Love
How many times have we heard it?
All you need is love! Love makes the world go ‘round! Love is a wonderful
thing! Love will find a way! If we just have love enough, everything will be
OK! Really? SUPER! Now on to reality. I’ve met people who live their lives
believing no one loves them. They think, “Nobody understands me. Nobody cares
about my pain. No one cares if I live or die.” Even in marriages and
partnerships, we can feel like the one we love no longer understands us. I
think of a couple I once knew, let’s call them “Mark and Jonathan.” Mark and Jonathan
fell in love after college. Their eyes sparkled for each other. Their steps
were light. They felt that unique, special attraction for each other. They lived
together as partners, believing they would forever supply each other with a
permanent sense of self-worth. As time went on, Mark expected B Jonathan eth to
be as accepting and forgiving as he was when they were dating. Jonathan expected
the same from Mark. The sparkle dimmed. They began to feel disillusioned, even
betrayed by one another. They replaced affirmation with sarcasm and ridicule.
They each expected unconditional love and selflessness from the other, and each
failure to do so was another brick in the growing wall between them. Although
they have shared many years together, they experience very little real love.
In some ways we are all
frustrated lovers, wanting to be understood but feeling alone. We want to love
and be loved, but we can feel incompetent, inadequate and insecure. Some will
say, “If I can only do something to make myself more likeable or desirable . .
. if only I can be successful . . . if only I can make myself more beautiful .
. . if only I can be more self-sacrificing to serve another, THEN all our
relationship problems will be solved.” We know all about imperfect love. We
have examples all around us. Today, we are going to look at an example of
different kind of love in the story we just heard from John’s gospel.
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus,
whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served,
and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure
nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled
with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one
who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred
denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor,
but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was
put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so
that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have
me.” John 12:1-18
Jesus reclines at a table. He’s
at dinner with Lazarus – one of Jesus’ best friends. In the previous chapter of
John Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. That’s a big deal. Time for a party. In comes Mary, one of Lazarus’ sisters. She
has a reputation for doting on Jesus all the time while the other sister,
Martha, is working away in the kitchen. When Mary sees Jesus, she follows a
common practice of the lower servant class, not only washing Jesus’ feet which
are dusty from walking with sandals on dirt roads, but washing them with her
perfume and drying them with her hair. The way John tells the story, Jesus
realizes it is a way to prepare his body
for burial. A dead body is surrounded with spices and perfumes when it’s buried
in a hot Mediterranean tomb. But there is more to the story. Mary also pours
this perfume out of sheer devotion. In Jesus’ time, a women would not unbind
her hair, let it fly, and use it as a towel. Mary didn’t really care what others
thought. She needed to share her love. It reminds me of when two people are captivated
with each other–they are in a world of their own. They rejoice that the world
sees their love. Or have you ever seen a child who is free and uninhibited? She
just loves what she’s doing at that moment, no matter who is watching. That’s
Mary. At that moment, it was only Mary and her love.
I do want us to be careful here. We
should see some problems in a story where a woman subordinates herself to
Jesus, as if being a woman is of secondary value to the community. We see a
system in which women and men must remain divided by sexism, racism, economic
injustices and imperialism. We still live in that system. We expect women,
especially mothers, to be selfless saints who give up their dreams in order to
fulfill the needs of others. Some men and dads are expected to do it, too, but
it’s preached strongly to women. Often these goodly "saints" are
revered by those whom they serve because of their caring ways. What better way to promote this useful
servitude than by continually commending self-sacrificers as "moral,"
"saintly," "devoted," and "virtuous"?
It turns out, people who act out
of selfless love may in be in danger of losing the very Self they ought to be
developing. And, they may end up hurting the people for whom they care. Think
about it. If a moral saint is spending all her time feeding the hungry, healing
the sick, raising money for OXFAM, and packing peanut butter sandwiches for the
homeless, then she’s not taking time to read a good book, go for a brisk walk,
or enjoy the smell of warm wet earth after a passing Summer thunderstorm. If a
moral saint is giving all of himself to save the world, he has no time to be an
artist, or a good parent, or a skilled listener. There’s no chance for a truly
selfless person to have the time or moral permission to develop the skills,
talents and personalities that makes us interesting, well-rounded people.
Selfless behavior is immoral when
it prevents you from knowing your own intrinsic and equal value as a human
being. What kind of love asks you to discount your Self for the sake of the
other? What kind of love asks you to deny your needs? Where’s the mutuality?
Where’s the trust? Is that what Jesus wants from the woman who washes his feet?
Is this the kind of love God wants from us? Selfless love? No! There is no such thing. Everyone wants to
be desired. Everyone wants to feel needed. Selfless love may seem ideal, but it
eventually denies partners what they need—to be desired and needed as equals.
I know plenty of people who give
selflessly of themselves and feel rejected by those they love. What kind of
love is that? As long as we feel rejected, we cannot love fully.
I know people who have been
manipulated by others in the name of serving God. If God appears to us as an
unhappy recipient of selfless love who gives according pleasure and condemns
according to wrath, we cannot love perfectly.
If we can be in touch with the
true spirit of love, our imperfect relationships can change. Like Mary washing
the feet of Jesus, we can share in a love so extravagant, so complete, so true,
that once we feel it, we can’t stop sharing it.
I’ve been thinking about love in
terms of another word: Namaste. Even
though it is commonly used as a greeting, Namaste also expresses spiritual
meaning. Namaste means “the divine in me blesses and honors the divine in you.”
It’s love in action. Imagine a seemingly subservient woman who mimics a woman
of ill-repute washing the feet of Jesus as a servant. Imagine the scandal.
Imagine the shame. Imagine the system that perpetuates her posture. And imagine
Jesus saying, “She has done nothing wrong. This nameless woman has shown love.
The divine in her just blessed and honored the divine in me.” Imagine if WE
could do this. Instead of discounting ourselves to bolster another, we could
say, “Love is known when we give and take as equals. The divine in me blesses
and honors the divine in you.”
I will be the first to admit, I
am not skilled at showing this kind of love. I feel it all the time, but I have
a hard time expressing it. Having a persona of selflessness can be an easy way
to deflect love. If I can serve you, then I can hide my own discomfort with
receiving love. So I want to tell you all about my own learning and my commitment
about love in action.
Just like you, life has brought
me pain. There are times when I’ve let down my guard and then felt like others
took advantage of my vulnerability. 5 year ago, I came to CCC hurt by other churches,
feeling disillusioned and betrayed. I told myself there was no way I was going
to allow that to happen again. Those experiences reinforced a guarded exterior
that does not show how I am really feeling inside. It has become such an
automatic response, I don’t always know I’m doing it. I trained myself to be so
emotionally non-responsive, I can forget that others need to experience a wider
range of emotions. I have something to
receive from others as well as something to give.
Here’s what else I’m learning: I’m
learning to allow what I honor as the divine in you to uncover and honor that
which is divine in me. I am learning what it means to be mutually giving and
receiving as a pastor and a congregation. And my sincere hope is that you are
able to risk the same with me.
In the words of Fulton Sheen,
love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery. It’s what God wants
for all of our relationships. Love means that each and every one of us is
created in the image of God, co-workers with God in struggling for the
liberation of humanity and for a world order that respects each one’s dignity.
God loves us so powerfully, and God wants to love another person or creature
through us. That’s what I yearn for in my own life. It’s what I want for each
of you. Healing power stirs us. We can love God. We can love our own being. We
can love others from whom we are estranged. To love this love is to love God.
And if you can love God, then you may also be able to accept Life and love
that, too.
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