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A Love Story - The Rev. Carol Duncan
Sermon from the Rev. Carol Duncan for the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany, January 30, 2022.
Today's readings are:
Jeremiah 1:4-10 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30 Psalm 71:1-6
Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi...
A Love Story
The Rev. Carol Duncan
January 30, 2022
Holy One, be with our hearts today so your words of infinite love break through this mortal tongue. Amen.
I knew I should base today's sermon on today's exquisite Corinthians love passage when I saw love at work last weekend. This is a love story.
My family gathered at my nephew's house in Lancaster for our Christmas celebration. We do a secret Santa exchange, so each of the 11 of us is assigned one gift recipient. My granddaughter Moxie drew the name of my daughter Kate's partner Bobb. Got it? Granddaughter Moxie, daughter Kate, partner Bobb.
Bobb had a pretty rough time this past year. Both his dogs, Tucker and Gracie, succumbed to old age and died within months of each other. This is a love story about dogs.
Long ago when Bobb was single, Tucker and Gracie showed up consecutively as strays in Bobb's working-class neighborhood in Pittsburg. He advertised, but no one claimed either of the scruffy dogs. Neither dog had any of the accepted gifts of dog beauty or capacity. Both just so obviously needed attention, care, and love. They became a huge part of Bobb's life. They took him for multiple daily walks, camped together with him, greeted him at the door going out and coming in, required nursing from various doggy mishaps. They were always at his side.
For her part, Moxie is in her senior year at the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Living so close to Bobb and Kate, she got to know those dogs pretty well. She has honed her innate talent and is becoming a real artist. She presented Bobb with his Christmas gift, a true to life portrait of Tucker and Gracie. In the painting, they look up at Bobb in eager expectation as they always did in life. Moxie accurately captured the love in those dogs eyes.
I was sitting next to Bobb on the sofa, and I felt him quiver. He didn't speak. He couldn't. Tears were clogging his throat. Bobb's love for his dogs and the joy at their appearing in this painting nearly overpowered him. He tried to thank Moxie, but words were beyond him. He sort of strangle-whispered "I was hoping, I was hoping".
This relationship of Bobb with his dogs seemed like a way to approach the amazing gift of love. A dog's love is so clear and simple. A dog is patient. Even if the dog wants to go out now, the love is patient. Dogs' love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, unless you count barking as rude. It bears all things that its human clumsily imposes, hopes for all things delicious or exciting, endures all things it doesn't quite understand. Its love never ends because it doesn't get entangled with the concept of time. The self-involved limitations of human loving are invisible to dogs.
I can't truly describe how a faithful dog loves its human, or how humans love their dogs. Words just get in the way. I ask you to consult your own gut level awareness for the constrictive, throat catching trembling impact that may envelop you when you are reunited after an absence with a dog, or a beloved pet, or child, or one who is more important to you than your own self.
All of this is a prequel to talk about the even more indescribable love that is God. Indescribable, which is why Paul's words to the Corinthians are so compelling. Many, maybe most, of us live so heedlessly within God's love that we remain unaware of it. God dwells in the pull of gravity that holds us on the ground. The flow of blood in our veins and the breath in our lungs are God alive in us.
Our Epiphany liturgy from the Anglican Church of Canada captures very simply what God does for us. In it we say "We give you thanks and praise, almighty God, for the gift of a world full of wonder, and for our life which comes from you. By your power you sustain the universe. You created us to love you with all our heart and to love each other as ourselves." This is still a love story.
God not only created the universe, but God sustains it. I believe that the universe and all created beings are manifestations of God's love, indwelt by divine vitality. God's love is the energy that inhabits and drives everything that is and ever was, seen and unseen. We truly cannot imagine God's love except in little ways, like love stories about dogs and people and saints.
I think this love story we have today is a call to us to lay down our fears of what's happening in the world, of Ukraine, of the pandemic, of a stock market correction. Fear stifles our willingness to live in love. There is terrible evil in the world. But there is also love.
I'm inviting us to meditate on love as an antidote to the fear in the world. We can practice this right here, right now.
The first practice (I have three) is to look around you and see that we are acting in love for each other by wearing N95 masks to protect us from Omicron. Even though distanced, we are together as members of St. Martin's here in this sanctuary and connected in the air by live stream. Feel with your eyes the love of the body of Christ surrounding you. Feel with your eyes the love of the body of Christ surrounding you.
The second practice is meditative breathing. We can apprehend the Spirit through our breath, feeling the air fill our lungs while our hearts pump blood through our bodies. In becoming aware that each breath is God sustaining us, each breath then becomes a prayer.
The third practice is to feel the gravity that is holding you in your seat. God imposes the gravity that holds you here and holds the earth in its circumnavigation of the sun, and the planets in their courses. Now take a leap of imagination beyond the sun and even beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. More than gravity sustains the unimaginable expanse of the cosmos. That more-than is God, in whom time and space conjoin. The infinite and the instant have equal regard to God.
So take faith that you are held by God, have hope that you can live out God's will for you, and be assured that God's love for you is now and will be forever. Amen.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org
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By St. Martin-in-the-FieldsSermon from the Rev. Carol Duncan for the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany, January 30, 2022.
Today's readings are:
Jeremiah 1:4-10 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30 Psalm 71:1-6
Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi...
A Love Story
The Rev. Carol Duncan
January 30, 2022
Holy One, be with our hearts today so your words of infinite love break through this mortal tongue. Amen.
I knew I should base today's sermon on today's exquisite Corinthians love passage when I saw love at work last weekend. This is a love story.
My family gathered at my nephew's house in Lancaster for our Christmas celebration. We do a secret Santa exchange, so each of the 11 of us is assigned one gift recipient. My granddaughter Moxie drew the name of my daughter Kate's partner Bobb. Got it? Granddaughter Moxie, daughter Kate, partner Bobb.
Bobb had a pretty rough time this past year. Both his dogs, Tucker and Gracie, succumbed to old age and died within months of each other. This is a love story about dogs.
Long ago when Bobb was single, Tucker and Gracie showed up consecutively as strays in Bobb's working-class neighborhood in Pittsburg. He advertised, but no one claimed either of the scruffy dogs. Neither dog had any of the accepted gifts of dog beauty or capacity. Both just so obviously needed attention, care, and love. They became a huge part of Bobb's life. They took him for multiple daily walks, camped together with him, greeted him at the door going out and coming in, required nursing from various doggy mishaps. They were always at his side.
For her part, Moxie is in her senior year at the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Living so close to Bobb and Kate, she got to know those dogs pretty well. She has honed her innate talent and is becoming a real artist. She presented Bobb with his Christmas gift, a true to life portrait of Tucker and Gracie. In the painting, they look up at Bobb in eager expectation as they always did in life. Moxie accurately captured the love in those dogs eyes.
I was sitting next to Bobb on the sofa, and I felt him quiver. He didn't speak. He couldn't. Tears were clogging his throat. Bobb's love for his dogs and the joy at their appearing in this painting nearly overpowered him. He tried to thank Moxie, but words were beyond him. He sort of strangle-whispered "I was hoping, I was hoping".
This relationship of Bobb with his dogs seemed like a way to approach the amazing gift of love. A dog's love is so clear and simple. A dog is patient. Even if the dog wants to go out now, the love is patient. Dogs' love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, unless you count barking as rude. It bears all things that its human clumsily imposes, hopes for all things delicious or exciting, endures all things it doesn't quite understand. Its love never ends because it doesn't get entangled with the concept of time. The self-involved limitations of human loving are invisible to dogs.
I can't truly describe how a faithful dog loves its human, or how humans love their dogs. Words just get in the way. I ask you to consult your own gut level awareness for the constrictive, throat catching trembling impact that may envelop you when you are reunited after an absence with a dog, or a beloved pet, or child, or one who is more important to you than your own self.
All of this is a prequel to talk about the even more indescribable love that is God. Indescribable, which is why Paul's words to the Corinthians are so compelling. Many, maybe most, of us live so heedlessly within God's love that we remain unaware of it. God dwells in the pull of gravity that holds us on the ground. The flow of blood in our veins and the breath in our lungs are God alive in us.
Our Epiphany liturgy from the Anglican Church of Canada captures very simply what God does for us. In it we say "We give you thanks and praise, almighty God, for the gift of a world full of wonder, and for our life which comes from you. By your power you sustain the universe. You created us to love you with all our heart and to love each other as ourselves." This is still a love story.
God not only created the universe, but God sustains it. I believe that the universe and all created beings are manifestations of God's love, indwelt by divine vitality. God's love is the energy that inhabits and drives everything that is and ever was, seen and unseen. We truly cannot imagine God's love except in little ways, like love stories about dogs and people and saints.
I think this love story we have today is a call to us to lay down our fears of what's happening in the world, of Ukraine, of the pandemic, of a stock market correction. Fear stifles our willingness to live in love. There is terrible evil in the world. But there is also love.
I'm inviting us to meditate on love as an antidote to the fear in the world. We can practice this right here, right now.
The first practice (I have three) is to look around you and see that we are acting in love for each other by wearing N95 masks to protect us from Omicron. Even though distanced, we are together as members of St. Martin's here in this sanctuary and connected in the air by live stream. Feel with your eyes the love of the body of Christ surrounding you. Feel with your eyes the love of the body of Christ surrounding you.
The second practice is meditative breathing. We can apprehend the Spirit through our breath, feeling the air fill our lungs while our hearts pump blood through our bodies. In becoming aware that each breath is God sustaining us, each breath then becomes a prayer.
The third practice is to feel the gravity that is holding you in your seat. God imposes the gravity that holds you here and holds the earth in its circumnavigation of the sun, and the planets in their courses. Now take a leap of imagination beyond the sun and even beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. More than gravity sustains the unimaginable expanse of the cosmos. That more-than is God, in whom time and space conjoin. The infinite and the instant have equal regard to God.
So take faith that you are held by God, have hope that you can live out God's will for you, and be assured that God's love for you is now and will be forever. Amen.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org