A few years ago, we had a vacation. My friend Joseph, fluent in Greek, had been on a sea kayaking adventure a couple of years previous, and eager to do it again, he invited us to visit Greece with him and spend a week sea kayaking in the Aegean Sea from various beaches on the gorgeous island of Milos. I felt safe. We had a reputable outfitter, Joseph could speak the language, and I love Greek food. Milos is not known as one of the more touristy islands, but it is famous for being the site of the discovery of the famous statue,Venus de Milo. But with or without Venus, Milos is absolutely beautiful, as are all of the Greek Islands and the stunning Aegean Sea.

And as beautiful as that Sea might be, the weather can be changeable, and seafarers had best be prepared for anything, especially those powering their way with nothing but their arms in a 16 foot plastic boat, tippy and vulnerable to gusts of wind which can take a calm and mirror-like sea and turn it to a roiling cauldron of terror in a matter of minutes.

Now I just love paddling along in a kayak, the faster the better, but on one day, after setting out in sunshine and only moderate breeze, the weather turned against us, and as we made our way along a very rocky coast, our group of us in about a dozen little boats found ourselves furiously paddling against the wind, which grew to a speed of about forty mph. For the first time, I found myself at the back of the tiny fleet, separated by a good 100 yards or so, and I was terrified of the rocky cliffs to my right. Not wanting to go too far out to sea, but also not wanting to be dashed upon the rocks, visions of Homer’s Odyssey played in my head, and I wasn’t sure I had the strength to make it a cave where the rest of our party had arrived and took shelter while they rested. I was not only exhausted, but also I was gripped with fear, and I was angry at the sea. I felt as though it wanted to eat me alive, as the gale force winds blew briny foam in streaks, and spindrift stung my face.

Obviously I lived to tell the tale, and I am grateful for that. I’m also grateful that now, when I read the story of the terrified disciples in the little boat, I can relate to what they must have felt. And I marvel at what peace and trust must have been in Jesus’ heart that he could curl up on a cushion and sleep in the midst of the churning water. Scholars tell us that in biblical times, people thought of the sea as demonic, so that when Jesus rebuked both the wind and the waves, it was just as when he rebuked evil spirits in a person as in the story you’ll find in the first chapter of Mark, when Jesus rebuked as spirit in a man. Jesus did not view people and other elements of creation such as the sea as demonic. Jesus knew that creation is good, because God said so. He also knew that one has to differentiate the evil of a situation rather than blaming the evil on God.

“Why are you afraid?” asked Jesus. “Have you still no faith?”

Jesus turned everything into a teaching opportunity. And each of those opportunities was meant to help the disciples navigate the inevitable trials and tribulations that would be coming at them after he had gone. He knew that if they fell victim to fear, looking to someone else to save them when they were scared, they wouldn’t be able to let their faith calm their pounding hearts so that they could hear the Holy Spirit’s guidance and make their way to shore.

Fear prevents us from making good decisions. How many times does the Bible tell us not to fear? How different would the world be if we could put aside that panic when a situation is threatening and, instead, look for the wisdom of Jesus rather than blaming rough seas on God?

Jesus had absolute trust in God when he faced a sea of trouble. Of course, his rebuke of the wind and waves was a means by which Mark could show that the disciples had just had an epiphany—a revelation of Jesus’ true nature. But Jesus wanted more for his disciples. He wanted to show them that with enough trust in God, they too might be able to calm the seas—put down the terror and take up the God-given gift of reason until they found themselves on the other side, safe and sound.

We have the same gifts as the disciples and the same power to put aside fear and put on trust. God has given us so many gifts to work with: God’s own self, each other, our intelligence, and our intention. Use them all, and you will be amazed what you can face.

God is never the cause of a stormy crossing, but rather strength for the journey. “Why are you afraid?”

(Based upon Mark 4:35-41)

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!                — 2 Cor.5:16-17

What does this mean, “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation?” What might we imagine that looks like? When everything becomes new, is it recognizable? What if we like the old better? Could we even stop it from becoming new if we wanted to?

Just by residing in a universe that’s powered by God, everything must become new because everything is in motion. And by virtue of that movement, something new always emerges. Even if we die, we still reside in Christ, and so the physical parts of our being become recycled—resurrected, just as our spirit is also made new. Remember, “our inner nature is being renewed day by day” [2 Cor. 4:16b]?

When Paul says, “…we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way,” what he’s telling us is that we once knew Jesus as the man—God incarnate in a body, but now we can’t know him in that way. He has been made new! What I like to think of as, “God concentrate,” that essence of holiness that made Jesus God incarnate, is now available so much more broadly to us. Just not as a human man. Now we can relate to Christ in the way he has been made new: as the Body of Christ, in which all Christians have a part. And because Jesus was made new, so are all of us! Paul had quite a challenge, because the people who worshipped the God of Israel weren’t much interested in full inclusion. Greeks, Persians—basically anyone who was not them, was to be avoided. But Jesus told his disciples, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news.” [Mark 16:15]. So they did; all but a few venturing well beyond Jerusalem, as they grew into their apostolic roles. Paul is often considered an apostle, even though he was not with Jesus while he was living his Earthly ministry, because Paul claimed to have been directly commissioned by Jesus in a vision. He was positively on fire with his mission to the gentiles. He got it that the Body of Christ should be limitless, and that no one should be excluded, so he went specifically to the people who were not Jews, people who had not followed the God of Israel, and he worked hard to convince them that God is God of all, not just of the Jews. That’s why Paul said, “he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” That means we all live for the Body of Christ, not just for ourselves or our families, or our church, but for ALL. Even the people you don’t especially like. And God help us, that is so hard.

Not all of the first followers of Jesus liked that Paul evangelized the gentiles. After all, Jesus was a Jew, descended from the tribe of Judah. Our New Testament scripture traces the messianic prophecies that point to Jesus as fulfillment. While there was no single “Judaism” back in the first century as there is today, the first followers of Jesus were all people in Israel—Jews, who DID believe Jesus was the Messiah—their deliverer—their guy. In their possessiveness, they argued that he wasn’t for the gentiles; he was for them. Remember, I’m not talking about the people who remained faithful to the Law, yet rejected Jesus as Messiah—I’m talking about the followers after his death. They did not want the to rub elbows with the gentiles who were coming to believe in the way of Jesus. But Paul tells us he died for ALL.

And just as it was true then, it’s true now. We don’t know what new thing God will do with any of us as individuals or all of us as the Body of Christ. But we DO know that it will be something new and that we have to look at Christ with fresh eyes every day because we are a NEW creation. And we can go with it and discover what God is showing us or we can try to keep everything frozen as a memory of what used to be.

But whether we go with the flow or not, everything old has passed away and everything has become new. Every moment. It is the very nature of existing in the Body of Christ—in God, because “In him we live and move and have our being” [Acts 17:28]. There are no museums, no fossils and no monuments in the Kingdom of God because nothing can be preserved—it can only be lived into its full potential. You are a new creation every minute you live, and when your body goes back to the dust, your soul will continue on, transformed yet again, by the energizing power of God’s love.

Jesus was angry. Pissed off. He looked around at them, full of anger. And no wonder; they were watching and waiting for him as he entered the synagogue, hoping to trap him because they knew he would heal the man with the withered hand, who was waiting inside. They were just waiting for him to commit so much as the tiniest infraction from a whole long list of things that could get an observant Jew in trouble for violating the Sabbath. Why? Why were they waiting to accuse Jesus? Because he wielded the healing power of God and therefore the respect of those who recognized it. And these Pharisees knew that they possessed nothing of the sort, and so viewed Jesus as eroding their own hold over the people. They were looking for dirt on Jesus so they could accuse him and get rid of him, leaving them in full control of keeping the peace over their own people on behalf of the Roman government.

He was really angry, and the reason why was that their hardness of heart really got to him. The spirit of the law was that the Sabbath was given to humankind—to us, as a gift. The Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath, and here was this guy in need—his hand was withered—could have been arthritis—who knows, but the point is that Jesus healed him. Acts of compassion are a mitzvah—a blessing. Would we not want to be a blessing on the Sabbath—to show someone else God’s healing mercy?

Mark tells us that the Pharisees left and immediately conspired with the Herodians—that is the agents of the Roman government. Do you see the irony here? It was still the Sabbath, and they wanted to nab Jesus for violating one of the thirty-nine classes of labor violations of the Sabbath, and here they were conspiring with their oppressors how to destroy a fellow Jew on the day that was set aside for Sacred Rest.  I looked through the Talmud to study the list of 39 sabbath no-no’s, ( things that would violate the fourth commandment). The Talmud is an ancient collection of Jewish texts that function like the detailed explication of all of Jewish law and tradition. Some of the Old Testament Bible was recorded in spare terms, so the Talmud was meant to “fill in the blanks.” After all, the commandment to “observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy” doesn’t give much specific detail about how to do it; only who is to be exempt from labor. But what constitutes the labor that must be avoided? I wonder if there is another way to think about the Sabbath. I think Jesus gave us a wonderful clue when he told the man with the withered hand to stretch it out. You see, for all of his anger, Jesus’ approach to the hard-heartedness of others was to heal in the name of God Almighty on the day that we celebrate that same merciful God by resting from the labors of Earthly existence. We have to let go of the notion that we have the power to control anything by laws or purity codes or rituals. If for one day out of seven, we let go of our own illusion of power, maybe on that seventh day we will catch a glimpse of what St Paul means when he says, “This extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”

Hard heartedness stings like the devil. And the more societal pressures attempt to back us into a corner where we think it’s the job, or the soccer team or the home owner’s association by telling us how much work we should be doing every single day of the week, the more we need the Sabbath—the day we give up control over the schedule, and fix our hearts on the Lord our God, who “brought [us] out of the land of Egypt and said, ‘Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” We are always dying to the world and living into our new selves as baptized members of the body of Christ. Living and dying at the same time, just as old cells are dying and new ones are being born in our bodies, right up until we leave them.

“Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.” (Exodus 34:21). Sunday seems like a convenient day to do all sorts of things. But whether it’s the busy time of sowing seeds or the busy time of reaping what has been sown, God has given us a Sabbath–  day to set aside, and commanded us to observe it, just as Jesus observed it. It’s a day where we give both ourselves and the people around us a rest. If you think that forgetting to charge your cell phone is an inconvenience, think about how tragic the consequences could be for failing to recharge your spirit!

It’s mysterious enough that God could love such a pesky creation as we human beings. But the mystery of a God who is one, yet three is even more mind-bending!

If you’re fond of physics, and I am, then this should not seem at all strange. After all, we think of light as being both a particle and a wave; material and motion. So God as trinity… it doesn’t seem all that strange, because God is a God of relationship. How better to understand that than to see a relationship that is so tight, the parts are all the same thing: different, yet the same.

The power of one person is so much more than we can possibly imagine, that God’s Holy Word is full of stories about how God chooses one person, someone described to be too young, too shy, or too full of bad behavior, but nevertheless God’s choice to work something amazing.

We often sabotage the fulfillment of our own potential by forgetting who God is—what this God can do. Think about what happens in Isaiah’s call story (Isaiah 6:1-8). He sees a vision of God Almighty on a throne, “high and lofty,” and Isaiah is frightened because he knows he is not worthy to see his creator. He admits he says bad stuff: “a man of unclean lips” and that he hangs out with people who are likewise. Maybe they are all full of lies, but God sends a creature to do the equivalent of washing Isaiah’s mouth out with soap (only somewhat more painful) by touching his lips with a hot coal. The seraph tells him, “your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” You see, it’s God who purifies Isaiah—it is God’s own self who prepares the prophet. By the time Isaiah has had his sins forgiven and been made clean, he is ready to sign up when God says, “Whom shall I send?” “Me, Lord! Me, me, me!”

“Here am I, send me.” He did not have to wait until he had lost ten pounds and could run three 8-minute miles, or did whatever other things he might have to escape God’s call or to procrastinate. “Here am I; send me!”

It’s more than fitting that we turn to Isaiah’s call story on Trinity Sunday, and Memorial Day weekend, no less. None of us are called to live in isolation, no matter how introverted we believe ourselves to be. We are made in God’s image, and therefore called into relational living, just as the Trinity is a God of relationship. When God called Isaiah, it was by asking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for US.” This was before Jesus had walked among us on Earth—US. “…And who will go for us?” If you want to know where Isaiah was committing to going, you have to read further. He was called to be a prophet—to speak truth to abusive power. Perhaps to die!

When people are called to service whether it’s the armed forces or other kinds of service, it’s a call to empty one’s self in the interest of the many, who actually comprise one system or kingdom of community—whatever you want to call all of humankind. Emptying one’s self, does not necessarily mean the self doesn’t matter, it means that there is no individual whose existence does not also affect the many. We exist in relationship to everyone else, to God and to all that is, just as God exists as a community: Father, Son and Holy Spirit—one God.

All lives are important, and the responsibility of an individual is to make is or her own decision about what, when and how much to sacrifice. We will always be called to participate fully in the Body of Christ because we are each unique and have a contribution only we can uniquely make. But it is never coerced. God always asks, “Who will go for us?”

Even Jesus had to make that decision. John quotes Jesus as having said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” Jesus did not say that God gave his Son to die; just that God gave us Jesus as a gift so that we would have life beyond measurement. It was Jesus himself who risked the ire of the authorities when he spoke truth to power and Jesus himself who made the ultimate sacrifice.

On this day as we think about those who answered the call of duty even to death, it would serve us all well to think about what we will say when God asks, “Who will go for us?” May it ever be, “Here am I; send me.”

The Holy Spirit has always been with us. In lots of places in the Old Testament, we are taught that the Spirit or the breath of God blows life into beings. God makes everything come alive with that breath, or wind or Spirit, all meanings for the Hebrew word ruach.

Whenever we recite the Nicene Creed, we declare that we “believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son, he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets.”

We have spent 49 days thinking about the resurrection of Jesus and talking about love. Lots about love. And if you’re fond of royal pomp and circumstance, then you probably heard our presiding bishop talking about love just yesterday when he preached at a wedding. And today, on the fiftieth day of Easter, the day we call Whitsunday, it’s all about The Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit? Jesus might be a lot easier to understand because he was an actual person. He had a body, and he needed food and sleep like we do. It’s comforting to have someone we can relate to so that maybe God will feel a little more approachable, a little less fearsome, however loving we know our God to be. But the Holy Spirit… is a little more mysterious.

If you thumb through the collects starting on about pg. 211 in our Book of Common Prayer, you’ll discover with very few exceptions (and next Sunday is one of them), all of these prayers conclude in the same way “through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” That part that says “in the unity of the Holy Spirit” is a clue regarding how to think of the Holy Spirit. You see, not only is the Holy Spirit the breath of life and the power of the wind, but also…Unity– like glue, holding the trinity together—one God, for ever and ever! It’s like the forces that hold subatomic particles together. The mystery of physics explained by the action of the Holy Spirit!

John tells us that Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as an advocate who would testify through the apostles on Jesus’ behalf. The Holy Spirit is NOT an independent agent, but the Spirit of truth who takes what belongs to Jesus and declares it to us, guiding us into truth. Do you understand? The Holy Spirit is how Jesus speaks to us and helps us to be an advocate for Jesus. When we share our faith with the world, it’s the Advocate—the Holy Spirit, speaking through us. Truth doesn’t have different flavors. There is one truth, but we hear it differently because we all have different contexts. We speak different languages. St. Paul assures us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “with sighs too deep for words.” To every person who is an artist of some type—this should feel familiar, because that’s why humans have art: to express truths that are too deep for words. Pope Francis echoed this thought when he quoted the theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his 2015 encyclical letter on creation care, Laudato Si. Pope Francis said:

The Spirit of God has filled the universe with possibilities and therefore, from the very heart of things, something new can always emerge: “Nature is nothing other than a certain kind of art, namely God’s art, impressed upon things, whereby those things are moved to a determinate end.

The Spirit not only helps us to express that for which we can’t find words, but also to hear and understand. When we listen to the Spirit of truth we are able to understand! And that’s what happened on that incredible day that was described in the Acts of the Apostles—the day the violent wind blew in with awe inspiring power and the divided tongues of flame rested above the heads of the apostles. It was the Holy Spirit that enabled people to speak and hear in ways that they were unable to do before.

In the presence of the Holy Spirit, we have unity—one God. We have an Advocate who testifies on Jesus’ behalf, and we have the Spirit of truth—wisdom. The Spirit breathes life into all that is, whether a newborn babe or the weary heart, tired of struggle.

I began my seminary education on Pentecost and went to worship service at the monastery (The Society of St. John The Evangelist in Cambridge, MA) near my seminary . The Superior was preaching that day, Br. Geoffrey Tristram. He said, “When you invite the Holy Spirit into your heart, you cannot imagine where you’ll be led, but you will be led, and there will be no stopping you and no turning back.” It felt right, so I prayed for the Holy Spirit to enter my heart and guide me. I felt my life shift in that moment. And there has been no turning back. All you have to do is say, “Come Holy Spirit,” and it will happen “with sighs too deep for words.”

John 15:17, “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

We are not done talking about love on this 6^th Sunday of Easter, and we will never be done. In spite of a cultural cynicism that tries to make us believe that love is not enough, it is. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were right: All you need is love. Because love is the electricity that drives relationships and everything else in life happens because of the interaction of people with each other, or with the animals and plants, and with everything else in the environment that God has created. These encounters—they are powered by God, because God is love, so everything in the material universe is created by and transformed by love!

Now for those of us who feel broken by love gone wrong: you have not cornered the market on broken heartedness, though many songwriters would have us think so. Even when love goes beautifully right, your heart cannot be guaranteed a sorrow-free journey. Love makes stuff happen. So does lack of love. But lack of love is really a distribution problem. If we think we have none or we can’t see love, it is ALWAYS because we have chosen NOT TO LOVE. Love is not a limited commodity to be bought and sold for the price of love returned. It is the very substance of God, so we are swimming around in it all the time. It is a choice to love and live or to not give love and spiritually die.

The choice is to let it flow from you and through you. It is the ACT of loving that works the magic, not the accumulation of it. Love cannot be hoarded like a stash of Halloween candy. And if you’ve ever tried that, it gets stale, and then it breaks your teeth. You can’t hold love forever any more than you can hold your breath forever. You breathe in and the air cleanses and energizes you, and then you have to let it go or you’ll die. Love is just like that. Holding onto it will kill you. Exhaling love to others will save you.

People who are wise allow love to transform their hearts because they know that a heart through which love flows freely can transform the world. Jesus knew that. Of course he did; God is love. Everything that Jesus commanded the disciples to do was for one purpose: that they may love one another. “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” THAT is preaching the gospel. Loving is doing, moving, and acting.

So what does this mean for us? Well, for one thing, loving is not just for the original disciples—it’s not a thing that is good for some in antiquity and not for others in the present. It’s universal and not complicated. God even tells us how to do it—we are given commandments, pretty simple ones, and they are not burdensome, to quote John’s epistle. It’s fighting them that is burdensome. Resistance is futile. If we say that we are followers of Jesus…the WAY… than this commandment is for US, that we love one another as Jesus loved us.

This is what brings us joy and this is what keeps the garden or the community or the church alive—the free flow of life-giving love. We are not called to trade love like a baseball cards. God is love, and not ours to trade or dispense only if given to us as a return on investment. Without exception, whenever I talk to someone who is afraid or depressed, it is because they feel like they have suffered loss, or that people have hurt them, or that God has given to others and left them with nothing. People whose hearts have been wounded worry about whether they are beautiful enough or wealthy enough or popular enough. Really they wonder if they are loved enough. It is the frustration and futility of taking inventory of love accounts receivable and declaring them insufficient, that moves our hearts into a downward spiral. It is NOT about what love we do or do not receive, it is about what LOVE we are able to give that feeds us and give us hope and changes everything. It’s how much love we move, not how much love we hold.

The great 20^th century German philosopher Martin Buber talked about the key to healthy relationships in a famous book he wrote in 1923. The title in German “Ich-Du” has been translated into English as “I and Thou.” I think this is a poor translation because the German word du is a familiar form for the word you. Thou feels more formal and stilted in 21^st century English. We don’t have an equivalent word for du in English because, while most other languages have a formal word for you and a familiar, or intimate word for you…we don’t. Here is why these shades of meaning matter. Buber said there were two ways to exist. One way would be for a person to think of their relationship to the world as “I”, the living being, and everyone else as “It” and the second perspective as r “I,” a living being relating to “You” as a familiar and equally living being with whom there can be a dynamic and empathetic exchange. Buber’s thought was that when we relate to others as an “it,” we experience that “it” as fixed in space and time and our experience is detached. Buber said that when we can experience relationship as “I” and intimate “you” we participate actively in the dynamic process of two living beings. What we learn from Buber is that MUTUALITY is the key to a healthy relationship. Mutuality means experiencing and evolving together as a consequence of our interactions. Relationship is its own dynamic thing. So love requires mutuality—we give it and the other person gives it. And something new and amazing emerges. After all, how could it not? Wherever two or three are gathered, there is God. There is love.

One of my favorite theologians, the Franciscan brother Richard Rohr says, “It is an entirely relational universe. If, at any time, we try to stop this life flow moving through us, with us, and in us, we fall into the true state of sin. What we call “sins” cannot really separate us from God, because Divine Love is unilateral and unconditional and is not dependent on our receiving it. Rather it is our lonely and fearful illusion of separateness that makes us do sinful and selfish things.

“Sin is a refusal of mutuality and a closing down into separateness.” Father Richard goes on to say, “Whenever we refuse mutuality toward anything, whenever we won’t allow our deep inner-connectedness to guide us, whenever we’re not attuned to both receiving and giving, you could say that the Holy Spirit is existentially (but not essentially) absent from our lives.”

Jesus is our savior not because we will live forever, but because he taught us how to love forever. “Abide in my love. I have said these things so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

Abide in Love, my friends. Love is the way, the truth and the life. God is love.

Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.   — I John 4:11-12

This is about as close as the Bible gets to telling us that our love for each other is a sacrament—a way of making a God who is not directly visible with human eyes visible to each other.

Sometimes we think of wisdom as something that we acquire through study or and discipline. We might also think of wisdom as something we come to develop as a consequence of trials and sorrow. We even have a name for that education—we call it the “school of hard knocks.” I’m hoping we might consider the potential that there is another kind of wisdom than the type that we embrace with our heads, and that would be the wisdom of the heart. Love is the way we learn about God and love is the way we teach others about God. In other words, love is how we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Love should be how the world recognizes God, and love should be the identifying feature of a follower of Jesus.

When someone has a dispute with you, it’s a lot easier to say, “What is their problem?” than it is to say, “Whom are they seeing when they talk to me?” As followers of Jesus, we have to ask ourselves this question, because it’s our commission straight out of the mouth of Jesus, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12). All the talk about vines and branches and fruit—those relationships that we can and should recognize from nature can be cryptic to twenty-first century Christians who spend less time out in nature than we do inside our heated and air-conditioned dwellings. But love, now that’s something that we still give and receive. There’s no expiration date on the commandment that we love one another because whether or not metaphors about vines and fruit or sheep and shepherds feel like something to which we can relate in this day and context, we still want love in our lives. There’s no metaphor there—we need it like we need the air we breathe. And so does everyone else. And… we are called to be the face of that love in the world.

Now it’s not like the Bible doesn’t give us a lot of specific information about what love should look like, I’m guessing that most of us who are familiar with St. Paul’s beautiful ode about the attributes of love from his letter to the Church at Corinth (I Cor 13): “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not arrogant or boastful…” and so on. And there are plenty of other passages in the Bible, and centuries of beautiful poetry and prose that aim to teach us how to love and to recognize when we are loved.

I would argue that God has provided us with an even better tool for training the heart in the matters of love. It is that very same heart. And while we could never even approach the depth and breath of love that God holds for us, by opening our hearts to the experience of human love, we do make progress. Because “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God.” That’s the promise of believing in a God whose very being IS love.

When I began seminary, the new students in our cohort were welcomed into the community in a Matriculation Ceremony, which is an historic academic ceremony where new students are formally admitted to study, much the same way the graduation ceremony marks the formal completion of study. At seminary, our matriculation was held in the chapel and incorporated into a liturgy as is fitting when committing to the academic part of preparation for Christian leadership. After signing the book where other seminarians from other generations had signed, we continued with a service of evening prayer, and as we exited the chapel, the entire faculty and staff, who had left the nave before us in procession, were assembled outside the doors in the garden. As we exited to join them, the dean of student life greeted each one of us personally. She shook our hands and looked at every one of us as though we were the only person in the chapel. Her eyes were so full of warmth and welcome, that it would have been difficult to miss that they were the eyes of Jesus looking into mine. It was only a moment for each of the fourteen of us who went forth into the beautiful June evening, ready to begin our seminary formation.

I have never forgotten that experience, and I’ve told this story quite a few times. For me, it’s reason enough to believe that God lives in us and God’s love is perfected in us, because I saw it that day. I saw it and I felt it.

Don’t ever stop loving. That love is God’s own image, and that’s why we are here.