Relentless Love

PROPERS:          PROPER 22, YEAR B  

TEXT:                MARK 10:2-16

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2021.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        God’s love for us is relentless, and it is the standard to which we are called.

 

            This past Tuesday, Nora and I traveled to Christ Church, Pensacola, for the funeral of the wife of a fellow priest.  It was, perhaps, the most moving funeral I have ever been to.

 

            The funeral was for Jane Graves, the wife of the Reverend Bob Graves, a long-time priest of this diocese.  The church was nearly full – a rare sight for a funeral for someone of advanced age.  There were dozens of clergy there, too – an even more rare sight.

 

            The large crowd was testimony to widespread affection for Jane – a quiet, lovely, grace-filled woman loved by all who knew her.  But it was also for Bob – one of the rarest of priests I have ever known.  He seems utterly without ego – a deeply humble man who loves as generously as anyone I have ever seen.  He embodies the Gospel.

 

            One of the great mysteries of knowing Bob Graves is this: Everyone that knows him and has been pastored by him feels as if he is their best friend.  There is a special bond with this remarkably compassionate man of God.

 

            Commenting on the large crowd for the funeral, the rector of Christ Church, Michael Huffman, said that “Bob has pastored everyone here.”  More to the point, Bishop Kendrick noted to another priest that “Bob has a relentless love for all of us.”

 

            What an interesting phrase.  And what a great testimony. “A relentless love.”

 

            It got me thinking about the gospel.

 

+ + + 

 

            Whether we realize it or not, Jesus is always talking to us about the human condition.  It should be the central focus in our minds as we listen to the gospel lesson and sermon each week. The human condition is something with which we are all afflicted, and it is that human tendency which causes us to fall short of the glory of God. Another way of saying that is it is the reason we sin.

 

            In the gospel lesson today, we have an excellent example of the human condition – failed, broken relationships. It is so easy and tempting to reduce this passage to a one-dimensional moral teaching about marriage. It is so much more than that. 

 

While this passage is about divorce specifically, the issue is much broader. Why do we not truly love one another?  Why does the human condition afflict our lives?

 

            Jesus says simply: It is because of hardness of heart.

 

            The prescription for the human condition – take one, and call me in the morning – is to aspire to the way of God. To follow the path that Jesus has trod.

 

            And what is that way, you may ask.

 

            Relentless love.

 

            Though our culture may place limits or rules on God’s love for us, it is relentless, without limits.  No matter where life and our decisions lead us, God pursues us. As Psalm 139 notes:

 

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
³ You search out my path and my lying down,
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light around me become night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

 

            No matter where we go… no matter where life takes us… no matter the poor choices we make… regardless of self-destructive behaviors and pits of despair… God follows us. He pursues us. He seeks us. He is relentless.  That’s true for you, in every single circumstance, and it is true for me.

 

            In the same way, we are called to be imitators of Christ – to share relentless love… to love without limits… to forgive copiously… to reconcile fearlessly.  We are to shed arrogance, pride, resentment, and bitterness. 

            When we fall short of that goal, recognize that we are like the Prodigal Son: We are welcomed back by the open arms of a loving father’s relentless love.