REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE DUST

A sermon for Ash Wednesday

by Laura Gentry

Tonight marks the start of our Lenten season. You will soon be invited to come forward to receive the cross of ashes upon your forehead with those hard-hitting words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” We are dust.

I was recently having a conversation with a person who is struggling with some addictions. Though he’s kicked one, he still has a few others to work on. “I don’t want to be that guy,” he told me. He can see himself clearly enough to know that he doesn’t want to go on being the person he’s been. In his own way, he knows that he is dust.

Each of us faces a struggle of this sort. We see our lives and sure we see our good points but if we look hard enough we have to say: I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the person who walks so far from God, who is so self-centered and doubtful and helpless. But the truth is that’s what we are. We are dust.

And the message of Ash Wednesday is that it okay to be dust—to be a broken person in desperate need of help. That is why tonight we freely confess our sinfulness, our brokenness, and beg God for redemption.

Ashes in ancient times were used to show sinfulness. If you’d see a guy walking around with a cloud of gray ash so thick you couldn’t even recognize him, you would know that he was repenting for something. It was a ritualized way of showing the foulness of our sin, of our desperate need for God’s redemption.

But repentance is not so outwardly demonstrated these days, except for Ash Wednesday and you’ll be glad to know that we don’t dump a whole bucket of ash on your head like in olden days. We simply give you an ashen cross—made from the burnt palms of last year. We place the ash in the middle of your forehead. And this mark reminds you and everyone else that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Lent invites us to spend the next 40 days repenting and engaging in prayer, fasting and almsgiving to prepare for Easter. These specific Lenten practices were devised for the purpose of putting you in communion with God.

And that’s what we want most of all. Our souls thirst for God. Our hearts are restless long to draw nearer God. We don’t want to be these people we are, who walk so far away from God. We want to be held in the heart of the divine. We want healing for our dustiness. And the scripture says to us that we are to return to God with our whole hearts.

We may have let a lot of Lenten seasons go by in the past, where we didn’t do much to draw near to God. We didn’t pray, fast or give alms and then wondered why Lent didn’t do anything for our spiritual life. This year, I urge you to seize this opportunity to turn to God with all your heart, to do whatever spiritual disciplines YOU need in order to put yourself in communion with God. Come to the Wednesday night sessions where you will learn practical, historically based practices that will help you do just that.

Lent is too important to sit out. We must dive right in and trust that God will work through our feeble, dusty efforts and will lift us to the joy divine. Amen.

The ceramic cross pendants were made by Pastor Laura Gentry. Each parishioner was given one as they recived the mark of ashes upon their forhead to serve as a reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

GLIMPSE OF GLORY

A Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday
February 22, 2009
by Pastor Laura Gentry
Mark 9:2-9

This morning, we celebrate Transfiguration Sunday. We hear Luke’s Gospel account of this amazing event in which Jesus takes Peter and James and John up the mountain with him and then is transfigured before their very eyes. His face changes and his clothes become dazzling white—whiter than anyone could bleach them. It sounds like we are talking about laundry in this translation. In the original Greek, however, this word is closer to “lightning.” Jesus clothes became so white they looked like lightning! That’s some pretty impressive pyrotechnics, now isn’t it?

Not only that, but the great Moses appears as does Elijah and the three of them begin to converse. Moses, who represents the law God gave to the people, and Elijah, who represents the prophets through whom God spoke and guided the people, appear from beyond the grave and talk with Jesus on the mountain top. No wonder the disciples are awed by the experience. The glory must have been completely overwhelming.

Though we hear this story every single year, I think it is hard for us to relate to. I mean we’ve never seen Jesus in person, let alone see him transfigured in all his glory. We get a sense of this scene being a spectacular, supernatural event of biblical times that is unfathomable to us in our modern world.

In this way, it is a difficult story to interpret. Peter doesn’t even seem to be able to interpret it correctly. With great enthusiasm (and not much insight), he says: "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Now obviously this was the wrong response because even the gospel writer of Mark adds a commentary here even though he’s usually so concise. He says that Peter didn’t know what to say because they were terrified. By his remark, you see, Peter is saying that he wants the glory to continue. He doesn’t want Jesus to stop glowing or for Moses and Elijah to go away so he thinks if they can just get some dwellings constructed quickly for them to hang out in, they might stick around a while longer. This moment might last.

In older translations, it calls these dwellings  "booths." I always pictured them as phone booths when I was a kid and wondered why in the world Peter would want to stick Moses and Elijah—the great figures of the Old Testament—in phone booths. Who are they going to call? Or does Peter want them to use the booths to transform into their super-hero likenesses or something? Unfortunately, my interpretation was all off because these dwellings he's suggesting are not the phone booth type, they are shrines. He wants to build religious shrines where Jesus and the other two can stay and be worshipped—just like the pagan deities of their time.

But it seems God doesn’t much like that shrine plan because in that moment, a cloud covers them and God’s voice says:"This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" And then the transfiguration is over. No more bleachy-white lightning flashes and heros showing up from the dead to chat up Jesus. Nope. It’s gone. All is quiet. This was simply a glimpse of the glory of God.

In writing about this special event, Mark invites us to stand with Peter and James and John and encounter the lightning-laden glory of the transfiguration. Wow, Jesus really IS the son of God! Amazing! But Mark doesn’t want us to get fixated upon this event like Peter did, as if it were the only revelation of God’s glory that ever would be. No, Mark is showing us that in the transfiguration, Jesus pulls away the veil for just a moment reveals what our every day lives tend to hide: that we we are never far from the dazzling and miraculous glory of the eternal God.

This glory is too wonderful, too amazing to pin down. That’s why Peter couldn’t go through with his booth plan. You cannot turn the glory of God on and off like a faucet, as if it were something that humans control.

And this uncontrollable and marvelous glory didn’t end when John set down his pen after writing the final book of the bible. The incredible thing is that it is ongoing. Through the ages we’ve seen God’s glory continue. We’ve glimpsed glory in the survival and growth of the early Christian church. We’ve seen it in the saints and martyrs, who gave it all for the sake of the Gospel. We’ve seen it in the missionary zeal that continues to spread the good news around the globe.

We encounter this glory today whenever we see a breathtaking work of art or architecture or hear beautiful music or read a moving piece of literature. We experience God’s glory in nature. We see it in each glance at the mighty Mississippi that runs through our town. We see the glory of God in the gift of parents, children, friends, community.

God’s glory is all over the place and it is here to inspire us and fill us with awe. It is here to engage us and keep us steadfast in our faith. It calms us when we are filled with anxiety. It comforts us in our sorrows. It invigorates us to do God’s will.

God’s glory calls out to us in this very moment. How dare we think that the glory of the transfiguration was only for that ancient time and place? God’s glory is eager to set us free, to transform us into the image of God.

The transfiguration merely reminds that the veil that separates us from God’s revelation of glory is thin. This is what Paul is talking about in his letter to the Corinthians in our second lesson for today. In the chapter before, he talked about how Moses had to cover his face because it was still glowing from his encounter with God and how God’s people hardened their hearts and would not look upon the glory. And there are those who still veil their minds from God’s glory. But when we turn to God, the veil is removed. “And all of us,” he writes, “with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” In the reading for today, he says that the gospel is only veiled to those who are perishing but to those with the eyes of faith to see it, it is the light of Christ which shines in our hearts. This is why we have hope, why we do not lose heart, why we can and must act with boldness!

This Wednesday, we celebrate Ash Wednesday, which launches us into the 40-day season of Lent. This is the season of repentance—of turning our hearts back to God and walking with Jesus to the cross as we await his resurrection at Easter.

Today as we observe Transfiguration Sunday, we are given a foretaste of the Easter celebration. And we are invited to contemplate the glory of God in our own lives. It’s there. But do we perceive it? What can we do to unveil our minds so that we can truly be present to the times when God shows up? How can we participate more fully in the Spirit’s work to transform us into that same image of the transfigured Christ—to move us forward from one degree of glory to another?

Let us pray: Loving Jesus, we thank you for the glimpse of glory given to us in the Transfiguration and for the reminder that the more we unveil our minds, the more your glorious love will shine into our hearts. Prepare us for the Lenten season, that as we draw nearer to you, we may be transformed from one degree of glory to another. In Jesus name we pray,  Amen.


© 2009 Laura Gentry

I DO CHOOSE

A Sermon for the 6th Sunday of Epiphany
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Mark 1:40-45 • 1 Kings 5:1-14 • Psalm 30

It is practically impossible for us to comprehend how horrible it was to be a leper in biblical times. People had no idea how this ugly and painful disease was spread. It struck fear in their hearts. And how did they handle this paralyzing fear? They totally isolated those who showed signs of infection.

According to the Levitical laws, lepers were considered unclean and forced to live outside the city. As late as Medieval times, a priest would read the burial service over the leper before he or she was cast out of the city, doomed to die alone. It seems outrageous to us today, but those sick with leprosy in the ancient world had to live in large unlivable pits, far away from civilization.

So not only did lepers have physical pain, they lived with the emotional pain of being abandoned by their family and friends in their dying days. In today’s reading Jesus has a brief encounter with one such person. Here is a man who had lost hope. Yet, he has heard about Jesus and it fills him with hope again. Lepers weren’t even supposed to approach the healthy, yet this man comes directly to Jesus and says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” The audacity of his faith is striking.

The ancient audience would expect Jesus to toss rocks at the leper to keep him at bay. That was what normally happened in such a circumstance. Yet, Jesus does the unexpected. He does not rebuff this leper. In fact, he is so moved by compassion that he breaks the religious law by stretching out his hand and physically touching the man. He reaches out to him in more ways than one. Then Jesus says: "I do choose. Be made clean!" And the man is healed instantly.

In the reading from the I King, we hear a similar story of a leper being healed through the power of God. In it, Naaman, an enemy military commander, is given words of wisdom by the prophet Elisha that he is to immerse himself in the Jordan River 7 times. Now Naaman’s got a bad attitude, but at length he agrees to follow these instructions and is immediately made clean. This demonstrates how God’s healing power knows no limits. Even God’s enemies are given mercy and healing! And perhaps this news is even more miraculous than the fact that Naaman’s leprosy disappears.

Today’s Psalm gives voice to the joy God’s healing can bring. “O LORD my God,” says the Psalmist, “I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O LORD, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” This Psalm concludes with the profound cry of faith: “You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”

And today, there is great cause for the people of God to not be silent but rejoice and give thanks. Why? Because today a great healing is about to take place, which we will be privileged enough to witness. I’m talking about baptism. In this holy sacrament, we are adopted into God’s joyful family. We are healed of our sin through the gift of forgiveness. And we are promised deliverance from death and the devil forever. Can there be a more marvelous healing? Can there be a sweeter balm for our mourning souls? No. In baptism, we are all transformed into happy, dancing people.

For many of us, this healing took place before we were consciously aware. We were infants at the font and we only learned about the healing of baptism years after the event. Today, however, we have the rare opportunity to witness an adult baptism. Jamie Horkheimer has been walking with Jesus for quite a long time and has developed an active worship life. Yet, the Holy Spirit has led him to seek a deeper fellowship with his Savior. Jamie wants to have the assurance that he is accepted by God and promised the gift of eternal love. In asking to be baptized, he is saying to Jesus precisely what the leper in the Gospel lesson said: “If you choose, you can make me clean.”

Jamie is crying out with the Psalmist for healing. His soul wants transformation so that he may be fully God’s own—filled with peace and joy that pass understanding. He wants his mourning to give way to dancing. And that’s what all of us want, isn’t it?

So many times the harsh waves of life come crashing over us and we feel lost and alone in the universe, like drowning souls. We sense our own helplessness. We run aimlessly and box at the air, unable to live as we know we should live.

Yet no matter how far we have moved from God’s way, there is grace for us. There is compassion. There is healing and rebirth. And so in faith we cry out to Jesus: “Won’t you choose to save us!”

And Jesus responds with unbelievable compassion. He reaches out to each one of us and says: “I do choose. Be made clean!” Let us dance for joy at this miracle today and every day. Amen.

© 2009 Laura E. Gentry

HEALED TO SERVE

A Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Mark 1:29-39

Healed by faith. Is it possible? In Lourdes, France, there is a world famous Roman Catholic shrine at which the Blessed Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a saintly young woman named Bernadette a century and a half ago. Thousands of pilgrims throng the shrine every year, hoping to be cured of their ailments. Over the decades, people have left behind their crutches, braces and other tokens of healing as witnesses to God’s power to make them well.

Some say it’s a total sham—that Lourdes and other such places are just tourist traps with no power at all. If a “healing” occurs, they claim it is either pure coincidence or the placebo effect. And with all the modern therapeutic advances, time and money would be better spent visiting medical experts.

What ever you think about modern day faith healing stories, healing is an essential element of the Gospel message. Christians of all denominations have embraced the scenes of healing found throughout the bible.

The ministry of Jesus is particularly loaded with healing. He heals from the very start. In the gospel of Mark, Jesus calls the disciples and then immediately cures a man with an unclean spirit. In today’s lesson, he leaves the synagogue, and enters the house of Simon and Andrew where he find Simon’s mother-in-law in bed with a fever. So what does he do? Of course, he heals her. He takes her by the hand and lifts her up—quite literally. She stands up beside him and her fever leaves. It seems to me that she must have been from Iowa since doesn’t delay a moment after being healed—she gets right back to work in the kitchen.

Like others whom Jesus touched withhis healing, he gives this woman a second chance. He gives hope where there is no hope. In an instant, healing brought freedom from physical debility and not only that, it brought inner change. No wonder “the whole city was gathered” at Jesus’ door. The scene was probably not that much different from contemporary Lourdes at pilgrimage time. People flock to healing.

But healing was never an end unto itself in the ministry of Jesus. In his very first words, as recorded by Mark, Jesus proclaimed, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.” Healing is but a foretaste of the coming of a kingdom that transcends this world of pain and death. And most importantly, this kingdom, Jesus demonstrated, is here within anyone’s grasp, not in some far off place. It has come near.

We are all still in need of healing—physical and otherwise. Everyone seems to be searching for something to improve their lives. These days, the web seems to be overrun with an obnoxious banner ad for some diet plan. The ad is an animated jiggling belly. You try to read the news page and all you see out of the corner of your eye is this wiggling belly. You can't ignore it! And it is trying to make you think: is my belly okay? Does it wiggle and jiggle like this horrible ad? Must I click the ad and go buy this diet plan that will make my belly suitable to be seen in public? But all makeovers and the latest fad diets the world offers cannot assure us of happiness and fulfillment. Real transformation, as understood in the Gospel, has nothing to do with belly fat. It is about our need to for God's healing. We must embrace our own ultimate frailty and death so that we can recognize our need for grace.

I remember reading the story about the Egyptian ferry that sunk in the Red Sea in February of 2006. Only 388 people of the 1,400 on board were rescued. Because the boat sunk so quickly, most of the lifeboats went down with it. The ferry captain apparently was able to get one of those boats but reportedly rowed away from the drowning wreck in it all by himself. He just abandoned his passengers in their time of greatest need.

I think a lot of people fear that God is like that runaway captain, that we can't quite trust that God will always be there for us. What if I'm just not good enough? What if my sins become to vast? What if the bottom falls out of my life? Will God still love me? Will God still be there for me? As humans, it is hard to trust such unconditional love. But we can be assured that God is nothing like the captain who rowed from the wreck by himself. God is always here for us, no matter how far we stray. God holds us close, offering healing for our brokeness again and again.

In the English language the words healing, health, wholeness and wellness all share the same etymological root, meaning full or complete. At whatever state of health we may be, we must recognize our deficiencies, our incompleteness. We need something or someone beyond ourselves and without it we know we are not complete. We are missing something. We are forever longing. We need God’s strength not just to make us well, but to make us whole.

Jesus “cast out many demons.” In our quest for wholeness, we face demons too—habits and behaviors that lead to ruin and self-defeat, sometimes even to death itself. Yet despite these demons, we press on for wholeness, for oneness with God. And healing is about God showing up in the midst of our pain and making that oneness possible. Jesus took Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand and raised her up from her sickbed, and she was made well. She must have understood, as no one else, the meaning of the kingdom and oneness with the Lord. And that closeness and oneness is ours to have as well.

How can you know when you have been healed? Seems like a silly question. For many, the answer is obvious: when the pain is gone, the fever has come down, and the disease is no more. But the Gospel gives a better answer. “The fever left her,” we are told of Peter’s mother-in-law, “and she began to serve them.” As she was healed, she immediately began to serve others. When we are ready to help others in their need and focus once again outside ourselves we will know that we too have been cured. We will no longer be slaves to our own hurts and resentments. We will at last be made whole.

My friends, our captain is with us—reaching out to save us. Let us heed Jesus’ invitation today to be healed and to share that healing by serving others.


Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.

© 2009 Laura E. Gentry

WHEN BEING RIGHT IS WRONG

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
February 1, 2009
Pastor Laura Gentry

1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him. Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that "no idol in the world really exists," and that "there is no God but one." Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as in fact there are many gods and many lords-- yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. "Food will not bring us close to God." We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall. (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

There’s an old story about a man who was put on a very strict diet—he was to have no sweets and very little fat. And everything went well for him for the first week. Then one morning, he showed up at work with a large, decadent, half-eaten coffee cake. One of his co-workers questioned him, “I thought you were on a diet?”

“Oh, I am,” he replied, “but this is a very special coffee cake because God wanted me to have it.”

“God wanted you to have it?” the coworker asked skeptically.

“Well yes, I was driving down the street minding my own business this morning, when I heard this coffee cake calling out to me from the window of the bakery I was passing. It called and called, ‘buy me, buy me.’ So I prayed to God and said, ‘God, if you really want me to have that coffee cake who is calling out to me, let there be an open parking spot right in front of the bakery.’ And you know, sure enough, on the fifth time around the block, there was an empty parking spot right there in front of the bakery!”

Many of us have been on diets and have struggled to avoid those tempting treats that seem to call out to us. Yet, we would rarely consider our diet a religious issue as the man in the story with the coffee cake did.

But that’s exactly what is going on in our second lesson for today from First Corinthians. The issue was not about losing weight, however, it was about losing faith. You see, most of the meat available at the local butcher shops was leftover from sacrificial ceremonies in pagan temples. What do you do with all those sacrificed animals? You sell it for meat. Therefore, trying to find non-pagan meat was difficult. It’s not like your waitress would say to you, “Hamburger, and a large Coke, okay...oh, did you want that burger pagan or non-pagan?” It would be kind of like trying to find a meatless steak at Sizzler—believe me, I know how difficult that can be. Non-pagan meat was simply hard to come by. But according to the Jerusalem agreement (Acts 15:29) Gentile Christians were supposed to abstain from meat sacrificed to these gods because it was considered idolatry.

Now this may sound like a little technicality, a silly issue to you and me. But to the Christians in Corinth, it was a huge matter. Corinth, you must understand, was a dominantly pagan city. The Christians were the minority in this culture. It was a large metropolitan area in the center Greece that was known for its wealth and its impropriety. On a hill overlooking the city, there was a temple dedicated to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. It is said that there were about a thousand prostitutes who worked out of the temple. And in addition to the prostitution, there was an abundance of alcohol abuse. Indeed, Corinth was “Sin City” in those days.

Many Christians in Corinth were converts from paganism. And for them, to eat meat which had been sacrificed to the pagan idols was a big struggle. It made them feel like they were slipping back into their old religion—that they were moving away from the God of Israel and back into their pagan ways. And of course, being a Christian requires that you give all your allegiance to God, not to any “false gods” and certainly not to any idols of the pagan religions. To do this, the Christian converts simply had to stay away from all thing pagan, including the bargains at the pagan meat counter.

Meanwhile, however, there was another group of Christians in Corinth. They believed they had every right to eat this meat. Why? Because, they claimed, these idols do not really exist, only God does. So, therefore, food sacrificed to them has not meaning. There is only one God, so what’s the problem? “We can eat it and it doesn’t compromise our faith one bit!” they argued. Since they were so strong in their faith, they didn’t have the issues with pagan meat that the new Christians did.

So all of this led to a division in the Christian church. Can you imagine that— Christians having differing opinion about matters of faith? Indeed, Christians have always had trouble navigating the do-s and don’t-s of the faith. So the Apostle Paul is called upon to help them figure out how to solve this disagreement. That’s what today’s scripture is: a letter Paul wrote to these Christians of Corinth. He explains that yes, the strong Christians are right: the idols don’t exist and since there is only one God, there is no real harm in eating this food. But he goes on to explain that they are also wrong. Because they are eating meat sacrificed to idols, and oftentimes they are eating it right in the pagan temples, they are leading others astray. These new Christians see them doing so and feel that perhaps it is okay to stray from the Christian faith and return to pagan worship. So, Paul plainly states: by having such great knowledge, by being right, you are wrong because you are leading people astray. Thus—and I love this part—he arrives at a vegetarian conclusion to the problem. He writes: “If food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.” Isn’t that great?

But actually, I must admit, the modern application of this teaching has nothing to do with meat. We no longer have the issue of meat sacrificed to idols. But we do still face the issue of the secular world being pressing in on our Christian faith, just as the Corinthians did. What worldly activities can we safely participate in without compromising our faith?

What we must remember is that what’s okay for you might not be okay for someone else. So Paul urges us to really examine what we do. “Are my behaviors becoming of a Christian?” We must ask ourselves. “How does it look to others? Might it lead them to stray from their faith?”

But then you may say that if we refrain from every activity that might lead someone into sin, we’d end up locked away doing nothing and then we’d have no ability to witness to the Gospel! And Paul would have agreed with that. We are bound to offend someone at some point, even if we are trying not to. So are there some hard and fast rules about what we can and cannot do as Christians so that if we just stick to them we’ll be okay? If only it were that easy! Paul believed that each Christian should use his or her own judgment on these matters. “Let everyone be convinced in their own mind.” He writes in Romans 14:5. In each circumstance of life, we are to be sensitive to the needs of others around us and make a judgment call about what behaviors would be appropriate to engage in and what would not be.

Really, what this all boils down to is love. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” If we go around smugly doing what we believe is theologically and morally permissible based upon our great wealth of knowledge, we could be hurting others in the process. Exercising our rights as a Christian could well wrong another. It is not being right that counts—for there are times when being right is wrong. What is important is our love and concern for others, especially others who do not share our values and perspectives. God deals so graciously with us; and so in turn, we are to be gracious toward others.

The only problem with this is that love is difficult. There is a Buddhist saying that goes: “He who loves 50 people has 50 woes. He who loves no one has no woes.” So love is woe? I’m afraid so.

We have trouble loving. It’s hard to love others and it’s hard to love ourselves. The spiritual teacher Pema Chodron wrote: “The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.” His point is that to be open and loving with others requires being open and loving with ourselves—looking upon ourselves as God looks upon us.

When we can do this, we find that love is joy. It is the whole thing. When we come to die and we look back at our lives, what we’ll be able to hold onto is the love we have given and received. Everything else pales in comparison. That’s why Jesus came to show us how to love. And that’s why Paul urges us to use our Christian freedom in a way that is loving. Even though we have to curb our behavior, it is worth it. What matters is not how much we know, but how much we love.


Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.

© 2009 Laura E. Gentry