Today is May 9. It is the sixth Sunday of the Easter season. We have one more Sunday of Easter next week before we reach Pentecost Sunday the week after.
Today is also Mother’s Day.
Mother’s Day is a tricky day for pastors. Many feel pressured to preach a “Mother’s Day” sermon, even though Mother’s Day is not a church holiday, and trying to thematically connect Mother’s Day to the day’s scripture reading often leads to connections that are artificial and forced.
And people leave the service saying, “wasn’t that nice, how the pastor connected the scripture to Mother’s Day…” but later, when they think more deeply about it, they admit to themselves: that didn’t really make much sense.
So, I usually resist trying to make a connection that isn’t there.
Also: in my own family and in many families I know, traditionally defined roles for mothers and fathers are increasingly blurred. Mothers go to work, and do home improvement, and even take care of spiders, while fathers cook and do laundry.
And there is so much variation and diversity in families these days - a variation and diversity that is beautiful and holy - that it makes it very hard to talk about mothers in general or families in general.
Times are changing, and mothers and fathers are finding beautiful and amazing new ways to be a family. And especially in this past year: so much has changed. And yet, families are finding a way.
Now, it is true - even now, even in 2021 - that much of the burden of these changing times does fall more heavily on the shoulders of mothers. More women than men have lost their jobs during this pandemic, and more women than men have struggled to help their children navigate school via zoom.
So even though times are changing, and we all are doing our best to find new ways of doing what needs to be done, women (and mothers) are still - generally speaking - modeling for the world how we all can find a way to do what needs to be done.
And in that, I think, there is a real, actual, connection to our scripture today; because as I hear these words of Jesus, it reminds me of the same thing: that love finds a way.
Whether it’s a mother’s love, or God’s love: love finds a way. Love finds a way; even when there is no way, love makes a way.
Our scripture is from the gospel of John, but it sounds very similar to last week’s scripture from the first letter of John. It’s easy to see why early Christians believed that these were written by the same author, and while that likely isn’t true, they probably did come from or were popular in the same early Christian community.
Last week’s scripture talked about abiding - abiding in God, abiding in love - and in today’s scripture, Jesus says, repeatedly: “abide in my love.”
And now more than ever, that’s what we need; we need to abide in Christ’s love. Because it is when things are stressful and challenging that we especially need Christ’s love to guide us, to uphold us, and to flow through us.
Because no matter the circumstances, Christ’s love finds a way. God’s love finds a way.
Look at the story of Joseph, from the book of Genesis. That story is on my mind because I think I’m going to talk more about it next week. But if you know the story - even if you only know the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical version of that story - you know that all sorts of bad things happen to Joseph.
His brothers bullied him, almost killed him, and ended up selling him into slavery.
Then, he was falsely accused of crime and thrown in prison.
But through Joseph, love found a way. Love found a way and enabled Joseph to find his way out of prison, rise up in rank and prestige, and eventually save all of Egypt as well as his own family, which he never stopped loving.
Look at the Exodus, how God’s love for God’s people found a way to bring them out of slavery and into a land they could call their own.
Look at the story of the kingdom of Israel, and David, God’s chosen one who ruled over that kingdom.
When that kingdom fell apart, God’s love still found a way. God reached out to the people through prophets, and then, eventually, God came to earth in human form through the birth of Jesus.
Love found a way. God did whatever it took to continue blessing the people with love….
When I look back on this past year, and consider our current situation, I see something very similar. We’ve struggled, we’ve worried about our church, we’ve worried about our families… yet through it all, through everything that has happened this past year, love has found a way.
Love found a way to keep our ministry going. Love, expressed in the form of prayers, and in the form of money, and in the form of the participation and presence of all of you.
That participation and presence was often virtual out of necessity, but it was very real.
And you all have found ways to continue showing love to one another. You have not neglected to pray for one another, and you have not neglected to offer expressions of love to one another.
That’s not to say it’s been easy. It hasn’t. It’s been hard. At times, we haven’t known what the best way to show love is.
How do we show love when we aren’t able to gather? How do we show love when we can gather, but can’t give hugs, and can’t spend time after worship chatting over refreshments, can’t even come within six feet of each other or show a friendly smile?
I still wonder how it is that we are able to show love to one another, but more and more, I am realizing: love finds a way.
For me, personally, it seems like my attempts to show love are hit and miss. I don’t always do the best job of it. In fact, I’m so grateful to others - to many of you - for showing me the various ways that love can be expressed.
And I’m grateful for the grace shown to me when I haven’t done as well as one would hope (as well as I would hope) in expressing the love I feel.
That’s an important part of “love finding a way.” Showing grace.
We show grace to one another when we look beyond a temporary or momentary failure to show love, and realize that a person has other things going on; or maybe that their brain is wired differently than ours, and that expressing love happens a little differently for them or in a different way than it does for us.
Or maybe that person, like the rest of us, is struggling to figure out how to show love in these times when so many of the old ways of showing love - hugs, eating together - are no longer available to us.
Or maybe that person, right now, just needs some love shown to them…
And we find a way.
We find a way to move forward, to hold space for one another, and to encourage one another to keep on abiding in Christ’s love.
I read a book a while back - and I know I mentioned it before - by Bob Goff; the title of the book is Love Does. And to me, “love does” is another way of saying, “love finds a way.”
And in each of the book’s short chapters, Bob Goff tells the story of love finding a way.
Five years ago, I told you what happens in the first chapter of Goff’s book. I know you remember, so indulge me for a moment while I refresh your memory...
In that chapter Goff describes a time when he decided to drop out of high school and go live in Yosemite. He figured he could get a job somewhere in Yosemite that would give him enough to live off of, and that he’d spend the rest of his time just exploring and rock climbing.
He threw a couple of extra clothes into his VW bug and grabbed all his money - $75 - and, on his way out of town, stopped at Randy’s house.
Randy was a few years older, and was actually a youth leader of sorts. Randy had taken an interest in Bob, so Bob thought he’d tell Randy he was leaving, and that he won’t be seeing him for a while.
Randy said: “Hold on a second…” A moment later, he appeared with a backpack, and said to Bob: “I’m with you. Let’s go.”
Bob wasn’t expecting that, but what could he say?
So the two of them drove to Yosemite. Bob had no real plan, and hadn’t even figured out a place for them to stay; and Yosemite, it turned out, didn’t have any jobs for him. After a few days, he decided to go back home and finish school. Randy just said, “Whatever you want, I’m with you.”
When they got to Randy’s house, Bob walked in, and saw the floor covered with various packages and gifts: dishes, a microwave oven… and Randy’s girlfriend was there.
In that moment, Bob realized that she wasn’t Randy’s girlfriend; she was his wife. Turns out, Randy had just gotten married. Yet he willingly went with Bob to Yosemite because of his love and concern for Bob, instead of spending the first few days of his marriage with his new wife.
That’s love finding a way. I think Randy’s new wife was completely understanding, or, at least, willing to offer Randy the grace he needed to show love to this teenage boy he cared about.
It wasn’t easy, but love found a way.
Just like how love finds a way among us, here at church. We’ve had to do a lot of figuring things out, and especially this year, we’ve been figuring things out as we go. But through it all, love has found a way.
Just like how God’s love always finds a way. Even in the face of persecution, even the face of betrayal and desertion, even in the face of false accusations and death by crucifixion, love finds a way.
Love always finds a way. Thanks be to God.
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