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Here’s one to stump you. What do John the Baptist and Winnie the Pooh have in common? They both liked honey and they both have “the” as their middle name. I know that’s a groaner. Actually, they don’t have much in common, do they? Winnie the Pooh is soft and filled with fluff and John the Baptist is stark and strange. His first words in the Gospel make us cringe: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And his last words are also harsh. His idea of the Messiah was that he would separate the good from the bad and burn the bad with unquenchable fire. His message was effective to a point. He did get some pretty hardened people to turn their lives around. He told them that being a Jew, a child of Abraham was not enough. They had to share clothing and food from their abundance. Tax collectors and soldiers, two groups whose behavior was enough to justify the place of low repute they held in their society, even asked what they should do and he gave them specific directions. His over arching message was a call for an end of a lifestyle based on greed and the accumulation of material possessions. That was the part of his message where he had it right. Jesus would also call for that kind of repentance. But John, for all that he knew and did to get things ready for Jesus’ ministry, still missed something. At the risk of making this overly simplistic, let me say that John stood in the line of the Old Testament prophets who are intent on proclaiming God’s anger with the people as a way of trying to get them to shape up. We cannot help but feel fear as we hear their words about how God is going to come down and punish. The people of Joseph Campbell talks about the five stages, degrees, orders, of love. They are first, the love of servant to master—tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Second, the love of friend to friend, like the apostles to Jesus. The third is that of parent for child, the fourth that of spouse for spouse and the fifth is wild ecstatic love. What is relevant here for us is that John and the prophets before him operated out of the first level of love. It is the level of law, of commandments. We do what God tells us to do, or else. But that was not Jesus’ way. Jesus had a vision of a higher level of love. It was the love
of friend to friend, the second level, and it was also the love of parent for
child, the third level. Jesus called God Father, and as much as I sometimes
wished he hadn’t because of all the fixation on masculine language we’ve had
to deal with ever since, it shows an intimacy between God and humanity. It is a
more intimate and intense love than friend to friend. And it starts for us in
the manger, where the babe represents to us the coming of Christ into our own
hearts. Those of us who
have had the good fortune to either be parents or have loving parents that we
have also loved, know that this kind of love can be truly transformational. This
is the kind of Messiah Jesus turned out to be, not the one expected who would
restore the throne of David in We throw the word “love” around so frequently and casually, and yet I sometimes wonder what we really think we mean by that word. It is not possessive love that loves for what it can get in return. It is not conditional love that loves only when that love is reciprocal. It is not controlling love that wants the beloved to behave in a certain way. It is not lustful love that objectifies the other. The kind of love Jesus came to live and proclaim was unconditional love, the love that only wants the good of the other, that only wants to know who the other really is, without trying to control, possess or objectify. It is the love that is based on a relationship that cannot and will not be broken. Parent love remains the best analogy for us. It doesn’t matter who our kids are or what they’ve done. We may not like them very much sometimes; but we cannot help loving them, no matter what. This is the love of the womb, of compassion, that starts in our hearts with the birth of Christ and moves out to include all of humanity as well as God. I think sometimes that it is too bad that we have removed the Summary of the Law from the Rite II service of the liturgy. It used to be that Episcopalians heard these words every Sunday: Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ says: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments rest all the Law and the Prophets.” We had this weekly reminder that Jesus came to proclaim a Gospel of Love, of God’s love for us, of our love for God and for one another—and for ourselves. It wasn’t conditional love. It was just enduring, accepting love. It is the kind of love that makes you want to be worthy of that love. It’s the kind of love that overflows into the goodness that John the Baptist was trying to get from people by making them afraid. It is the kind of love that has room for otherness and uniqueness because it does not judge and put people into categories of believer and unbeliever, of right and wrong. Jesus wanted people to do good and be good, and he knew that love and forgiveness were the ways to make this happen. Like John he wanted people to care for the poor, to be honest, to do their jobs with integrity, and he knew that people who know God’s love and forgiveness in their lives and in their hearts are more apt to do this. Jesus, for heaven’s sake, forgave people before they repented. And when they realized the gift they had been given, they changed their lives from the inside out. Joan Chittister tells the story of the Native American elder who was talking about tragedy in his life. “The elder said, ‘I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one.’ ” The disciple to whom he was speaking asked, “’But which one will win the fight in your heart?’ And the holy one answered, ‘It depends on which one I feed.’” We get what we feed, what stroke. This is an old transactional analysis truth, and it is true of individual lives and true of our collective life. Parents get the behavior they model and reinforce. The world gets the behavior it models and reinforces. Has our world ever needed love instead of violence, understanding and compassion instead of judgment and anger any more than we do now? Has the Episcopal Church ever needed it more? We are getting ready to celebrate the most wonderful, joyful holiday in the Christian year. It is love come down to dwell with us and in us. We work to prepare room for the Christ child, for this love, in our hearts by readying our lives in expectation and hope. And we can join Paul in saying Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.” Dietrich Bonhoffer wrote a letter 60 years ago from the prison cell where he was awaiting death for his participation in a failed attempt to kill Hitler. He said, “Life in a prison cell reminds me a great deal of Advent—one waits and hopes and potters about, but in the end what we do is of little consequence, for the door is shut, and it can only be opened from the outside.” My friends, we are getting ready for the arrival of the One who opens the door, enters our prison and sets us free to love and be loved. Let us be ready to accept the gift and walk through that open door. God has promised to make better lovers out of us all. Amen. |
