We are loved

In tragedy, we sometimes look backwards, especially when confronting the death of a loved one.

Certainly, we do so in recalling better times when we were physically with the living and loving them in a day-to-day world defined by routine and distraction.

Experiencing sadness, we remember hazy day memories of laughter and song, overlooking arguments had or uncomfortable silences filled with feelings of discord or disappointment.

We hold on to the good times, the sunshine times, the easy days of summer cooled with iced tea and lazy conversation held across picnic tables, using hot dogs to point out one’s point, laughter laughed over multiple servings of macaroni salad always cold, a recipe shared since at least the seventies, we hold on to the good times.

We sometimes return too to those beliefs that were so important in those times, I would not be standing before this morning without memory or nostalgia.

I returned to church for a number of reasons.

One being, along with many, was the death of my grandfather.

There comes a time in life when you’ve experienced the death of a number of loved ones and you just want to know, think, feel, they are ok.

That they are taken care of.

That their lives are not temporary but as permanent the undying love we have for them.

I wrote this following bit as a part of my candidacy application to become a priest.

I live 1,158 steps from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Southington Connecticut.

 It’s about an 8-minute walk.

A number of years ago, I walked the steps leading up to the church for the first time.

I had no idea who I would meet in there, if they would be friendly or welcoming; if I’d be ignored or even glanced at.

I did, however, know what to expect.

Some singing, some praying, some holy words then human words and finally the Eucharist. 

While I had grown up in the Episcopal Church, it had been years since I walked in one on a Sunday.

Yet the liturgy leaves an impression on you, its movements and choreography become routine and so as I experienced the muscle memory of mass, I began to feel at home.

That first Sunday back to worship remains one of the most important Sundays of my life.

I hadn’t told family where I was going that morning when I left the house.

I normally took a walk on weekend mornings so there really wasn’t a question that I was leaving.

And so I did take a walk, I just happened to take a left where I would normally go straight.

I just happened to walk into a place that would help carry me home.

I sat in the third or fourth pew from the back on the right-hand side of the church, the epistle side.

I sat in that pew wondering after wandering, the sound of parishioners arriving buzzed around the nave.

I heard the kneelers land on the floor as people began to pray.

“Oh,” that’s right, “I need to pray.”

So, I tried to pull down my own kneeler but it was stuck, as if it hadn’t been used in a while. (Somewhat fitting, in retrospect.)

I did manage to get it to budge though, and I said a little prayer, mostly I was not sure of what I should pray about.

The organ then blared and reflexively I stood up as did the rest of the congregation.

And the service became a blur within real time, a mish mash of nostalgia, of the clear as day memories of being ten years old in another parish surrounded by love and God and family, mixed with the utter newness of this morning and surrounded by the oak stained pews and people with whom I was unfamiliar and by God, the liturgy serving as the glue that bound two worlds, the past and this moment, together.

The unfamiliar aspect of the service was the presence of the Spirit flowing through me.

I never, up until that day, felt so close to God.

My heart was lifting, from that first organ blast my heart was singing.

The Eucharist, (I had stopped taking communion years ago), my God the Eucharist!

I never felt so disarmed, so awakened to the beauty of holiness expressed in the form of community and communion.

There was no place for ego, only a community sharing the promises of God through Christ’s body and blood.

There was something stirring that morning.

Within an hour I was utterly transformed, I felt welcomed by Christ as if I had never left, by Christ who never left me.

This was my renewal; this was the promise of the resurrection.

That morning is the continuing well from which I drink.

All of God’s children sharing the table, singing together, sharing God’s Word, and worshipping Christ.

I don’t know if I can ever explain the feeling of that morning fully.

I can only describe it as me, bent over in silent, reflective prayer after returning to my pew following communion, radiating a desire for a connection, any connection, with God and having that desire met.

Feeling the Holy Spirit’s calming answer, I could recognize her love. 

Friends, there are many dwelling places.

Friends, where Jesus went we cannot yet follow.

Friends, where our loved ones went, we cannot yet follow.

Yet in faith, we can know that where they are in whatever circumstance, they are ok.

A part of my returning to church was a wish to understand that love is not temporary, love is not finite, it does not end.

Instead it changes us, our relationships change us and the better ones shape us into becoming more alike, more like one another.

Through love and understanding our tolerance for hate or differences without distinction dissipates.

Through love we tolerate difference, we judge less.

Through love we learn the lesson that allows us to love others not of our tribe, those perhaps not sitting at that picnic table topped with hot dogs and understanding.

Those memories of, in, and by love, are unending.

Those memories are indicative of love.

So, why all this talk about missing those we love, why this discussion about death in the middle of May?

Why so serious, Father Matt?

Well, this morning’s reading is one of the recommended readings for funerals in the Book of Common Prayer.

And there are promises made.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”

Do not let your hearts be troubled because in my Father’s house there is a place for you.

There is a place for your loved ones.

There is a place for us.

In grief, we read these words and they are wonderful, wonderful words.

I am so loved by God that God will afford me a place in the eternal.

I am so loved by God, me, a sinner, broken and bent by imperfections, I am promised a place to walk with my ancestors when the Kingdom arrives.

You are afforded the same; our loved ones who have gone before us have already realized the promise of what is to come for all of us.

These words are read at funerals so that our hearts might be less troubled, our stony hearts breaking, the light is let in; we realize the love of God.

And so, we stay in our faith, confirmed by the knowledge that God has a place for us, for all of us.

Or we return to faith as I did.

Regardless, there are many rooms in our Father’s house, many dwelling places in which we shall reside.

And yet, how do we know?

For in my grief, I wanted to know.

At that time, I wanted to know that my grandfather and my other grandfather and my friends who were taken too soon, how would I know.

“Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

And Jesus answers, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

How do I know my Grandfather has found the way?

Nothing is proven.

Nothing is set in stone.

Yet we are a resurrection people, we believe in miracles and our faith tells us that all we have seen in this world, shows us there is something more.

We are also a welcoming people, we welcome in the wondering and the wandering, we welcome in people, well, like me.

And finally, we are community.

We will not always know.

Sometimes our faith will not make sense.

And yet, through each other, we can work through those times of misunderstanding or even times of faithlessness.

We can rely on each other for we are a community defined by love and we are loved wholly by God and through that love we can lift each other up.

We may not physically witness Christ in our lives, Jesus was not in bodily form sharing cheeseburgers with us at that picnic table, but the love found through family the love found in relationship with each other; in this room and within this community, we can witness Christ’s love.

So, I understand Philip asking for to see the Father, in person and standing before him, yet that is not the way.

We witness God before us by sharing in the miracle of all things, the miracle of love, the miracle of us loving each other.

And that love is realized in the routine of Eucharist, it is observed in the syncopated S’s said during the Lord’s Prayer as we say, “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

That love is shown in the forgiveness of sins through God and by ourselves.

The reality of that love lifts us up when we are at our lowest, when our tears flow into our hands and down our arms, when we mourn.

The reality of that love confirms a faith sometimes not even held.

Yet try as we might, we cannot escape that love.

We are loved.

Fully.

Today.

Forever.

Loved.

Amen.