are at least three different words for love in Greek, which was the common
language of the Holy Roman Empire during
Jesus' lifetime.[2] The
first is eros, from which we get the
word erotic. This is sensual, romantic love, desire,
passion – it refers to the kind of feeling that new lovers share, but also to the
kind of love that good food and wine can inspire or the kind of love that artists
have for beauty, or the distinct pleasure that a scientist can feel when a new
discovery is made. Eros is wonderful, but fleeting. Over time, eros fades. This type of love is also the type that can most easily
be corrupted – it can easily turn in to hatred or objectification or
possessiveness, which isn't love at all.
The
second type of love is philos, often
translated as “brotherly love.” This type of love isn't associated with
feelings of passion, but it is long-lasting and loyal. True deep and abiding
friendship is philos.
The
third type of love, and the one that Jesus is talking about in the 13th
chapter of John, is agape. This is
also the type of love that the Apostle Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 13.
It's the most important and also the most difficult type of love there is.
Paul tells us that agape love is patient and kind, it's not
envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Agape
love is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but
rejoices in the truth. Agape love bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Agape
love is the hardest kind of love because it is selfless. It earnestly desires
what is best for others. It's
unconditional. And it's hard, because we're not perfect, we're human, and we're
fallible and we fail. Yet this is the type of love that Jesus says we should
have for God and for all people – friends, lovers, co-workers, children,
parents, casual acquaintances – even our enemies. I remember my parents saying
to me as a child, “You don't have to agree
with everyone, you don't even have to like
everyone, but you do have to love everyone.” In other words, we are called to respect
others, treat them with kindness and desire wholeness for their lives, even if
we don't like them.
Agape
love comes from God. In fact, agape
love is
God. And God is agape love. The good news is that we don't have to be the
source of this love – God is the source and we just have
to tap into it. In fact, the more that we are centered in God's love, the more
loving we become. And the more loving we are, the more God's presence is
known. As Jesus said, “If you love one
another, the world will know that you are my followers.” For where there is agape love, there is God.
In
the final Mercy Watson book, Mercy is taken to a drive-in movie to see “When
Pigs Fly” by her owners and the neighbors, because they think it will be
inspiring for Mercy. Baby Lincoln
wonders aloud if the movie will be a love story. Chaos ensues at the theatre,
because Mercy discovers that there is buttered popcorn in every open car and
she makes the rounds to help herself, while being chased by the other
characters in the story. Needless to say, nobody gets to see the end of the
movie, but everyone ends up back at the Watson's house for buttered toast and
juice.
“We never did get to see that
movie,” said Stella.
“I wonder if it ended happily,”
said Frank.
“Well,” said Mrs. Watson, “here we
are, all of us together.”
“And we're all eating toast,” said
Mr. Watson.
“I can't imagine a happier ending
than that,” said Mrs. Watson.
“It's the happiest possible
ending,” said Baby Lincoln. “It's almost like a love story.”
“It is a love story,” said Mr. Watson.
“And it's very inspirational,” said
Mrs. Watson.[3]
Here
we are today, a community of strange and wonderful and wonky characters, about
to gather around a table, to share bread and juice, to remember the story of
Jesus and his love for us, and to be reminded to live out our common calling to
love one another. This is a story with the best possible ending. It is
a love story and it's very inspirational.
Amen
[1] Rev.
Charles T. Rush, Homily from the Memorial Service for Former
U. S.
Congressman Bob Franks, at The Cathedral Basilica, Newark, NJ, April 17, 2010,
pp. 6-7.
[2] A
special thanks to Kate Braestrup for her discussion of the three types of love
with her daughter's sex education class in the book Marriage and Other Acts
of Civility, (New York: Little Brown and Company), 2010, pp.159-163.
[3] Mercy
Watson: Something Wonky This Way Comes, by Kate DiCamillo, (Candlewick Press), 2009, pp.
© 2010
Julie Yarborough.
All rights reserved.
