single persons, people
of all races and families
of every kind.
Sunday
Service:
Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
Child care is available
Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 29
May 00
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
The Church of
Our Saviour
in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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God, love,
cats and people
Reflections on the
lessons for the Sixth Sunday of Eastertide
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Isaiah 45:11-13, 18-19 / Psalm 33:1-8,
18-22
John 4:7-21 / John
15:9-17
It's a little hard to listen to the (you might call them) ramblings about love that we read in the Letter of John and in the Gospel of John in Eastertide. It's just not that simple, I keep thinking. It's just not that easy to love, love, love all the time -- even the people you want to love, not to mention the rest. How do you do that? I wonder. And the answer is "Jesus did it, so you can, too". I just don't think so some of the time. When love comes easy, it's really easy. But when it doesn't, it's very, very hard to motivate. Love just doesn't seem to come naturally all that often. But, part of Jesus' message -- one that doesn't square too well with the message we get from the modern world -- is that things that come naturally are often overrated.
I've got a couple of cats at home. And they, for example, seem to do only things that come naturally. And they are fairly hard to live with. They sleep when they want to sleep and eat and drink and go racing around tearing up the rugs whenever they take a notion to, day or night. They seem to be fairly affectionate toward me when they please. But when they don't, there's no need to try to get them to come to me, or come out from under the bed, or even look in my direction.
And, as for each other, they have lived together for ten years and seem -- at best -- strangers and -- at worst -- natural born enemies trapped together forever in the same apartment. Typically at bedtime there's a big war. The little one sneaks up and makes herself a little nest at the foot of the bed -- night after night -- and then sits in it nervously until the big one -- inevitably -- comes and slaps her out of it and takes over the spot. Then, off and on, they growl at each other and vie for the upper hand. Often, about five o'clock in the morning there's a big battle somewhere out around the kitchen, usually over food and who gets what. No sharing allowed. And then the little one sneaks something to eat, but ends up throwing it up when the big one finds out and ambushes her. (Don't ask why I put up with it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and now -- 10 years later -- I've got cats.)
For the most part, I think, human beings share many of the basic instincts that come naturally to the cats. Our cover-ups are more sophisticated. Our self-discipline is certainly more developed. But we have equally definite ideas about what we have and what we want and what we need and who can and cannot have a piece of our pie.
Our most powerful instinct is to preserve ourselves. And just behind it lies the drive to preserve our power and our possessions and our position. It's a subtle instinct when there isn't a big emergency going on, but it is at work in us all the time. And our instinct to look out for number one is working all the time to make us into exclusive and self-serving people.
At the bottom of the instinct toward self-preservation is a will to make everything ours so that we can live on top of the heap. So that everything and everyone possible will serve us and serve our own needs. And then we think of that as safety. It just comes naturally.
But the teaching of Jesus says, paradoxically, that what comes naturally is ultimately not going to be what builds our souls toward their best destiny. It's not all about the body, Jesus says. There can be more. There is another reflex, a kind of grace -- a gift from God -- even more powerful than basic instinct that offers us a higher kind of happiness and a surer kind of security than instinct can.
The grace of God that Jesus talks about, a counter-intuitive commitment to love (passed around and shared back and forth) promises to change our instincts, and reverse their me-first dynamics. We don't have to live in a dog-eat-dog battle. To use the language of evangelical religion, the grace of God can save our souls. Putting it another way -- the love of God can trump our lower instincts and lift us up off the wrestling mat to a place where the human spirit can breathe easier and see better.
God's love does not work through instinct. It doesn't even work through intellect and understanding. John tries to describe over and over again in his writings how God loves us first and loves us just because we are us. That God's love includes everyone and calls everyone in turn to see the freedom in that. The proper response to love and freedom, the Bible says, is to let our king-of-the-hill inclinations be reversed and to dare to let others into our sense of well-being and plenty. Doing anything else is folly. Trusting our own aggression over God's love is delusion. Hoarding God 's bounty for ourselves is futile.
I don't know if my big cat thinks he's safe and secure and thoroughly in charge of the little kingdom of my apartment or not. I don't know if he's proud of how he dominates his poor little roommate. I certainly don't think he's smart enough to worry about just how precarious his authority is. But I know that whatever my cats think about the world is an illusion as fragile as a soap bubble. And that their very existence depends completely on my open-ended and freely offered love -- offered despite their nasty habits and ways. And I know that nothing would make me happier than to see them try to love each other as I love them.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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