17 June 2018

Sermon Easter VI John 15:9-17 6 May 2018 Year B


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

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