A Faith to Celebrate: Letting Yourself be Loved

Matthew 3.1-12

 

A sermon preached by Dave Shull and Loyce Mbewa

World AIDS Day, December 4, 2004

The second in a four-part Advent preaching series, “A Faith to Celebrate”

University Congregational United Church of Christ

Seattle, Washington

 

            Dave:  If there’s one word that describes me on sabbatical, it’s hungry.

 

            I was like that video game character, Pac-Man.  Gobbling up all of these amazing opportunities.  I studied religion at Oxford University in England, feeding on challenging lectures and on passionate conversations with classmates in 500-year-old pubs.   Back in Seattle, Peter and I drew nourishment from an extravagant smorgasbord:  hosting meals with friends and new neighbors, studying in various library branches, going to movies, having afternoon tea, walking, reading for fun, making music: these activities fed us richly.  Sunday mornings, we worshiped at different area churches.  As Garrison Keillor says about the Lutherans who sneak into Catholic mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, we wanted a ‘second opinion.’  Finally, two weeks with family in Washington, D.C., and two weeks with friends in Italy were the icing on the cake.  And we licked that bowl clean.

 

            I was hungry on sabbatical.

 

            Like Pac-Man, I was trying to fill something inside me.  I imagine Pac-Man eats everything in sight hoping that, if he just keeps at it, one day he’ll eat a triangle, and then he’ll be whole.  And I think sometimes that’s how it is with us.  We know a part of us is missing.  We hunger for something like forgiveness or hope or self-acceptance.  And we think if we just keep ‘eating,’ one day we’ll discover that missing piece . . . and be whole.

 

            Someone said humans have a God-shaped hole inside us.  Which is another way of saying in some mysterious way, God is that triangle that makes us whole.  I think that’s true.  I did what I did on sabbatical because I was hungry for God’s love.  Good conversations over long meals, worship, and study are the ways I let God love me.  These are ways I clear away the obstacles so God can run to me down a smooth, straight road.  And fill the hole inside me with her God-shaped love.

 

            John the Baptist couldn’t be any clearer this Advent when he shouts to you and me:

 

            Change your life!

            Prepare for God’s arrival!

            Make the road smooth and straight!

                                                (Matthew 3.2-3; Eugene Peterson translation)

 

Hearing John’s words I wonder why I usually don’t prepare a road for God’s arrival but instead keep that road so cluttered and twisted.  Maybe that’s how it is with you, too.  God wants to run down a smooth, straight path and throw Her arms around you.  And you’ve constructed a road filled with hairpin turns and gapers’ delays.

 

Why do we resist the God who wants us to let Her love us? 

 

It seems like we’ve been resisting God for a long time.  

 

In the book of Hosea, written 2700 years ago, God cries out like a woman in anguish:

 

            When Israel was only a child, I loved him.

            I called out, ‘My son!’ – called him out of Egypt.

            But when others called him,

                        he ran off and left me.

 (Hosea 11.1-2)

 

            Looking down on a Jerusalem that is determined to seek peace only through violence, Jesus weeps,

 

            How often I’ve longed to gather your children

                        . . . like a hen,

            Her brood safe under her wings –

                        But you refused and turned away.

(Luke 13.34)

 

            Refusing God’s embrace seems a part of being human.

 

            But it seems we in the United States are especially prone to rejecting love.  Maybe there’s something in the water.

 

            In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville said that we in the United States are locked in the solitude of our own hearts.

 

            One hundred thirty years later, two other students of U.S. culture discovered the same isolation.  They sang,

 

            I have no need of friendship –

            Friendship causes pain.

            It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.

            I am a rock.

            I am an island.

            And a rock feels no pain.

            And an island never cries. 

(“I Am A Rock,” from the album Sounds of Silence,

lyrics by Paul Simon, 1966)

 

            At times our hearts are islands, protected by great oceans from unwanted intruders.

 

            And yet the secret truth is that we want intruders.   We want someone to build a bridge to us and land on our island.  Even if some of us doubt that God has feelings, or doubt that God breaks into history and meets us in love, we still hunger for love from a Love greater than ourselves.  We want to let ourselves be loved by One who can break the lock on our hearts and befriend us in our loneliness.

 

            But we often keep people away.  As Catherine Foote has helped me see, it’s like we’re afraid people won’t love us if they really know us.   If we let people really know us, sooner or later they’ll discover something about us they can’t love.  Better to keep the relationship shallow that risk losing their love.

 

            The onset of AIDS in this country forced people with AIDS to face this fear head-on.   I don’t think my friend’s story is unique.  My friend’s brother told his family he was gay when he was in intensive care with AIDS.  Two weeks later, he was dead.  And there’s the bind.  I’m afraid if I tell you the truth about my illness, you’ll reject me.  But I need your love and support.  Can I be honest with my family?  With the people in my place of worship?  With people at work?  What if they turn away? 

 

This fear led to the creation of new families for people with HIV and AIDS.  Strangers become friends become caregivers become pallbearers.  

 

Thank God there are many more families, friends, and places of worship today who embrace persons living with AIDS with a fierce love and compassion. 

 

Thank God there are denominations like the United Church of Christ that celebrate a God who runs toward all her children with joy to enfold them in her arms. 

 

People who have risked believing they can be fully known and fully loved at the same time can inspire us.  Their faith gives us the strength to let someone build a bridge to our island, so through them, God can run to us and fill us in with love.

 

The village where Loyce Mbewa  comes from has 3500 people.  Last summer, there were 10 funerals in one day – all for people who died from AIDS.  Her story calls us to let ourselves be loved by God, because finally that is what we’ve been hungering for all along.

 

Loyce:  My sister June died from AIDS last year on the 22nd of June.  It was her 23rd birthday.  She died at home in my parents’ arms.   During the week when it became obvious that June was losing her battle with AIDS, men and women took turns to be with my parents, staying over night so my parents could get some sleep.  When people are very sick over a period of time as June was, homes are open day and night to allow for shared love and support.  When June died, after they said prayers for her peaceful rest, the women who were at my home ran out of the house wailing.  Even though it was 4 in the morning and still dark, villagers immediately ran to our home because they too had lost their daughter. 

           

Within an hour my parents’ home was filled.   People took their child’s body to the funeral home to be prepared for burial.  On the day of June’s burial, the community brought June’s body back to my parents’ home.  My village mourned together as they laid their daughter’s body to rest. 

 

These days, HIV/AIDS has brought endless funerals to Kenya and to my village.   Such loss is overwhelming.  I don’t know how they do it or how they keep going.  My aunt Beatrice had five children only two years ago and four of them are now in graves.  How do you keep going?  They love!  They love as if there is no tomorrow.  They keep singing and praying and dancing.  They keep asking for love and give love.

 

Asking for love is what communities do for each other.

 

One of the things that makes me grieve in the United States is how many people here go through private sorrows.  They go through sad times alone.  The greatest gift Africa can give this country is to share with you how important it is to let yourselves be loved.   In Africa there is no such a thing as a private sorrow or a private joy.  Sorrows and joys are shared.   Being human means opening ourselves to the love of Jesus Christ made known in the love we let others shower upon us.

 

            Dave:  It’s that kind of love that is running down the road to meet us this Advent.

 

            It’s that kind of love that wants to hold us and fill that God-shaped hole.

 

            It’s that kind of love that wants to give us the courage to let ourselves be so loved.  So our hearts can prepare him room.

 

            Let us pray:  You who run to meet us, You who come to us over and over and over again, You who draw us to you as a mother holds her young: free us from all that keeps us afraid this Advent; move us to clear away all that keeps your road to us cluttered and rough; strengthen us to risk letting your love touch us in all the ways You come to us.  For we would be your people.  Amen.