Crazy Jesus. Crazy woman.
Crazy children. Crazy big love.
Crazy Jesus for saying something as nuts as, “This is my
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater
love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if
you do what I command you…I am giving you these commands so that you may love
one another.”[1]
When you think about
this, it’s just crazy. Giving up one’s life just to be friends with someone? That’s a big thing to do. I mean really big. And
yet, most of our relationships involve some level of giving up to one another some
of our most cherished things. Sometimes it’s even the lives we thought we might
live.
Most of us sail through life not thinking too much
about loving one another, let alone a stranger, until we’re caught up short by
crazy big love. Yet here is crazy Jesus telling us to love one another. And to
love big.
Crazy woman. Crazy big love. Appropriately enough since
Mothers’ Day is coming up next Sunday, here’s a story about a schizophrenic
mother, someone who did not have good judgment, at least in the way the world
judges. Yet she had Jesus’ crazy big love.
This woman spent many years of her life in and out of hospitals
and care centers for the mentally ill. She had a bit of inherited money, and
luckily wasn’t usually relegated to the worst of the places many mentally ill
people suffer. Toward the end of her life, she lived in what was known then as
a “board and care” home; where the residents lived fairly independently with a measure
of dignity and the ability to make decisions about at least some things.
Often at night, due to her lack of good judgment, this
woman wandered the streets and hung out in cafes and outside homeless shelters.
She got to know some of the people who frequented those places. Yes, she was crazy,
and yes, both her health and safety were often the price she paid.
Late one night, the board and care home’s owner and manager,
who lived in a little house at the rear of the residents’ home, happened to
look out his front window. He noticed the light was on in the kitchen, either
very late or very early, depending on how you
think about 3 am. He decided to investigate, as he remembered the light had
been on earlier in the evening as well. Residents were allowed to fix snacks,
but it concerned him that perhaps the lights had been left on.
As the owner approached the back door, he discovered several
poorly dressed and rather smelly people loitering about. He asked what they
were doing there. They replied, “Waiting for sandwiches.”
Inside the kitchen was the crazy woman, calmly spreading
mayonnaise on bread and layering on lunchmeat and cheese. “Mary!” the owner
exclaimed, “what are you doing?” She replied, “Fixing sandwiches for hungry
people.” “But, Mary,” was his reply, “these people have food kitchens and
churches for free meals.” “No they don’t,” said she, “it’s too far to walk. They
camp out in our neighborhood and can’t afford the bus fare to get to those
places for food.”
She was right, so he tried another tactic. “But
Mary, the food you’re giving them belongs to the people who live here. You are
stealing it from them.” Again, she calmly replied, “No I’m not. I have money to
replace the food.” Her logic was unassailable.
Now, who is the crazy one here? Who is giving up herself for
the sake of friends? You can say all you want about craziness, or
impracticality, or bad judgment, but who is showing Jesus’ crazy big love?
Sometimes it takes a
crazy person or the straightforward reasoning of little children to point us
toward Jesus’ crazy big love. I honestly didn’t know if I wanted to talk about
mothers today, or even parents, because so many of us have conflicted
relationships with parents. But here’s what I do know: the kind of reasoning my
friends’ six-year-old twins often have is what we all need. Luckily, their
mother recognizes and supports that reasoning. After all, Jesus said, “Let the
little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that
the kingdom of God belongs.”[2]
So… let me
tell you another story. This story is about two children and how they understand
crazy big love. My friends’ little boys were four years old riding in the car
to preschool. They were listening to music on CBC. (The Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation for those of you who haven’t lived in Canada). The boys heard Lucy
Wainwright Roche sing “Call Your Girlfriend.” You can hear it on YouTube or
Google the lyrics.
It’s
a great song about crazy big love. It’s written in the voice of a young girl telling
her new boyfriend to call his old girlfriend and tell her the relationship is
over.
Here’s
what my friend said about the boys’ reaction to the song. “Both boys wanted to sit in the car and listen to the whole
thing. The song transfixed them. When it ended, we sat in the school parking
lot and talked about the feelings in the song. How it made them feel. How
they were sad for the girlfriend. How beautiful and powerful it was. How big love was. It was an amazing
music moment. “A really adult song but here I have these two guys who are not even
five yet and they got it.”[3] Crazy big love from two
little four-year-old boys.
None of us are perfect at love and none
of us love with the crazy big love of Jesus Christ. Yet Jesus calls us to love
as he loves and that is crazy big love. Crazy woman. Crazy little boys. Crazy
Jesus. Crazy big love. AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2018
[1] John 15:12-14, 17 (NRSV)
[2] Mark 10:14b (NRSV)
[3]
From an email by Joanne Seiff. Quoted by permission. See Joanne’s work and a
link to her blog at joanneseiff.com
No comments:
Post a Comment