Is Love Alive? - a sermon for second Advent

Is Love Alive?

Sermon for the Advent of Love

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Dec 7, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Luke 1: 26-38, Matthew 1:18-25, Selections from Heavenly Secrets 1820:2

There is a bit of dark humor that really appeals to me.  And as it applies to today’s topic I will share it with you now. It goes like this:

“We are born naked, wet, and hungry.  Then things get worse.”

So, today I want to talk about the vulnerability of love, and just how vulnerable God was willing to become to deliver His message of love.  He didn’t show his love by being the mightiest, or having the biggest guns, or the most money, or the best Homeland security, but by being the most vulnerable.  He allowed himself to be tortured and murdered to show us in the most palpable way imaginable that love transcends even unjust arrest, torture, and death.  He chose to be vulnerable.  His strength was illustrated by his “weakness”.

So as we are celebrating His birth, with joy and gifts and lights and hope, can we remember what He chose?  How will it all end?  Will LOVE live?

Raise your hand if you have ever heard of a “Blue” Christmas service.

 

A “Blue” Christmas service is one that makes a space for those whose pain and loss during this “most wonderful time of the year” is too great for them to be able to join in the festivities.  When most of the rest of us are wishing each other “Merry Christmas!” or “Happy Hanu-Solsti-Bodhi-Kwaanza-kkuh!” a Blue Christmas service carves out a safe and sacred space for those who need to be with the truth of their emotional reality—sadness, sorrow, loss, homesickness, pain, separation, or bereavement.  It is a gentle, quiet space, not even pretending that everyone should be joyful.

Somehow, loss, separation, disruption, and bereavement are more sharply outlined during the holidays when all those around us seem to be celebrating.  One woman confessed to me recently, “Why does everyone have to tell me to have a Happy Thanksgiving?  It’s not a happy thanksgiving.  My mother died and we aren't celebrating at all.”  In her pain she heard, “Happy Thanksgiving” as a command, and it sharpened her sense of grief.  It is not uncommon for raw loss to come out as anger or bitterness.  And unless we have been trained to deal with such loss when we encounter it, we are likely to feel uncomfortable or guilty or maybe even judgmental of the one who is voicing such hurt and pain during the holidays.

My hope is that today’s message will open our awareness to include with compassion and comfort all the experiences of this holiday season—the joyful and sorrowful, the bright and the bitter, the sweet and the sharp—believing that somehow they are united by love and remembering that love makes a space for all sides of us. 

Suffering need not diminish the sparkling joy; nor does any delight and pleasure need to invalidate the sorrow.  They can live side by side in this season, but it may take intentionality to learn how to be comfortable with all of it.  Sometimes the joy and pleasure will be contagious and brighten the days of the sorrowful.  At other times the suffering is so acute that the surrounding joy must show respect in quietness, holding those suffering in love and patience.

According to Swedenborg, we are what we love.  Love is what drives us and motivates us and inspires us.  And love is what hurts most acutely when attacked. 

We love, and we love deeply.  Our greatest joy is when people we love are doing well, and when we hear news of new love and new life.  The toughest times are when something we love is threatened, or is suffering, or has been lost. 

Joy and love open us up.  Pain and fear shut us down.  Do you see the relationship?

To guard what is most precious to us, we build defenses around it.  We don’t want the things we treasure most to be hurt or threatened in any way.  Some defenses are reasonable and prudent. But sometimes, if we have been hurt deeply, we build bigger and bigger defenses, hiding from more and more of life, swearing we will not be hurt that way again.  It makes sense that we do this, but building stronger and stronger defenses will not serve us in the long run.  Because defenses, while protecting the things we love, also block love’s movement and expression, like a princess walled up in a tower to keep her safe; or like a light hidden under a bucket.  One’s defense mechanisms themselves can end doing more harm than good.

So let’s look at how today’s scripture selections speak to love and defensiveness and vulnerability.

In our first Scripture reading, we see Mary hearing the news that she would become the mother of God.  This promise was actually inviting Mary into tremendous vulnerability.  A woman when pregnant is far more vulnerable than she is ordinarily.  To be an unmarried pregnant woman in that culture was one of the worst fates Mary could face.  During labor she would be reduced to complete dependency on those around her for her life and the life of her baby.  Yet Mary essentially said, “So be it,” to all of it, even though her pregnancy could mean Joseph’s rejection. Mary said, “Yes,” even though she could be left alone with an infant and no means or support. Granted, she had an angel reassuring her, but still, Mary’s trust here is remarkable.

Then we see Joseph being asked to accept Mary even though she was pregnant. Joseph clearly wasn’t happy with Mary’s news, because he took at least overnight, and possibly longer to decide how to respond.  In fact, we read that Joseph had pretty much decided to cut Mary off “quietly” until the angel intervened. The Joseph side of our nature is like that.  It nearly says “no” to God’s birth into our lives because it is more cautious.  Joseph was afraid, or the angel would not have said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary to wife.”

But with the angel’s promptings, Joseph did eventually say “yes” to the care of Mary and thus to the birth of this Divine child into his life. 

In Swedenborgian theology, there are two sides to each of us, rather like the two hemispheres of our brain.  There is the open, connecting, creative, optimistic, inclusive side of us (or our right-brain side); and there is the protective, analytical, sorting, boxing and prioritizing side, (or our left-brain side).  Mary shows up here as our right-brain response to God’s advent into our lives.  She is the part of us ready to accept and gestate this Divine in-breaking with very few questions. That part of us simply says “yes” right away. 

Joseph is representing our left-brain energy.  His role will be to protect and provide for this child that is not his own.  He is hesitant and skeptical; he takes time to discern the risks and benefits. He nearly says no, before an angel speaks in his dreams and turns him around. 

When I think of these two energies and all the ways they show up in my life, one example that makes me smile is this church’s board, and the lovely mix of dreamers and money-crunchers, optimists and … well, the hesitant and careful.  We need both energies. One isn't better than the other any more than the left hemisphere is better than the right in our brains. To function at our best we need a healthy marriage between them, in our personal inner lives, and in our communities, and on every church board.  In every aspect of life we get onto trouble when the dreamers charge ahead without the consent of the careful, or when the careful stonewall every dream because of risk-aversion.  The two sides must work together as a team, trusting the wisdom inherent in each; and most of all, as in the story of Mary and Joseph, needing to remember that it is God’s direction and guidance that will accomplish the plan not their own dreams or prudence.  Neither Mary nor Joseph alone could have been able to birth, catch, hold, clean, swaddle and nurse this Divine expression of Love at his most wet and squirmy and vulnerable.

Love makes us vulnerable.  And loving someone small and defenseless who is relying on us for safety and survival makes us the most vulnerable of all.  

Our reading from Swedenborg says that evil attacks what we love most. Herod went after every single baby and toddler for miles around.  Our softness, our tenderness, our openness—these things are seen as a threat in a macho culture.  When we are all about our own ability not to get hurt, or to be the strongest, or to be “invulnerable,” anything seen as “weak” is anathema.  Everything is viewed in threat and risk terms, and everything that can make us vulnerable is the thing to be guarded against above all. 

That was not Jesus’ message nor his model. 

While it is a normal human response to react to pain and injury by throwing up defensive walls, defensive walls stop the flow of love.  They leave no room at the inn.  They create a space to hide, and hiding is not what we were brought here to do.

The experiences of sorrow and loss around this holiday are experiences of love too.  They express great love, or we would not hurt so much.  While the pain and loss can make us wonder if we will ever feel joy again, the answer lies in the pain itself.  The love is alive or there would be no pain.  It truly is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  And where there is love, there is God. And where there is God, all things are possible.

So if you are feeling naked, wet, and hungry, and like things are just going to get worse, remember: Love has a way of accomplishing what it sets out to do.  It holds back nothing from those it loves. True vulnerability is the bravest and strongest part of us, no matter how things look, because it is willing to go into and through the darkness, trusting in the new dawn.

So this Christmas, let us try to say “Yes” to the birth of vulnerability in our own lives however that shows up for us.  When an angel asks us to take a risk for love, will we dare to say “yes” and trust that God has a plan?  Mostly, will we heed the call of love, and be brave enough to face the darkness even with all the feelings of vulnerability and pain?  Because that is the path love takes and the way to new life.  Amen

The following was the interlude:

Winter Song,By Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson

Bum bum bum bum, bum bum bum bum
Bum bum, bum bum bum bum
Bum bum, bum bum bum bum

This is my winter song to you
The storm is coming soon
It rolls in from the sea

My voice, a beacon in the night
My words will be your light
To carry you to me

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love (pause)

They say that things just cannot grow
Beneath the winter snow
Or so I have been told

They say we're buried far
Just like a distant star
I simply cannot hold

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

This is my winter song
December never felt so wrong
Cause you're not where you belong
Inside my arms

Bum bum bum bum, bum bum bum bum
Bum bum, bum bum bum bum
Bum bum, bum bum bum bum

I still believe in summer days
The seasons always change
And life will find a way

I'll be your harvester of light
And send it out tonight
So we can start again

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

This is my winter song
December never felt so wrong
Cause you're not where you belong
Inside my arms

This is my winter song to you
The storm is coming soon
It rolls in from the sea

My love a beacon in the night
My words will be your light
To carry you to me

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

The Readings

Luke 1: 26-38  Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,  to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was.  Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.  And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.  Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.  For with God nothing will be impossible.”

Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Matthew 1: 18-25  Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”  When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Heavenly Secrets 1820:2, 5 portions

Since few people know what temptations really are, let a brief explanation of them be given here. Evil spirits only attack what someone loves, and the more intensely we love, the more fiercely do those spirits attack us. By attacking what we love most deeply, they attack every single thing about us, since each person’s very life consists in what we love. Nothing gives evil spirits more delight than to destroy someone; and they would attack what we love relentlessly if the Lord did not drive them away.