Sermon preached by the Reverend Lillie Henley 10 Sep 2006
A police car pulls up in front of Grandma Bessie's house, and Grandpa Morris gets out, along with a polite policeman who explained to Bessie, "This elderly gentleman said that he was lost in the park...and couldn't find his way home."
"Oh, Morris," said Grandma, "You've been going to that park for over 30 years! So how could you get lost?"
Leaning close to Grandma, so that the policeman couldn't hear, Morris whispered, "I wasn't lost.....I was just too tired to walk home, and I needed to get here!"
Home, the place you need to go when you're tired or lonely.
Home, the place you look for when you've lost your way.
Home, the place you return when you've explored the world and need comfort.
Home is truly where your heart is.
Where you are safe,
Where you're loved.
And that home is best when the love you find there is unconditional.
Not all homes provide unconditional love, though. We know that love in homes ranges from overbearing, to stingy, to neglectful, or worse. And love in some homes ranges from being kind, to affirming, to unconditional. Researchers tell us that if we feel loved growing up; we become reasonably emotional, healthy adults. And that the more unconditional love in our lives, the healthier we are.
That is why, as adults, we attempt to create families that either replicate the loving environment in which we grew up, or we struggle to learn how to create the loving family environment we never had.
My life experience tells me that in all families, dysfunctional, functional, a balance of both—that’s what I always say about mine—we were as dysfunctional and as functional as the next family—if there is love, if people are trying—just trying—that’s all—trying—to create loving, healthy relationships—then in the end, things turn out all right. But the key word here is “trying.”
Have you seen Little Miss Sunshine? Don’t miss it, and if you do, rent it as soon as it comes out on video. It is the funniest movie I’ve seen in years. It is not an unrealistic, “feel good” movie, the kind I usually like to watch. It is a movie about a family where there is this functional/dysfunctional balance, and no matter what happens to them, you know, in the end, their love for each other will get them through their challenges.
This Sunday is homecoming Sunday for Universalist National Memorial Church, and so I think of all of us "coming home." Coming home to a place where we find love, love of God and love for each other.
Isn't that why we go to church?
Isn't that why we do anything, comes right down to it?
Love?
Jesus’ followers asked him, “What is the greatest commandment?”
Jesus replied: “This is the first and the greatest commandment, 'Love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ”
Are we coming home today to a healthy, functional, loving church home? Religion comes from the Latin religio, which means to “bind together.” Do we bind ourselves together, to love God, to love each other, to love others outside these “Sunday walls”? Do we take seriously the words in our affirmation this morning, we want to "... bring hope and healing to the world ...?"
We look at Jesus' story in our readings today.
The story is indeed about loving each other, but we need to reflect deeply on what it is saying.
We find Jesus very active in his ministry. He has been teaching and healing around the Sea of Galilee, and he is quite tired. His followers bring him to Tyre on the Mediterranean coast to rest. But, as soon as he arrives, a woman, a Syrophoenician, a non-Jew, asks him to heal her daughter, who is filled with demons. Jesus looks at her and says something demeaning to her. He says the children must eat first, before the dogs are fed. What he means by that is that his ministry is to the Jews, not the Gentiles.
Let's stop right here.
What is this? Jesus, the great teacher, the great example, is human? He’s tired, stressed, challenged. He’s looking for a place to rest, and when the demands of his ministry intrude, we don't see a kind response.
We need to remember as we create a church where all feel loved, we need to remember that we're human, we are not perfect, and we may sometimes respond to each other in an unhealthy way.
Then, what happened in the story?
The woman came right back at Jesus, and said, "Yes, but even the dogs eat the crumbs the children drop."
And Jesus, how did he then respond, probably knowing deep in his heart that he had not reacted well to the woman? He said, "You are right, your daughter is healed." He wasn't arrogant, or pride filled, or "ego-invested" in his certainly inappropriate response to the woman. He didn't try to bully her, or bluster past it, he simply said, "You are right, your daughter is healed.”
What spiritual courage that takes!
When we realize we have responded to another person in our church inappropriately, we can do as Jesus did to the woman; we change our response to one of love.
It takes deep spiritual courage and love to turn a disastrous situation into a "miracle" as Jesus did, but if we keep in mind that we are creating a church home where we share unconditional love, the "miracles" will happen.
Jesus then goes to another town to rest before returning to Galilee, and yet again he is asked to heal another non-Jew. He does.
1. One of the important things about these two stories is that they foreshadow Christianity—a religious movement that eventually included non-Jews.
2. We know Jesus developed into an inclusive religious leader, and that eventually, he invited everyone to a place at the table.
What happens when a homogeneous environment invites diversity? It is all right for awhile, but when the diversity reaches a significant percentage, tension and conflict begin to develop. That is what happened to Christianity in the first two hundred years. It began as a Jewish sect, and eventually grew into a non-Jewish religion, with inclusion of all non-Jews. We see it throughout the New Testament.
We also know that as we create a church of unconditional love, we will become more and more welcoming to our table a diversity that does not now exist at UNMC. Look around, we are a pretty homogeneous group. It will no longer be "our" table; it will be "OUR" table. When we create a church of unconditional love, we will have diversity.
Economic diversity, educational diversity, ethnic diversity, lifestyle diversity, social diversity: There will be diversity of which we have yet to dream.
There will be young couples with children, both homosexual and heterosexual, who need the love of experienced elders, because they are alienated by distance or bigotry from their families of origin.
There will be young people, here to study in this city, who needing a loving family support system, because their support system is in another country.
There will be singles, people of all ages who live alone, who will come because they have no one in their lives who love them. Some who are never touched outside these Sunday walls.
There will be young adults and older adults, singles, and families, and they won't always look like us. When we build a church of unconditional love, many will want to come, because, that is what we all need, no matter who we are--love.
When this diversity brings conflict we've got to depend on something greater than our ordinary human efforts for healthy solutions. We will have to depend on the One source of unconditional love, a love so strong that it will help us overcome our human frailties and challenges, and that once source is God-your God, my God-the God we know in our hearts and see in our souls.
All we have to do is ask God to help us create this church of unconditional love and the Great Creator will show us how to do it. And then, we must go about doing it.
What will it look like?
It will be a place where we will bring friends and acquaintances. It will be joy filled. When we walk into this home, we will look at each other and say, “God is Good.”
It will be a place where we embrace growth, because growth means sharing God’s unconditional love with more and more people.
When someone new comes into this Church of Unconditional Love, we will ask, “How did you get here?” “How can we be of service to you today?” We won’t ask, “Where do you work? Where do you live? What do you do?” We will first find out how we can share God’s love.
It will be a place where we find new ways of being in God.
It will be a place where we will all be ministers. Ministers to each other, and to the world. All of us, together and as individuals, will find ways of ministering outside these Sunday walls. It will be a faith driven church. We will live out our “Declaration of Faith” in our everyday lives. We will live the Word, not just give lip service to the Word.
Last, but not least, it will be a place where we will embrace change, experimenting, trying this out, trying that out, looking for ways to share God’s love. A church of unconditional love, is a church where we recognize God's love as being very much a part our lives, our whole lives, not just on Sunday, but every day.
Last Sunday, several of us participated in CrossWalk, a movement that started in Phoenix, and sent out walkers to bring their Affirmation to Washington. This Phoenix Affirmation is essentially a Christianity grounded in Jesus' love and teachings. It is not the exclusionary, fundamentalist Christianity that has such a loud voice today.
I call it, just between us, a "take back Christianity" movement.
Well, that is what a church of unconditional love is.
A church grounded in Jesus' love and teachings.
A church of love for each other,
A church of service to each other,
A church that cares about whether each and everyone one of us has pain, joy, sorrow, relationships in our lives outside these Sunday walls.
We "bind ourselves together" to experience God's love? To live out God's love?
Imagine, a church of unconditional love.
Imagine the joy of creating a church of unconditional love.
Should we change our name?
Oh, there will be changes, we may not change our name, but there will be changes.
Who wants to be part of a church of unconditional love?
Who wants to help create a church of unconditional love?
Step outside your head self this morning. Begin to think with your heart self. Begin to embrace a new self this morning. A self comfortable in a church of unconditional love.
Let us pray for a church of unconditional love.
The Readings
Mark 7:24-37
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go-the demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."
"The Homecoming"
I hear an ancient inner beckon,
A reckoning with Destiny and Time;
Distant desires awaken a sacred song inside me
Shaking off the sheath of forlorn longing,
Shattering the battered shell of my calloused cocoon.
Yet the moon reflects the echoes of my treasured promise,
Measured innings that mark the cycles of my exile;
And in the whisper of the autumn nights I hear the call--
Spiced by tender smells of my heart's betrothal.
With broken wings I heed the pleading summons
Boldly daring to brave the frightful flight ahead;
And while the Wind suspends my nascent spirit,
I glide the currents of the stream with seamless soaring.
With mustard faith I trust unerringly the hallowed route
Etched indelibly on the sacred annals of my paneled heart;
And like a homing pigeon destined with Patriot precision,
My spirit "locks in" on my Beulah Land where I belong,
The tents of my inheritance-
My "gift of God," my unseen refuge--my only home.
From "Restoration Israel" website
By Jonathan Allen
August 17, 2002
Olathe, CO