Abide in my Love

Anna sat on the back porch of her dream house. She and her husband, Malcomb, had finally succeeded in buying a home on the river. Her favorite thing to do was to go out on the back porch in the early morning with a cup of coffee, look at the river and watch the birds. She and her husband had a massive bird-feeder. It had many places for the birds to perch and eat. But without fail, every morning, the birds would get into a massive fight. They would flap and chirp and bite at one another in a desperate dance to compete for what they thought were the few spaces to eat. It was mass chaos as they made a racket flying into one another and squawking loudly. Anna would just sit back and laugh. They were such comical creatures, fighting and screeching when there was enough food and enough room for all of them.


When JD and I met we were both in a high-powered universe. He was a student at Yale Law School and I was about to begin at Yale Divinity School. The pressure to succeed in these places was high, you could cut the tension with a knife. Sometimes, we just wanted to flee.


We decided to go to Toronto, Canada, to visit a Christian community of handicapped people called L'Arche. There was a famous Catholic priest who lived there. He had given up a promising career at Yale and Harvard in order to live among the developmentally disabled. His story inspired us, so we went.

I will never forget sitting alone with Henri Nouwen as we described the stress of Yale, how everyone was competing for the best clerkships, the best jobs. He listened and then he smiled.

"All that competition," he said. "You know what I think that it is? It is just a group of people trying to be loved."

I thought about that. There we were squawking and butting heads for the few prestigious positions out there. And all we were really trying to do was to prove that we were worthy of being loved, worthy of being alive, worthy of being.

I had an uncle named James. He married into the family by marrying my fathers sister. He was handsome and smart, a history professor at Bowdoin College in Maine. He could tell great jokes and was always the life of the party. But underneath the smiles and degrees, he was deeply unhappy.

James suffered from depression. This was many years ago. We did not always know what to call it. Sometimes, my fathers sister called it melancholia, or sadness, bad moods. He would just disappear for days, go to some cabin, some far away place, lock himself in a room and listen to music until it passed. We would all beg him to stay, but he would go off, to try and protect the rest of us from his moods. But we were not protected.

One summer, we were all at a family reunion. James decided to return home early. Once he arrived at home, he went up to the attic, took a lot of pills, put on his earphones and some of his favorite music, and left us for good.

I can still see his three boys. They were so young at the time. And he just left them because he could not believe that things could get better. They stood by the car as their father drove away. Stay with us, they said. Just stay.

Jesus told his disciples to love one another. It is part of the Great Commandment. Love the Lord your God and Love your Neighbor as Yourself. But before he gives us this great commandment, he tells us something that puts the Great Commandment in perspective. He says, Abide in my love.

Abide in my love. The word in the ancient greek means to stay, to remain. Stay in my love. Stay with me, Jesus said. Live and remain in my love and all the rest of it will come easily to you.

When you were created, God made you out of love. God did not need you for company or pleasure, God was just dancing. God was just in love and you were the product of that love. But we separated ourselves from that perfect love and we abandoned God, leaving Eden and wandering all over the place, fighting for enough food, for enough love. When all the time, God made enough for us. There is more than enough love for all of us.

Did you know that your heart is so strong that it pumps enough blood in your lifetime to fill our sanctuary over 100 times? Your heart is powerful. And it is human. Can you imagine the heart of God, the capacity that the Divine One has to love you? Sometimes I wonder if we hide from Gods love not just because it is too bright to contemplate but also because we ourselves are more powerful than we realize. It is our own capacity to love God in return that scares us even more.

What would the world be like if we really trusted in God's love? We could feed every single human being on the planet. We could stop competing and maneuvering and discover that there is more than enough for all of us. Instead, we forget God's love. Quietly, we slip away into self-hatred. We forget who we are, who God created us to be. Our hearts sink into the mundane morass of daily living until we are no longer fully alive, no longer aware of the love of God.

That is why, Sunday after Sunday, as we approach the altar, I must say to you, "Lift up your hearts." Because we must rise to remember God's love. We must lift up our hearts to try, once again to dwell in that incomprehensible goodness.

We are like fishes swimming in the great sea looking for water. Just live in my love, Jesus says. Wake up to how much I have adored you since the moment you were born. Open your eyes. My food has been here for you all along. It lays before you at my table. There it is. There is enough for everyone.