Dear friends,
Today’s sermon turned out to be an Easter preview in the middle of Lent. Every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection. Every day is a witness to God’s persevering love–especially in the midst of heartache. May you know God’s love accompanying you this day and every day to come.
Today’s worship service, in its entirety, may be viewed here:
If you’d prefer to listen to only the gospel reading and sermon, you may do so here:
https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson/love-persevering-a-sermon-for-the-4th-sunday-in-lent
Today’s sermon is based on John 3:14-21.
[Jesus said:] 14“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16“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.
17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.
Beloved of God, grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
What is grief, if not love persevering?
You do not have to have watched WandaVision on Disney+ in order to sit with the overwhelming profundity of this question.
What is grief, if not love persevering?
A year ago we worshiped in this sanctuary and offered a service for temporarily closing. We had no idea what the year ahead would hold. So we prayed: Gracious God, as we anticipate leaving this sanctuary temporarily, help us to be profoundly aware of your presence beside us wherever we go. In our homes, at our tables, through phone calls and cards and social media platforms, keep us united in love for you and for one another.
Throughout this year, as the initial adrenaline wore off and the losses became staggering and tempers began to flare, I’ve been wondering about grief as the thing behind the thing. How much of that anger I’m hearing—or expressing myself—is actually grief? How much of the exhaustion and resentment and desire to assign blame is actually grief? How much of our fear is actually rooted in grief, because we’ve seen what we can lose; because we’ve experienced incredible loss in the blink of an eye; because we know, though we would rather not know, the truth of our helplessness in the face of suffering over which we have no control?
But when I heard the WandaVision character, Vision, offer this vision of grief, I was captured by the idea that if grief is the thing behind the thing, and love is the thing that creates the grief, then it is actually love that forms and shapes our every moment. Love is at the heart of our grief, our questions, our anger, our exhaustion, even our really unhelpful lashing out when there aren’t easy paths forward. We’re motivated by love.
Of course we are.
God is love. At the heart of the triune God is love—three-in-one community, mutuality, vulnerability, relationship, even loss. And we are created in the image of this God, this relational God, a Creator who does not stand apart from the creation but enters fully into our experience of helplessness and frustration, our experience of overwhelming love and incredible loss. From the cross, Jesus questions the one who has named him Beloved: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
What is grief, if not love persevering?
I’ve been a part of so many hard conversations this week and when it comes down to it every difficult question being asked is motivated by love.
What can we do about all the churches with pastoral vacancies, many in our own conference? How can we prevent churches closing? How are we going to get people to come back to church when this pandemic is over? Will they come back? Can we begin backing off the COVID protocols we put in place? Can we return to worship like it used to be? What is the future going to look like? If I’m vaccinated, can I gather safely with others? When can I get vaccinated? Why can’t anything be simple? Why is life so hard? Where are you, God?
At the heart of these questions is love. I see your love for the church and for the congregations that have been home for you. I see your love for your communities, for the land, for farming as a way of life. I see your love for our elders and for our children, and for all those who have been impacted most deeply by this pandemic time.
I see your grief. I see your love persevering.
And in our gospel reading for today, we see God’s love persevering.
Imagine the grief of the creator at the sorrows we inflict on one another; our lack of trust in God; our need for some semblance of control; our bondage to self-preservation when God has promised to provide all that is needed.
God grieves, because God loves–loves this world so much, in fact, that God enters into our grief, takes on our struggle, experiences our helplessness and forsakenness.
Jesus, fully human and fully divine, cries from the cross: My God, why have you forsaken me?
And there is no easy answer. There is no immediate reply. There is only death, silence, a burial, what looked to be the end. What looked to be overpowering grief, but turned out to be love persevering—God’s love for this beautiful, brutal world persevering; God’s love for the church persevering; God’s love for the land persevering; God’s love for the rural spaces and the sprawling cities persevering; God’s love for the elders and the children, and everyone in between, persevering; God’s love for you persevering until the answer to the cry of the forsaken comes by way of an empty tomb.
You were never alone. I suffered beside you. And now, together, we rise.
We rise in love.
If our grief in these COVID days is love persevering, may God inspire us to see where that love might lead us in the days to come.
Earlier this morning, it led us to the baptismal font, where we welcomed Tye as a beloved child of God and prayed for the Spirit to be at work in him as he grows in faith, hope and love.
Maybe tomorrow it will lead us to the field, to simply marvel at the fertile soil, to pay attention, to be astonished at God’s goodness.
Maybe love will lead us to the ones most in need beyond our walls and beyond ourselves. Maybe love will lead us to listen deeply, to honor the lament, to see the love at the heart of the grief.
How will the church be an agent of love in a world rampant with sorrow? How will we proclaim resurrection, life on the other side of what looks to be the end? How will we embody the love that has saved us; the love of God that has freed us to trust that all will be well, that there is a future with hope, that everything might change around us but the love of God remains sure and certain?
Today is my brother Mike’s birthday and he’s not here, a loss that so many of you know too well. I keep coming back to the words God gave me two years ago, on what would have been Mike’s 40th birthday. I stood helpless on the bank of the river, lost in grief. Lost in love.
I wrote, there’s a wounded tree here, somehow clinging to the shore. But the river is persistent. It beats against that tree, crashing into splintered branches with a force that makes me want to weep. When did we lose you in the current, Mike? My God, my God, why have you forsaken him?
And then, this word for me, for Mike, for you:
There’s another river. Another current. It found its way to you. When you were just a newborn baby–untouched by sorrow–it cradled you, claimed you, called you beloved. It marked you for promise, even in the midst of pain. It marked you for potential, even in the midst of loss. It marked you for life, abundant life not even death can destroy. This is the willful, unruly, irrepressible current that cradles you still–carrying you, relentlessly, to life.
For God so loved the world.
For God so loves you.
What is grief, if not love persevering forever?
What is love, if not God persevering? Amen.