Just as I have loved you

A few days ago, a friend was telling me a bit about the Wild Goose Festival. Jim Wallis of Sojourner fame told the group that our sole guide for racial and social justice is our Baptismal Covenant. I replied that our Baptismal Covenant should be our sole guide for every aspect of our lives.

There is one Body and one Spirit;

There is one hope in God’s call to us;

One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism;

One God and Father of all.

Were we to go no further in the Baptismal Covenant, this opening verse and response should tell us all we need to know.

We are a single unit, strands knitted together by God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. We, all of us, are one united through our baptism.

Yet, there is more. We are called into accountability.

Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?

Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?

Each child is brought into this oneness with a vow made by the parents and godparents – I will, with God’s help. This is a very serious promise. We enter into a covenant, with God, with that child, to bring that child up in the Christian faith and life and promise to help that child grow into the full stature of Christ. That is a very big deal. I wonder if we know what we are promising the first time we say it.

Personally, I failed miserably as a god parent. Twenty+ years ago, a young woman asked me to be a godparent to her two children. I barely knew the woman except for the fact that she lived near the parish and had been coming to church for a little while. I said yes. I should not have said yes. I made a vow and broke it in my ignorance. I did not understand the full nature of the promise. At the time, I had no idea as to the “full stature of Christ.” I am sure I continue to lack full knowledge of that phrase but I do know much more now than I did then.

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

I have always answered dutifully, “I will, with God’s help.” And I mean it, every time. I try to proclaim by example, if not always by word, the Good News of God in Christ; meaning, that I try to love God with all my heart, and soul, and mind, and love my neighbor as God loves me.

I am fairly good about these first two promises, at least, I am when I am at work. I am not always a shining example of God’s love, especially when my next door neighbors are shooting cannon firework off in front of my house on the sidewalk. Nor am I a very good example of God’s love when an unconcerned and seemingly selfish driver does something stupid and careless in front of me on the road. Nor do I do a very good job of loving my neighbor or being an example of that love when I read the ongoing fear-mongering on social media. 

Still, I try. I agree that Thomas Merton’s prayer “But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you” is what pleases God; just the simple fact that, indeed, I do try. Yet, the first of these two do not ask that we “try”; rather, that we “proclaim” and “seek and serve Christ in ALL persons” regardless.

The third one calls us into action, asking will we “strive for justice and peace” – among ALL people. And that further, we “respect the dignity” of EVERY human being.

Again, at work, I do strive diligently to do this. And actually, it is far easier to love people than we might first think. I do try at home too. Sometimes, it is difficult. Like when I come home from work and feel as though every ounce I had to give was given away. There seems to be no more. Yet, I am asked by word, thought, or deed, to do so. I get grouchy and resentful.

But I know in all of this, in all of my lack, in all of my more, I know I am trying. The more I try, the more I practice, the more real it becomes. I am a slow work of love.

I told a guy that I loved him. I saw his face change. It was the first time I had ever said it to him. He has been coming to the pantry and hot lunch for over a year. I remember when he first came, he was dirty, belligerent, smelly, and totally disrespectful. He is still. At first, I reacted to his behavior. If he was nice, so was I. If he wasn’t, I reacted in a negative way. 

I don’t think that tough love works very well.

Over the past few months, I came to the realization that he is often “acting out” just as a rebellious teen might do. He expects people to be irritated with him, to be repelled, to be shocked; therefore, he is irritating, shocking deliberately. He said he played the piano, so I had the piano returned to the parish hall. He doesn’t play. However, there is a certain rhythm to his tunes that lends a certain quality to the music. It sounds like music, only a piece no one has ever before heard. More than anything, it changes him when he plays. I think it calms him. I believe that he knows that it irritates some people but that I allow it. I think he respects that. He always tells me thank you.

When he asked me why I do the things that I do, I told him, “because I love you.” He cocked his head to one side and laughed but then he realized that I was sincere. It mattered.

Does my love cure him of whatever caused him to be homeless? No. Of course not. Does he trust me in all things and will never argue with me again, be belligerent or irritating? No. But it lets him know that he matters.

I take seriously the covenant I have made with God. It is the basis for all things. I realize that now, at this age, after all my life’s yearnings and earnings. I know this now. It feels natural, finally. I don’t always succeed but it lives before me, pulling me onward, teaching me new ways to love God and to love my neighbor as I am loved.

We are one in the Body. We are one in the Spirit. There is one hope in God’s call to us. There is One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; One God and Father of all.

Striving for life in this oneness is what our Baptismal Covenant is all about. There would be no need to strive for justice, mercy or respect if we heard and lived into the two most important commandment: Love God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

Sometimes our only job is to show other people how much they are loved. But first, we have to understand that we are, indeed, loved. Regardless. Steadfastly. Realizing that we are loved, that we are worthy of love, offers us the ability to share that love.

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 for one another.’ John 13:34

We can’t learn to love or fully understand how much we are loved unless we work at being in relationship with one another.

We have to practice love every day. If you don’t know how much you are loved, contact me. I will tell you. I need the practice.

The certainty within the Mystery

When I first saw her, I could tell she was near tears. A volunteer had come to tell me that there was a young woman that I needed to see. She was a small woman with a backpack cutting into her shoulders. She looked as though she was carrying the weight of the world.  

As soon as I said hello, her eyes filled with tears. She told me her story. She was homeless, her car was out of gas, and she and her two month old baby had spent the night in the park. She had three more children with her but she was able to find them a place to stay for the night. The problem was that she had nowhere to spend the night and this night, she would have all the children with her. She was frightened.

A major blessing of working at Trinity Food Ministry is having a nurse from Deaconess Faith Community Nurse Ministries (faithnurses.org) there. While my resource list is growing, I am often at a loss as to help people when their needs are so far beyond the immediate need of food. I introduced her to our nurse.

This was all just a part of the story. She began working for a man four years ago. He was disabled and needed help around the house. She and her little girl moved in with him. The man had two children of his own that came to live with him after their mother went to prison for drugs. At some point, the relationship between the man and the young woman became romantic and later, she became pregnant.

She left his house with all the children after the man was arrested for hitting her. While she had a place at a domestic violence shelter, she could not take his two children there because she did not have custody of them. As a result, she couldn’t enter into the shelter until she found a place for the two. Their grandmother was coming from Kansas City to pick them up but would not be able to be in St. Louis until the following day. That left her one more night with four children.

After many phone calls, we were able to get her into a motel for the night so that she and the children would be safe. Arrangements were made for her to meet the grandmother and for the shelter to pick her up. I filled a bag with food and other necessities for the evening and she was on her way. As far as we know, all things worked out.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? The Mystery. The Great Unknowing. We do what we think we are supposed to do, to help, to pray, to offer food and drink, then we simply have to rely on the idea that it all was enough. That it was exactly what we were supposed to do. That God heard our prayers.

As a culture, we seek certainty. We want to know that what we do matters. We want to know that if we do good things, good things will follow, that all will be well simply because we think that is the way it should be.

Yet, the only certainty in life is that it will end at some point. We can try to force the issue but all in all, life happens and sometimes it is very messy regardless of how we try to fix it. At some point, all we have is faith.

Faith is a mystery. God is a mystery. It is what it is. Simply. Profoundly. Mystery.

We accept that we have been commanded to help the “least of these”, to feed, to tend, to care for the children of God who are less able to care for themselves.

No car. No phone. No money. The young woman could have turned the two children over to Family Services. But she didn’t. She put herself at risk to make certain they were handed over to a family member rather that slipped into a system where they could disappear under mounds of red tape. She had a faith that she was doing the right thing.

It often feels as though the problems of this world are so large and so numerous that it threatens to overwhelm me. I feel smothered by the need surrounding me. But community pulls me out from under the cloud, fills me with the breath of God so that I can walk up to the next person with God’s smile in my eyes and say, “Hello. How can I help you today?

It is in that common core of community that I find my life. It is in the midst of that community that I know I am called to beckon to others. How do I know that? I don’t know “how”, I only know that I do know. It is that mystery.

It is in that mystery that regardless of where that young woman ended up, I know that along her way, she found a short respite where people cared enough to sit, to pray, to listen, and then to do what could be done. She searched out and found a community that could help her. I trust that it was what was needed at that moment in time.