MESSAGE I (Mandy)
Being pregnant for the first time was very surreal experience. From the moment I foundd out I are going to have a baby, I understood in my brain that my life had forever changed. But I had very mild pregnancies, and for the first few months, that wasn’t something I really grasped. And then, all of a sudden, I felt that first flutter of movement coming from within my womb. That’s when it all became clear. Drew became real to me. And I understood love.
What comes next in the Gospel of Luke is what is known as the Magnificat, or Mary’s Song. It is the oldest hymn text in the New Testament. Mary is so filled with the love and awe of her baby – Jesus – in her womb that she can’t help but break into song. Hear this modern interpretation of that hymn by M Barclay:
My soul is alive with thoughts of God.
What a wonder, Their liberating works.
Though the world has been harsh to me,
God has shown me kindness,
seen my worth,
and called me to courage.
Surely, those who come after me will call me blessed.
Even when my heart weighs heavy with grief,
still, so does hope abide with me.
Holy is the One who makes it so.
From generation to generation,
Love’s Mercy is freely handed out;
None are beyond the borders of
God’s transforming compassion.
The power of God is revealed
among those who labor for justice.
They humble the arrogant.
They turn unjust thrones into dust.
Their Wisdom is revealed in
the lives and truths of those on the margins.
God is a feast for the hungry.
God is the great re-distributor of wealth and resources.
God is the ceasing of excessive and destructive production
that all the earth might rest.
Through exiles and enslavement,
famines and wars,
white supremacy and climate crises,
God is a companion in loss,
a deliverer from evil,
a lover whose touch restores.
This is the promise They made
to my ancestors,
to me,
to all the creatures and creations,
now and yet coming,
and in this promise,
I find my strength.
Come, Great Healer,
and be birthed through us.
What I love about Mary’s song is that it’s not some ooey-gooey response. Because birth and parenthood and love are HARD. Raising a child, whether they be the Son of God, or simply the son of regular old Mandy, is hard work. Birthing something new is hard work. And Mary gets it. She talks about her grief, and the challenges of living in this world. And yet, she can see the beauty of what God brings about in this world.
Drew’s birthday was last Tuesday, so for me, I am always drawn to this connection between Mary and Jesus during this time. The day that Drew was born, I wrote him a letter in a notebook. Every night on his birthday I’ve written him another letter. So on Tuesday, to finish out his day, Drew and I read through each of those letters before he went to bed. Those letters are filled with stories of joy, and sadness, and challenge. And all mixed up in all of that is love. Not simple, sticky sweet love, but deep, abiding, courageous love. The kind of love that Mary had for her child the moment she felt him move in her womb. The kind of love that God has for us. The kind of love that challenges us to birth a new thing in ourselves and in our world. Come, Great Healer, and be birthed through us.
Message II (Steve Murtagh)
In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart famously stated that, while he could not define “pornography”, he never-the-less knew it when he saw it.
That may seem like an odd way to begin speaking about Love. But I think most people would probably agree they could not really define Love, but that they know it when they see it.
In 1st Corinthians, Paul does a good job explaining what Love is not. “Love does not Envy.
Love does not parade itself.
Love does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked and seeks no evil.
Love does not rejoice in iniquity. Love never fails.”
He also offers us some words on Love’s importance.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of Angels, if I have not Love I have become sounding brass.
Though I have have faith so that I could move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
So Love sounds pretty important. But Paul never does tell us what Love is. It’s a hard thing to define. But we know it when we see it.
In his book The Road Less Traveled, Dr. M. Scott Peck took on the challenge of defining Love.
Love, says Peck, is too large, too deep, to ever be fully understood or explained within the limitation of words. Never-the-less, like any good academic, he tries.
“Love,” he says, “is to extend one’s self for the sole purpose of nurturing another’s physical welfare or spiritual growth, without any expectation of reciprocation or reward. Love is as love does. Love is an act of will, both an intention and an action.”
So love is not a feeling, it is an action. Not a noun but a verb. Not something you fall into like an open pit, or find like a $20 bill on the sidewalk, or are given like a sweepstakes prize.
Love a choice you make and then a thing you do.
I am already over my 300 words so let me conclude this way.
Jesus boiled the entire bible down to Love. Love God. Love your neighbor. All the rest is secondary.
So let’s hope we know it when we see it.
Now let’s all go out and DO Love.
Message III (Leslie Sheley)
Love
What can I say about love that hasn’t already been said before? Love is the theme for songs and poems, movies and plays and let’s face it, it was basically Jesus’s theme for life and living.
But I think maybe a little bit of love is doing things that our family and friends want to do and are important to them, that we may not necessarily be interested in doing, but because it makes them happy and we love them, we do it with them and for them. Like going to all the sporting events with Wyatt and Stan through all these years; I do it, because I love them and I love being with them, but certainly not because I love sports.
And maybe a little bit of love is the way we deal with acquaintances, coworkers or strangers when they do things that get on our nerves, are outright rude or irritating. Maybe love is offering the mom with the screaming children behind us in the grocery line to go ahead of us instead of standing there rolling our eyes or sighing every time the baby wails.
Maybe it’s being patient and kind, instead of making snide, unkind remarks when the fast food place takes forever, especially these days, to get us our order or their latte machine, heaven forbid isn’t working that day.
And maybe, it’s having grace when a driver cuts us off or isn’t driving in the manner we think is appropriate. Maybe they are just having a bad day, maybe they just got fired, maybe they found out a loved one just got put on a ventilator.
And may be love is about being willing to have a more open mind and to be willing to hear the stories of why other people believe what they believe. Maybe it’s about realizing that we’re not always right and maybe even acknowledging we have a lot to learn and so we/I go to adult bible classes to learn and I go to living room conversations to figure out how to have a conversation with someone who possibly believes in things maybe even way to the other side of the topic than I do; realizing that my arguing with them is not going to change their mind at all and as Marta has been trying to teach us, how do I live in relation with that person even though we disagree on so many things.
And maybe love means showing up. Showing up for our family, showing up at work, showing up at church. These relationships are not always perfect; we hurt each other’s feelings, we aren’t thoughtful enough, we have expectations that no one can live up to. A friend sent me a Max Lucado book to read through advent and something he wrote caught my attention as we come into this last week of love in advent. He said, based on all the expectations, likes and dislikes we have of church in particular, “Even so, let us worship. The sincerity of our worship matters more than the quality.” He based that on Hebrews 10:24-25 where Paul writes to the Hebrews: “Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshipping together as some do, but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big day approaching.”
And maybe my friends, just maybe, that’s a little bit of what love means.