Easter 4 Sermon

Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread and in the scriptures; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

St. John of the Cross, a Spanish RC priest, who lived during the Spanish Inquisition, and friend of St. Theresa of Avila, wrote those words sometime in the mid 16th century.

We will be judged on love alone…

That’s quite a statement in the midst of the inquisition and yet it is what Jesus preached and lived.

We see that love in the life of Tabitha (or in the Greek (Dorcas)) from our first reading.

She was a disciple of Jesus and a pillar of her faith community in Joppa. We are told of her charity and good works. Many felt her love and care. She fell ill and died. Her body was lovingly prepared to rest.

Disciples in Joppa learned Peter was nearby and asked him to come at once. Peter learned from the widows of the good works & charity of Tabitha, the tunics & clothing she made for widows. Peter puts them all outside the room where they beautifully laid their beloved Tabitha.

He prays and says Tabitha, get up and she does! An Easter miracle.

Tabitha who loved and was known for her love was raised by God, because of her good works & charity.

“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

This week, we celebrated the feast day of Dame Julian of Norwich. She lived in the 14th Century and was attached to a church in England. Her most famous book, Revelations of Divine Life, is the earliest surviving book in the English language to be written by a woman.

In one of her most famous passages, she wrote:

“I desired frequently to understand what our Lord’s meaning was, and more than fifteen years afterward I was answered by a spiritual understanding that said, ‘Do you want to understand your Lord’s meaning in this experience? Understand it well: love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Hold yourself in this truth and you shall understand and know more in the same vein. And you will never know or understand anything else in it forever.’

Thus was I taught that love is our Lord’s meaning. And I saw most certainly in this and in everything that before God made us he loved us, and this love never slackened and never shall. In this love he has done all his works, in this love he has made all things profitable for us, and in this love our life is everlasting. In our creation we had a beginning, but the love by which he made us was in him from without beginning, and in this love we have our beginning. And all this we shall see in God without end.”

Love is the meaning, from beginning to end. She also writes…

“God that made all things for love, by the same love keeps them, and shall keep them without end. God is all that is good, as to my sight, and the goodness that each thing has, it is God.”

Tabitha lived that love. Dame Julian wrote about that love.

Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, heard that call to love. She was born in 1820 to a wealthy English family, and as a young woman, she wrote to a friend: “God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for him alone without reputation.”

In other words, would she love without counting the cost…which she did, during the Crimean War.

Nightingale and her team of nurses cut a hospital’s death rate almost to zero mostly by introducing sanitary reforms, and insisting that patients required personal care, and she roamed the hallways at night with a lantern, speaking with the wounded and eventually becoming known as the “Lady with the Lamp.”

Charity & Good Works shown in the Love is what we are called to do with the gifts we have, Tabitha in the tunics and clothing she made for others, Julian in the wisdom she gave from her place in the church, Florence in the gift of healing as a nurse…Love is what we give others.

“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

In June 1990, Kate’s friend Larry lay in a coma, dying of HIV/AIDS. When she came to visit, she didn’t know what to say or do, so she found herself doing what she did when faced with any difficult situation.

She sang.

For two and half hours she sang for her friend. Her music was a comfort both to Larry and to Kate herself. That was the beginning of the Threshold Choir: singers who gather to sing for the dying. The first Threshold Choir was formed by Kate and 14 friends in El Cerrito, California. Within the next year, Kate had established four other choirs. Today, there are over 200 Threshold Choirs in the United States and around the world.

Threshold Choirs are made up of three or four singers who go to hospices and hospitals to sing for the chronically ill and dying. Sometimes the singers find themselves singing a soul into eternity. Their acapella repertoire includes songs like Amazing Grace and Simple Gifts, but also includes short, uncomplicated pieces written especially for the choir, like “Hold this family in your heart” and “Rest easy, let every trouble drift away.”

A music therapist at a hospice in Nashville believes that the choir’s music is a transformative experience for the dying: “Music has the power to reach people on a deeper level than any type of verbalization or even sometimes touch can . . . Whether the patient has dementia and can’t remember his or her own name or their daughter’s name, they may remember the song their mother used to sing to them as a child. Taking memories from your past life and being able to experience them as you’re dying is a wonderful thing.”

Singing in such an emotional environment takes practice and the sensitivity to realize that this is a service, not a performance. While their soft harmonies can be very comforting to the dying, the Threshold Choir’s very presence can bring the immediacy of death to struggling families sitting nearby. As one veteran Threshold Singer says of their work, “We sing in a circle of love. In music we are joined.” This is “holy ground,” another singer notes. “The music literally puts its arms around you.” [The Boston Globe, April 18, 2019; The Washington Post, May 5, 2018; NPR, August 14, 2014.]

Jesus said, ““‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

Let us endeavor to love one another & all that our God has created. Amen.