Henrietta United
Rev. David Inglis John
14:18-23
Mother’s Day
“Proving You
Know How Much God Loves You”
Someone
recently sent me this reflection on motherhood:
Somebody said you learn how to
be a mother by instinct. Somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.
Somebody said a mother can do
her job with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. Somebody never
organized seven giggling Brownies into a sales team to sell Girl Scout Cookies.
Somebody said being a mother is
boring. Somebody never rode into heavy traffic in a car driven by a teenager
with a driver's permit.
Somebody said "good"
mothers never raise their voices. Somebody never came out the back door just in
time to see her child hit a golf ball through the neighbor's kitchen window.
Somebody said a mother can find
all the answers to her child rearing questions in the books. Somebody never had
a child stuff dried beans up his nose and in his ears. (Author unknown)
Kids don’t come with instruction
manuals, and even if they did, a whole book case full
of manuals couldn’t tell you how to handle your particular child with this
particular thing he or she is doing at this particular time. Like anything else we learn, parenting is a
matter of trial and error–all kinds of trials and a whole lot of errors. And as
soon as you think you have your kid figured out, they’re in another stage of
development and you start all over again.
It’s a rare parent indeed who is humble enough to realize they don’t
always know the answers, but is still courageous enough to proactively set
limits without being rigid, to enforce the rules without being punitive, to
protect their child without being overprotective, to help their child without
being overbearing, and to love their child without being indulgent. Actually, I don’t know if such a parent
exists with any consistency, though the parents here in this congregation come
as close as any I’ve known.
The reality is that all of us
were parented by human beings who were trying to figure out how to parent us as
they went along–if we were lucky. If we weren’t so lucky, they knew they
were always right–and that made us either always wrong or fearful of being
wrong. So most of us came into
adulthood with some wounds, some parts of ourselves that felt unworthy or
unlovable, some issues with criticism, blame, domination, or manipulation.
That’s why I love today’s
scripture reading. Let’s look at what
Jesus is saying to us in John 14:18-23. Jesus says, “I will not leave
you orphaned.” Whether your parents are
dead or alive, were humble or abusive, Jesus says to us, “I will not
leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
In a little while the world will no longer see me (he would be killed
and buried). But you will see me
(you will recognize me as a living presence).
Because I live (and can’t even be stopped by death), you also will live
(not just exist, but boldly live lives that are set free from doubt,
despair, and even death). On that day,
you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me,
and I in you. (You will experience the
deep oneness between Christ’s Spirit, God’s Spirit, and your spirit–a oneness that overcomes our aloneness, separation and
fear.) They who have my commandments and
keep them are those who love me. (Those
who put Christ’s commandments to love God fully and their neighbor as themselves at the
center of their lives, love Christ– not just in words but in actions). And those who love me will be loved by my
Father (because opening your life to Christ opens the door for God’s love to
flow into your life). And I will love
them and reveal myself to them (I will keep showing up in their lives as a
loving, abiding presence). Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it
that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will
keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make
our home with them (we will live inside them as an active power of love).”
Jesus is talking about taking
up residence inside us as a love that is deep, complete and eternal. It lifts us out of our fearful selves, and
puts us in the arms of God. It’s a love
that can’t be earned. But because it
always honors our free will, it does have to be accepted and received.
I was at a clergy seminar
recently that was led by Fred Lehr, a pastor who used to run a rehabilitation
program for clergy who had burned out, bombed out, or spun out in doing
ministry. As you know from all the news reports, clergy are a lot like
parents–real human beings who are learning by trials and errors how to do what
they do. Each clergy who came for treatment was assigned a spiritual
director. The spiritual director with
the toughest reputation was Sister Pat.
What made her so tough was that she kept saying to her charges: “Prove
to me that you know how much God loves you.”
Her clients had to work and struggle and grow to make God’s love not
just something they preached about, but something they deeply received into the
centered of their lives. In order to
make room for God at their core, they had to clear out a lot of themselves–like
their wounds and resentments, their feeling of inadequacy, their need to prove
themselves, or their need to be right or in control.
Sister Pat’s challenge is kind
of a scary one, isn’t it? “Prove to me
that you know how much God loves you.”
Do you think you’re ready to ponder what it would mean for you to be
living, acting proof of how much God loves you?
If you’re like me and most of
the rest of us, you carry some old scars from painful experiences you’ve been through. You’ve probably been deeply disappointed, let
down, or betrayed. You’ve experienced
some losses that shook your trust in life.
You’ve been falsely blamed or treated unfairly. You keep hearing old tapes that you’re not
good enough the way you are. You’re tied
up by remorse or regret for something you wish you hadn’t done or had done
differently. All of these things weaken
your confidence and make you pull part of your soul in to try to protect
yourself from more pain. Or maybe these
painful experiences compel you to control and manipulate other people to make
sure you don’t get hurt again. Or maybe
they make you feel like you have to keep putting yourself down or make up for
your failures.
How might you prove that you
know how much God loves you? Jesus said
that he will not leave you orphaned. I
invite you to close your eyes. Imagine
the one who healed the lepers, the paralyzed, the blind, and the possessed, and
who forgave even those who crucified him, now turning to you. Imagine Jesus looking deeply into your eyes
and into your soul, and seeing the wounds, the pain, the anxieties, the
regrets, or the deep needs that you carry within you. You see his eyes tear up as he feels each
one. His spirit recognizes your spirit
that lies hidden under the callouses and barriers and
fear. He longs to see your spirit become
free and whole and strong. He asks you,
as he asked the lame man who had waited for years beside the pool, “Do you want
to be healed? Do you want to be free and
whole and fully alive, without being bound by the past and fearful of the
future? Are you willing to release your dis-ease,
your wounds, your resentments, your anxieties, your burdens, all the ways you limit
yourself and stifle yourself, to God?
Keep your eyes closed and take
a deep, relaxing breath. What are you
carrying today that gets in your way of
your living openly, freely and fully?
God loves you enough to heal it.
But God respects you enough not to take anything from you that you
aren’t willingly to release. If you are
ready, hold it up to God right now. Name
it or feel it as you open it to God’s infinite love for you. Invite God to bring divine, infinite, healing
love right into that place of pain, fear, guilt, or need. Ask God to begin dissolving it as you release
more and more of it into God’s love. . . .This is an ongoing process that may
take awhile to complete. But your saying
Yes to God puts the medicine into your spiritual bloodstream where it can go to
work.
Jesus told the man who decided
that he did want to be healed to stand up, take up his mat and walk. That’s how you can begin proving you know how
much God loves you. God does the
healing, but it’s up to you to do the walking, living and acting into the
freedom that God opens up for you. With
your eyes closed, think of one thing you can do to take the first step into
wholeness and freedom. . . .When you’re ready, you can open your eyes.
Becoming living, walking proof
of how much God loves you does something powerful to your life. It changes you from being a victim of your
circumstances and focusing on excuses into being a co-creator of your life and
focusing on possibilities.
We don’t realize how much our
own attitudes shape our lives. If we
feel inadequate, helpless and needy, sure enough, we’ll keep finding ourselves
messing up and needing to be taken care of.
If we’re convinced people can’t be trusted and we have to get them
before they get us, sure enough, we’ll find ourselves in conflict with
antagonistic people all the time. If
we’re afraid of bad things happening to us, we’ll have a long and growing list
of things that have gone wrong. If we
believe we’re undeserving, most of life’s blessings will just seem to pass us
by.
But if we believe down to our
core that God loves us, that God created our spirit in God’s own image, that
God gave us the capacity to love fully, that God wants us to taste and
experience the wonder of life and its bountiful blessings, that God gives us
the ability to grow and mature through our trials and through our mistakes,
that every aspect of who we are can be used by God for a good purpose if we
offer it to God, that we were put here with gifts to develop and to share, and
that nothing, not even death, can separate us from God’s love, then what kind
of life will be have? Won’t we have a
life where everything is ends up being a blessing and working for good, a life
that is full of meaning and purpose, a life that we can embrace in trust and gratitude,
a life that embodies God’s love for the world?
Jesus said, “I will not leave
you orphaned; I am coming to you.” He
comes to you every time you humbly and sincerely invite him. He is here right now, holding out his hand,
challenging you to stand up, pick up your mat, and step into a life that is
living proof that you know how much God loves you. May we each find the courage to step into
that life of freedom, faith and joy.