Love, By Name

What is God trying to tell us now? And why doesn’t God just send us a text so we’ll know what God is up to?

It’s a good question. How are we supposed to know what we are supposed to do?

The answer, of course, always is, we are mostly already doing what we are supposed to do, what we are doing is what God has called us to do. Unless you are troubled by what you are doing, in which case you are maybe needing to reconsider what it is that you think God has called you to do. Most of us, day by day, soup by sandwich by roast by cake by granola, we are doing what God has called us to do. Instacart, Telehealth, Zoom, we are doing what God has called us to do.

A theme in today’s scripture is being called by name by God.

My own calling(s) were more intimate than that, no names required. When I was 5 years old and beyond I was called to go to church with my grandmother, whose father had been a pastor. Grandma knew even then that I was called to follow in her father’s footsteps. I loved going to church, and I especially loved the shared intimacy of knowing God together with my beloved Grandma. She rocked me in her arms as a baby, she famously rocked me in her rocking chair in the basement through a tornado, she gave me quiet space where an introverted child could thrive, she taught me to teach (she was a teacher), she taught me to cook, she taught me most of all to love and to love being loved. And she took me to church. I remember sitting beside her too small to see over the pew so I colored the bulletin. Then I remember growing taller, and eventually singing with her from the same hymnal. Her favorite hymn was Holy Holy Holy and that was indeed the processional hymn at my ordination to the priesthood. My husband and my mother and brother and cousins all sat in the front row next to a chair reserved for Grandma, who had passed in 1972 but we all knew she was there with us. I felt her strong arms and her powerful spirit as I knelt at the bishop’s feet and the priests pressed down on me during Veni Creator Spiritus, I felt her warm smile and her applause as the bishop and my best friend stood me up and turned me around to great applause as “the newest priest.”

When we hear God’s voice we know we are called to what we do.

Even in the tough times.

Even in the trenches.

Even in the hurtful moments. Especially in the hurtful moments. We were called to love each other, even when it doesn’t work out. And, even then we are called to continue to love each other.

I know, it’s “Mother’s Day.” My mother passed in 2010, and my husband’s mother passed in 2018. We joked yesterday “did you send a card.” We loved our mothers and they loved us and we still love them and they still love us.

But on this Mother’s Day what we all are called to do is: keep Ukraine uppermost in our prayers, constantly; keep liberty uppermost in our prayers, because the liberty of LGBTQ people is now more seriously threatened than it has been in decades; and, keep love uppermost in our prayers, because it is love that calls us each by name. It is love who knows our voices, it is love that raises us up, it is love that powers the great multitude of the saints before the throne.

I still say, as I have said for decades now, that this white-robed army of martyrs singing before the throne of God is the choir of all of my friends who died from AIDS, the white robes are those hospital gowns they died in. They were all perfectly joyous children of God, they all loved perfectly, and they were all called before their time to go to God. And they were all acolytes and choristers and beautiful hearts and powerful souls, all called in their white hospital gowns to go before God and sing “hallelujah.”

The Revelation says “God will wipe away every tear.”

In the meantime, we are no sheep. We are the disciples. It is we, who like Peter are called to pray and love and heal by calling all of God’s children by name.

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year C 2022 RCL (Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30)