November 28, 1999
In every way you have been enriched in Christ; you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait. . . 1 Cor 1:4ff
[Only a word for Carolyn on her wedding day, death came with its sting when her] husband was killed in an accident last year. Jim, only 52, was driving home from work. The other driver was a teenager with a very high blood-alcohol level. Jim died instantly. The teenager was in the emergency room for less than two hours.
There were other painful ironies: It was Carolyn's fiftieth birthday and Jim had two plane tickets to Hawaii in his pocket. He was going to surprise her. Instead, he was killed by a drunk driver.
[More than a year passed before her friend, Debbi, felt she could ask her question.] "How have you survived this?"
[Carolyn's eyes welled up with tears. Debbi thought she had said the wrong thing, but Carolyn gently took her hand and said,] "It's all right, I want to tell you. The day I married Jim, I promised I would never let him leave the house in the morning without telling him I loved him. He made the same promise. It got to be a joke between us, and as babies came along it got to be a hard promise to keep. I remember running down the driveway, saying `I love you' through teeth clenched when I was mad, or driving to the office to put a note in his car. It was a funny challenge.
"We made a lot of memories trying to say `I love you' before noon every day of our married life.
"The morning Jim died, he left a birthday card in the kitchen and slipped out to the car. I heard the engine starting. Oh, no, you don't buster, I thought. I raced out and banged on the car window until he rolled it down. `Here on my fiftieth birthday, Mr. James E. Garret, I, Carolyn Garret, want to go on record as saying I love you!'
"That's how I've survived. Knowing that the last words I said to Jim were, `I LOVE YOU.'" (1)
I ask you to hold these threads, the elements of this love story, gently as we take up some other threads to make our tapestry this morning.
Today we begin our new church year. As always, we begin our church year by remembering the end. We begin by reminding ourselves that we don't know, and are not meant to know, the exact time of this great event. To be vigilant, to be ready for the end, to live each day fully as if it were our last, are among the lessons to be re-learned each year; they are among the resolutions to be made each new church year. Hold these threads gently, also.
And as we prepare to weave our threads together I remind you that our tapestry is a work in progress, I ask you to find the place we were working on last Sunday and add these threads to that part of the story.
We were encouraged last Sunday to know that those who were welcomed into the kingdom were surprised. They were surprised to be invited in, they were surprised to discover why they were invited in. Their good actions—of feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting those who were sick or in prison—were done without thought of reward. They were done because they needed doing, and those welcomed in had the eyes to see the need and had the resources and the heart to meet those needs.
We were encouraged last Sunday, "to be Christ bearers in the world . . . to not even think about it, to just do it, because it is what we do, . . . to bring others to the nearer presence of God. . . . to bring others the source of all life and light. We are called to go [out and] bring others to the place we know as the place of healing and freedom. We are called to do these things because Christ first loved us and we know Christ, and we take Christ with us and bring others back." (2)
You can be sure that Carolyn's promise on her wedding day was not made with the knowledge that one day her words, "I love you" would be the last words spoken to her husband. It was not made with the thought that her friend Debbi would write the story down so some preacher could use it. You can be sure that her promise to speak words of love came from the deep love she gave to Jim, and wanted to give to him from that day forward. It was the right thing to do, and she did it.
We know what God asks of us, too. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And, love your neighbor as yourself." At the Last Supper, Jesus could not have been any clearer: "This is my commandment, love one another as I have loved you."
We are called to love God, to love neighbor, to love self; we are called to love with the same intensity as Jesus. We are called to love in this way, not to earn a reward, but because it is the right thing to do. We are called to love this way not because we are in fear of the end of time and judgement, but because it is the way of Christ, to love, and we are Christ bearers. We know Christ, and we make Christ known.
In a few moments we will baptize three persons. We will stand together with them and we will make or renew some promises to God and to each other. We will promise to do the right thing from hearts filled with love. We will promise to continue in the work and teaching and worship entrusted to the apostles by Jesus. We will promise to seek and serve Christ in everyone we meet. We will promise to work for justice, in our world. We will promise, to reveal the Good News of God in Christ by everything we say and do. We will promise to run to the forgiving embrace of our savior when we sin, when our love falls short.
What I ask is that you leave here today with a new year's resolution to be a Christ bearer. Let the example of Jim and Carolyn help you, let the purity of our promises spoken in Baptism guide you. As a Christ-bearer, every day of the new church year find a way, before noon, to tell God "I love you."
For example, carve out the extra time to read in the Scriptures, to be quiet in prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God. When you're stopped in the congestion on 111 look beyond it to the beauty of the hills and lift your heart to God. There is ample opportunity every day to tell God "I love you."
Every day of the new church year find a way to tell your neighbor and yourself "I love you." Surely you would agree that there is an unlimited number of ways to love others as you love yourself. Every day of our new year make the time to express that love. Let the light of your love shine through your eyes and smile and let it's warmth flow through your hands and your hug. Do simple things with love. Open a door for another, allow another person to go ahead of you, let that other car in even when you have the right of way. Be attentive in listening and positive in speech. Actually say, "I love you," to those around you.
Again, we were reminded in last week's Gospel story, that those who lived this way, those who lived the Baptismal Covenant as it were, fulfilling the Great Commandment and Jesus' law of love, did so without regard to endings and piling up the points to earn something. They did these things because it was right. They kept alert and awake to the many ways to express love.
Let me share a beautiful exhortation composed by St. Teresa of Avila to keep us focused, to fill our waiting with Christ-bearing fruitfulness:
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours;
yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion
looks out on the world,
yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now. Amen.
Say I love you to God, to neighbor, to self, because it is right. Because it is what we do as Christ bearers. Let all of us go from here to love as Christ loves us. Have a happy and blessed new church year. I love you.
(1) Pages 155-56 in More Stories For the Heart, Alice Gray, Editor. Sisters, OR. Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 1997.
(2) Sermon of Robert Certain, 21 November 1999.
(3) St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
The Rev. Daniel Rondeau
drondeau@stmargarets.org
28 November 1999