Scripture text: Luke7:36-8:3
Earlier this week, I was browsing 9Gag on the Internet. 9gag is a goofy picture-depository website that has memes and other photos, turning it into a giant time sink and distraction from life. Some of the pictures are funny. Some are sad. Some are angry. Others are vulgar. Still others cute. And others inspirational. It’s got a little bit of everything.
One photo caught my eye. It was of a dachshund puppy who just been adopted from the shelter, looking at the camera with a single tear running down its face. It tugged at your heartstrings. “Really? I got a forever home. People love me. This is the greatest day of my life.”
Most of us, I presume, know that dogs don’t tear up for the same reasons we humans do, but it’s still a cute image; In large part because it’s easy to imagine the joy in that little dog’s mind. We’d feel the same way if we were a puppy being brought home at last from a shelter to a loving family. Someone loves me. Someone cares for ME.
Whether we admit it or not, that is really the deepest and most passionate desire of each of our hearts. We want to be loved. We want that more than ANYTHING else in life. We could have everything else that life could offer, but if we lack that, it will gnaw at our soul.
One of the greatest moments in television history was back in the 1990s when Will Smith, long before he was one of Hollywood’s most popular Academy-nominated stars, was shooting a scene for his sitcom “The Fresh Prince.” The plot of the episode revolved around Will’s estranged father stopping in for a visit and then jetting off again just as quickly. The final scene of the episode was Will’s (the character) grappling with his father’s callous neglect of him.
In a moment that blurred the line between fiction and reality, Will (the actor) poured all of his real life emotions about his own relationship with his father. The end result was a moment as sublime as it was heartbreaking, full of pain, anger, grief, and confusion. “How come he don’t want me?” Will pleads through his tears. He was acting, and yet he wasn’t, because those emotions were real. Here is a man at the pinnacle of success, weeping because his father does not love him.
“How come he don’t want me?” Part of the reason those words are so powerful is because we know how that feels. Most of us have gone through a time when there was someone we loved who did not return it. And even if we haven’t gone through that personally, we know someone else who has. Just this week I’ve encountered two such examples: one of Em’s friends who was kicked out of her house and a young boy whose mother would rather party than take care of him. “How come he don’t want me?” Good question.
The problem is, for all of us, is there’s a demonic voice in our minds that answers that question whether we want it to or not. “How come they don’t want us?” Because we’re flawed. Because we sin. Because we made mistakes. Because we’re ugly. Because we’re gay. Because we don’t make enough money. Because we aren’t as smart as that guy over there.
I said some weeks ago that each of us, no matter how much success life may have granted us, struggles with a colossal (and often nonsensical) inferiority complex. I argued that it drives us to tear down others. But as bad as that is (and it is bad as events in Orlando over this weekend demonstrate), worse still is how it drives us to tear down ourselves.
How come he don’t want me? Isn’t it obvious? There’s nothing about us worth loving.
That insidious lie is one of the primary reasons Jesus came to this earth. He came to show us that, regardless of what we think of ourselves, regardless of how we feel about ourselves, God does LOVE us.
The woman in our Gospel story gets it. Luke does not tell us the details of her sins, nor does he really have to. She’s one of us, plagued by regrets and mistakes in life and convinced as a result that she is unworthy of anything except scorn. But somehow, she’s heard, likely from Jesus himself, that God loves her beyond words. And now she’s like that puppy in the picture, overwhelmed with joy, shedding tears of happiness, and unable to stop showering lavish affection on the one who has given her welcome, acceptance, and love.
To paraphrase the old song, she loves because God first loved her. In her deepest heart of hearts, she has received what she has desired most her whole life: unconditional unmitigated love.
We talk a lot here in the Church about how God loves us. We talk about how Christ loved us so much he died a horrible death on a cross and about how he loved us so much that he rose again on the third day so that we could have life unbound. We talk about how his miracles show his love. Love, love, love. We talk about it all the time, but all too often it seems to us an idle tale. It’s an abstraction. Yeah, God loves me, but...
God loves me, but I still need to do better. God loves me, but I really have this bad habit I need to get rid of. God loves me, but I should give more to the church or to the poor. God loves me, but I really....
No, there is no BUT. God loves you. Period. End of story. God loves me.
I often quote the late Brennan Manning here, perhaps frequently enough that you all are tired of hearing it. But it’s the truth. “God loves us as we are and not as we should be, because we’re never going to be as we should be.”
“Should” is one of the worst words in the English language. I should do this or I should do that. It’s another way that demonic voice tells us that we’re just not good enough to be loved.
But that is not what God thinks. That is not what God feels. You ARE loved because he loves you. Period. End of story. How come he don’t want me? God does want you. You are his beloved, the deepest and most passionate desire of his heart.
Can you imagine? The God who created all that exists wants YOU more than anything else. Seems impossible. Outlandish. Ridiculous. And yet, it is the truth.
I want to borrow again from Br. Manning to close out my remarks today. A little mental exercise that he used to do at his seminars. Imagine for a moment that Jesus walks in this room. He walks right up to you. Sits down in front of you and stares into your eyes. And then he speaks...
“I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonest, and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now, I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. Nothing is hidden from my eyes. And my word is this. I dare you to trust that I love you as you are.”Can we trust that truth beyond all our perceptions of worthiness and unworthiness, because none of that really matters? God loves you. God loves me. End of story. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment