Sermons

Minister: Rev. Margaret A. Beckman | REFLECTON “Love Rescue Me” ~ Rev. Margaret Beckman

Here’s what I know: Easter is about love.

The story tells us that Jesus was preaching a progressive and liberating theology to love God and neighbor, and against the unrighteousness of political and religious laws that favored the advantaged and burdened the disadvantaged. On account of these revolutionary activities, he was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced to die, and executed. His body was laid in a cave tomb and a stone sealed the entrance. When the women came to perform the rituals of caring for the dead, Jesus had gone missing. Then he was seen among the living – having resurrected from the dead to proclaim again his message of love.  Jesus did not just preach love, he was love.

During these days of staying home there are moments of delight and there are moments of loneliness, frustration, sadness and fear.  We are stuck where are – for an unknown period of time.  To me, sometimes it feels like a cold, dark tomb and I don’t when or how I will be freed.

Where do I look for comfort and strength?

For me, the answer is love.

Love triumphed over all on Easter morning. It was love – the love of God for this child of the divine’s own heart and the love Jesus had for all of humanity, that called Jesus back to life from death. Jesus demonstrated that love prevails, and that love can overcome fear, despair and hate.

What does the Easter story have to offer us today?
The resurrection story is a story of transformation, of death transformed by love into life again.
We are being transformed right now by living with the continuous death threat of the novel virus that is ravishing our world.
There is no normal life right now. There is no “business as usual” right now.
It’s as though we have hit the ‘pause’ button on our own life streaming.
We wait.  We wait for the moment when we will be released from our restrictions and our isolation.

Is there another transformation taking place in us?
The question for today is not What have we sacrificed or lost? It is What are we gaining during this time?

Perhaps we are gaining a renewed perspective on what we value most.

What do we treasure most that is temporarily gone from us?  Toilet paper and disinfectant wipes for sure, but in the deepest part of our soul, is it not our relationships that we treasure most?

We are separated from those we care about – family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, church members. We appreciate those relationships now in their absence and we greatly anticipate the time when we can be physically together again.

We have gained a renewed relationship with the natural world. In slowing down and staying home, we have reduced our carbon footprint.

Earth is breathing.  Air is clearing.  Land is resting.  Water is flowing.

Our current relationship with the natural world is one of gratitude and mutuality rather than one dominance and greed.
Might we hold on to this relationship of mutuality?
Can we hold on to a commitment to love the earth more than we crave our conveniences?

We have gained a sympathy and compassion for the bravery and commitment of those who are working to take care of us while we stay home. We have gained a sympathy and compassion for those who are suffering under the stress of Covid-19 and for those who are ill or dying or grieving the dead.  Love is there to carry all of us wherever we find ourselves.  We see people taking care of others in the best ways they can – loved ones and complete strangers.

Might we continue to share that kind of sustaining love for each other?

I do not know what long term effects this current economic collapse will have on our lives and the lives of our children.

I do not know what our lives will be like in the post Covid-19 era – whether we will have lost too much to recover or whether we will have gained enough to be better members of the interdependent web of existence.

What I do know is that Love is making a difference.

In the song, “Love Rescue Me,” I first heard it as loves rescues me – as if Love comes along and pulls me out of the raging river and tosses me gasping but breathing on the dry shore.  I heard it as a declaration. Love rescues me.

But that’s not what the words say.

The song is a plea to be rescued by loved – love, please rescue me.  Love, save me.  Love, rescue me.

Love rescue me
Come forth and speak to me
Raise me up and
don’t let me fall

No man is my enemy
My own hands
imprison me
I said, Love rescue me

This kind of love is the love that creates and sustains life.
It is the love that surrounds us and will not let us go.
It is divine love.  It is divine love working through us.

Powell Davies who pastored All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C. in the 1950s spoke about the love that never fails.

“It is love that yearns, creates, encompasses, a love that is full of compassion, that pardons and forgives. In the final economy of the universe, in the mystery of life’s meaning and God’s purpose, this love ‘never faileth.’

We are to have faith – which we win in struggling against our doubts; we are to have hope – maintained in spite of all that drives us toward despair; and we are to have this love – wherewith to master our selfishness, our embitterment, our aggressiveness. And it is this love that is free from hate and greed and all unrighteousness, this love it is that never ‘faileth.’”

Without Apology, Collected Meditations on Liberal Religion by A. Powell Davies. Edited by Forrest Church. Skinner House Books, Boston, 1998. Page 39.

May we be rescued by love when the need is small and great.
May we be the love that rescues.
May we know that this love has no limits and no end.
It lives.

Happy Easter.   Blessed Be.   I Love You.   Amen.