IF WE LOVE ENOUGH

On this 20th anniversary weekend of the terrors of September 11, 2001, one of the Catholic news outlets re-posted that iconic photograph of Father Mychal Judge, the Franciscan Friar who was chaplain to the New York City Fire Department (NYCFD), and who raced in to the towers at the World Trade Center on that horrible morning to help those who were in danger.  The picture shows his dead, disfigured, habited body being carried out of the rubble by the very fire fighters whom he came to serve in the moment.  I’m sure most of you have seen that image. If you haven’t, you must.  It will break your heart and it will strengthen your soul.  The news outlet referred to it as a 21st Century “Pieta,” that famous Michelangelo sculpture at the Vatican that depicts, in marble, the Beloved Virgin Mary cradling her dead son in her lap.  And both of those images ought also to call us to be mindful of the costs of discipleship in a Christian sense.  If we allow ourselves to love enough, we will be made to suffer for that very fact.  And of course, here the word “love” does not mean sweet sentiment, as it did not mean for Jesus either.  It means self-offering for the welfare of others, sometimes unto death.

On Monday morning I will be presiding at a funeral at another parish for one of the great Christian men I have ever met, who died last week at the age of 93.  He and his wife were stalwarts of the parish where I first served after I was ordained.  His wife had been struggling off and on with cancer for several years by the time she became pregnant with their youngest child at a relatively older age.  I don’t know, but perhaps that pregnancy was a surprise.  In any case, she was advised by her doctor to have an abortion in order to preserve her own health.  She categorically refused that advice, and by the time she died – now about 30 years ago – her baby son was in high school. (And of course there was then the suffering all over again).  If we allow ourselves to love enough, we will be made to suffer for that very fact.

That’s not because suffering is God’s response to our faithfulness.  It’s because our faithfulness, if it is genuine, requires of us a love that is bigger than ourselves.  A love that notices where something is wrong, where people are in trouble or are wounded, and a love that is duty-bound to step in and to do something about it.

It is impossible to really hear today’s scriptures and to conclude that real Christian discipleship and enduring emotional comfort are capable of coexisting over the long haul; they aren’t.  There is so much from which to take delight in this world.  So much love and beauty to be savored right here and now. And we should do exactly that.  But a true love, after the model of Jesus Christ, soon enough starts to notice the condition of other people, the earth, and the poisonous effects of sin in our world; and it is demanding that we care about all that, not just as an intellectual problem, but in the way that we speak and act every day.

If we allow ourselves to love enough, we will be made to suffer that very fact. 
And the Prophet Isaiah said:

            “I gave my back to those who beat me; my cheeks to those who
            pulled out my hair.  I let them spit and hit me.”

This was not the testimony of a self-loathing person or a weakling.  This was the profession of love the Lord God, who by letting him into his life, was made to suffer.
And the Apostle James said:

            “If all you have to offer to the suffering are pious platitudes — ‘Go in peace keep
            warm, eat well’ and you don’t inconvenience yourselves actually to help them,
            what good is that?”

Faith without works, without a certain measure of suffering and self-denial, is not really faith at all. It is, as James tells us, “dead.”

And Jesus said:

            “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny their very self – for the sake of love –
            take up the cross and follow me.  And whoever wishes to preserve life will
            have to lose it – to suffer - to take up the cross and follow me. But by doing
            so, that person will attain the joys of deep, deep reward – hopefully here, but
            certainly in the life to come.”

It takes a fair amount of faith to trust in the promise, but maybe not quite so much faith for those who have already known real love in this world – like Mary for her son Jesus; like Father Mychal Judge for his brothers on 9/11, like that mother for her unborn child in Richfield, MN all those years ago.  Suffering isn’t so hard for those who love enough.  It’s more inevitable, but not as difficult.

• Like parents who love their children. Grief will be a part of that.
• Like spouses who encounter misunderstandings and disappointments together.
• Like children who love their aging and dying parents.
• Like Christians who love their Church, and the mystery of our good God.
• Like citizens who love their country and its legacy.
• Like human beings who love this planet.

We will all suffer for the very fact that we love enough.  That may seem like a contradiction, but it’s what we disciples call the Paschal Mystery, after the witness of Jesus himself – who loved us even unto death.  This is the commitment that we remember every time we gather here for Eucharist – not for bread and wine from this table – but for bread broken, and for wine poured outfor the sake of others.

And we don’t come here merely to love one another, but to love one another as we have been loved by Christ who ended up on the cross on account of his love.

If we allow ourselves to love enough, we will be made to suffer for that very fact.  Are we ready?  Our stepping forward to this table each week is our “yes.”