Here’s what I love about this reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: It’s not really about marriage. Oh, it certainly has something to say to those who are getting married, but Paul wrote this letter to a church. This letter is about all our relationships---in particular, community relationships. And here’s the thing: marriage is meant to represent the love we are to have in all our relationships, and within our community.

Wait! What! That’s crazy! I mean, it’s hard enough to live out this love God is prescribing with my spouse (who is a particularly wonderful person)….and now God wants me, wants us, to live out this patient, kind, not envious or boastful, not rude or arrogant love---this not insisting on its own way, sacrificial, not resentful, but hopeful, enduring love with all people? All kinds of people? Shut the front door! What in the world is God thinking of…..?

Well, God is thinking of the world, of course, all of Creation. We are what God is thinking of---how the world might be turned right side up again. Through Love.

And yes, Beloved, this kind of love between all people and in all relationships is exactly what God wants. Of course, this love will look a bit differently with different folks and in different relationships. But at the center of all our interactions, connections and associations—family, friends, strangers, neighbors, enemies----at the center of each God calls us to have and share this Jesus kind of love St Paul describes in today’s letter.

Lord, have mercy, is this even possible? In the past I would have said: Probably not.  Maybe only in the next life…..but friends, let me share a love story with you…….a most incredible thing happened this past Tuesday….right here at the Beloved Community….

Two years ago I met Rob Barndollar. He was coming to the Warming Shelter that was held in Intercession’s old building.  Rob stood out to me because from the beginning, he was incredibly friendly, and grateful, always asking how he could help, how he could be of service. The first time I met him he had brought some Polito’s pizza to the shelter; he was working at Polito’s at the time, and he was offering it to those of us who had come to share Saturday breakfast.

Rob showed up pretty much every Saturday that he could that summer. Our relationship started to grow. That fall he and his girlfriend moved into the Knights Inn; they didn’t want to spend another winter outside. Rob continued to come to breakfasts at the Franciscans and he showed up when BobbieJoy and I were volunteering there. 

Rob wasn’t a saint, but any means, but it was easy to see treating others well was at the core of who he was---he was constantly trying to give back.  Last April, we worked with Rob and others to get him a vehicle and a driver’s license so that he could work regularly. That was the plan. Rob kept telling me about a book he was writing about God’s plan for him, for us, for people to live together differently. Rob was full of hope and possibility.

Then, this past May, Rob was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Rob could have become bitter and angry, but he didn’t. He realized how many blessings had come his way; he realized how God loved him. Due to the generosity of the folks here, we were able to help him get him into his own room, and our own Jb helped him to get hospice care. We partnered with his other friends, particularly those of Evergreen Community Initiatives, to try and make sure Rob was able to enjoy and have some comfort his last days. Again, Rob wasn’t always perfect, and he certainly did not want to go gentle into that good night. But he was at peace; he knew his creator; he was certain God was with him.

Thursday, January 24th, Rob died. He and I had talked about having his memorial service, his celebration of life, here at the Beloved Community.  Not because you all knew him, but because you all cared for him through the ways we were able to help him. The service was this past Tuesday.  On that frigidly cold night, 60+ plus people came out to celebrate Rob’s life and love. As one guest who had not had the pleasure of meeting Rob asked BobbieJoy: “you mean all these people came out in this weather for one homeless guy?”

It was so amazing. I wish you could have seen it. Gathered here in this holy space were two non-denominational pastors, a Franciscan Roman Catholic priest, and me. There were Episcopalians, Lutherans, non-denominational folks, Roman Catholic folks. There were homeless folks, addicts and alcoholics. Some who have known material wealth, and some who have known none at all.  We all came. With different expectations, beliefs, and levels of comfort.  We came; we shared stories; we ate a meal (Polito’s Pizza, of course), we prayed, and we sang. Our voices came together to sing Amazing Grace, and beloved, it was: amazing, and grace. Because, this Beloved, this was heaven.  All stripes and sorts of humanity for a brief moment realizing we belong to one another. Realizing what this is all really about.  And Beloved, this all happened because of Love; Love for Rob---and Love for God---Love made heaven manifest here in this place.

Oh Beloved, two years ago I was probably thinking that Rob needed me, needed us. But Beloved, I needed Rob. My heart has been changed; I see differently now….and there’s no going back….

Poet, artist and Methodist minister Jan Richardson wrote:
“Loving is never just about opening our heart. It is about being willing to have our heart become larger as we make room for people and stories and experiences we never imagined holding. It is about being willing to have our heart become deeper as we move beyond the surface layers of our assumptions, prejudices, and habits in order to truly see and receive what — and who — is before us. It is about being willing to have our heart continually shattered and remade as we take in not only the brokenness of the world but also the beauty of it, the astounding wonder that will not allow us to remain the same.”

Beloved, let me leave you with a simple prayer I pray at the end of my Morning Prayers each day….a prayer that has opened my heart for those things God longs for me, but those things I too often want to avoid or deny or shut out.  It goes like this:

Lord, infuse me with your grace that I may flow from your love.

​Beloved, may God’s grace break our hearts open so that we can be agents of God’s love. 

It’s that time of year again……primary season.  That means commercial after commercial after commercial. And unfortunately, beloved, we are not talking about commercials that share a candidate’s dream or vision of what can be. We are talking about commercials that simply hammer down on the opponent or opponents; commercials that are filled, as St. Paul would say, with “evil talk” In many ways, sound pollution filling the air.

​In some ways, I think these political commercials are a barometer of our society, taking the pulse of our American culture and mindset, and beloved, it ain’t pretty.  It seems there is plenty to be angry about……plenty of reasons to remain divided…..smaller and smaller patches of common ground on which we as a people can stand together.
St. Paul tells us to “put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, if the world in which St. Paul lived in was anything like the times we find ourselves living in. But, beloved, while the times were vastly different, the reality of conflict and division, polarization and danger were very much a part of Paul’s life and culture. So, how then, can Paul simply say: Put away all bitterness? Leave anger and wrath alone…..Set aside your malicious and evil talk and be tenderhearted; choose kindness; forgive.

All too often it feels like that old joke: Well, now come to think of it, you can’t get there from here……..How? How can we possibly get there from here?

Well, if you’ve known me for a while, you know that I often say (somewhat jokingly even though it is no joke) there is always one correct response to any question, and that right answer is:………(Jesus!)
I’m not being a Pollyanna, pie-in-the-sky, some kind of hippy-loving Jesus freak when I say that. I really believe Jesus is the answer.  Let’s look at Today’s Good News:

Jesus says (again….he said it last week, and it will come up a few more times this month): I am the bread of life.  The bread. The food. The thing that feeds our hunger……

Jesus is the answer because Jesus is the food.  Gandhi once said: “There are so many hungry people in the world that God could only come in the world in the form of food.”

Hunger is emptiness…..hunger, beloved, often shows up as anger, malice, wrath, polarization……revealing an emptiness that goes beyond our stomachs……an emptiness that resides in our gut---in the Old Testament, the gut was the seat of our compassion and our mercy. Oh Beloved, we are hungry.
But there’s an antidote to hunger, and that antidote is food…..bread…..Jesus.

As we feast on Jesus, as we walk this way of Love that is Jesus, as we come to this communion and remember that we bring our lives before God in the offering, asking God to bless our lives, to break our lives open so that, like Jesus, our lives can be shared with others…..as we consume the bread, the food, the sustenance that is Jesus, we are being reshaped and reformed. 

Beloved, the beliefs we repeat weekly in the prayers and the texts of this worship, the actions we undertake Sunday after Sunday, the music that swims in our bloodstream and the words that remind us what this is all about----take, bless, break, share---these repetitions are like water dripping on the stones of our humanity, smoothing the rough edges, reshaping the jagged corners, refocusing our sight and sharpening our hearing so we can see God at work in us, in one another and in the world, so that we can know and be known by Jesus, this eternal bread, this essence of what it means to live abundantly (Give us this day our daily bread).

And as we become what we receive, God lives more and more within us---this is the truth we come to know in Jesus: God with us; God dwelling within humanity. 
A few months back I shared with you that St. Columba once said: “Joy is the echo of God’s life within us.”
So, now I want to circle back to my opening question: How do we get there (tenderhearted; choosing kindness; setting aside malicious and evil talk) from where we are? How do we go from tearing others down to building one another up? How do we become imitators of God and live in love as a fragrant offering?

We resist.  We become resisters. And beloved, the resistance to evil and malice, the opposition of anger and wrath is joy.  Joy is the resistance.  For joy comes from God’s presence within us, within our lives.  Now, you may be thinking, there she goes again with that Pollyanna, idealistic, JesusFreak talk again. But, bear with me, beloved.  Maybe you know some folks like the folks I know.
Folks who have every reason to be anger, disgruntled, and full of fear. Some of these folks have had a lot of hard luck; some of these folks have made their own hard luck.  A few of these beloved folks I know have been handed a life-ending diagnosis. And as we all know, these kind of diagnoses also come with painful and scary roads.

And yet, beloved, these folks I know, they exude a warmth, a love, a joy---there’s really no other word for it---they talk about their blessings.  And yes, they talk about their fear or their worries; their wonderings and questions, but the shadows do not define them or limit their capacity for love, for grace, for joy.  These folks I know, and again, you probably know or have known some folks like this----they have something not everyone has. They have Jesus, that second person of God who is also called the Word and has been known by other names and known by names we have probably never even heard since the Word has always been; they have that indwelling of the divine.
 
These folks I know, they believe the promise. The promise that there is more than this life we can see and know in these very mortal bodies. The promise that God is working toward their wholeness---a wholeness that goes beyond this life we now know---a wholeness that isn’t dependent on the breath we take, but comes from the Spirit that we receive.

And because they have Jesus, they have joy.  “Joy is the echo of God’s life within us.” Oh Beloved, this isn’t easy.  But it is. But it isn’t. We who demand our independence must first become dependent. On God. On one another, recognizing we are each other’s business. And we who pride ourselves on self-reliance must come, come to the table, come and join the community of the diverse, the broken, the faithful, the faithless, the sinner, and the saint, and lift up our hands so that we can receive. Receive what we don’t have the capacity to give or provide for ourselves.

Jesus is the bread, the food, the stuff of life abundant.  Take; eat; let joy resound within you as your truest self---as one made in the image of the divine----takes shape and form and dwells within you.  As Civil Rights leader and organizer Bayard Rustin said: “Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.”
Beloved, instead: Let us be the resistance---the echo of God leaking out in the form of joy---resisting the wrath, the malice, the division, and instead speak and live the Way of love, members of one another, God’s beloved community.

Good morning Beloved: I write this on my 12th day---Convention ended yesterday and today I am looking forward to returning home. Tomorrow I will be with the Beloved Community again as we gather to give thanks and praise God for all our blessings.......there are so many.

These past 12 days my life has been intertwined with the lives of many; some of whom I will probably never see again, some of whom I remain connected via technology; some of whom remain in my physical presence and daily life. Odd, isn't it? How we are connected in so many ways.  One of the blessings of these past 12 days is that vivid reminder that we are connected----to folks we love and folks who make our back teeth hurt; to folks who speak our language and folks who speak a foreign tongue; to folks who share a common heritage and folks who bring a new and unknown one to the table.  Connected, connected, connected.

The Convention passed resolutions which recognizes, protects, and meets the needs of many many folks: immigrants, Palestinians, transgender, gay, straight, women, refugees, children, the impoverished, the abused, the clergy and the lay.  There is a movement of love and sacredness at foot among us, and we know this movement to be Jesus.  We know this movement to be the sacrificial giving and sharing we see in Jesus. We know this movement because it is the movement to which we have been bound before we knew it, and the movement we claim to be ours in the waters of baptism.  It is the Way of Love.

I pray that as we participate in this Way, this movement, our paths cross again and again.  And each time I am certain we will be enriched for having been intertwined.  I pray for safe travel for all and uneventful flights. I give thanks that tonight I return to my husband and best friend. I cherish what has been, knowing it will empower and equip me for what will be.

Peace and blessings, y'all. God is good and Love is the Way.