Laying down a little for a friend

John 15:12-15

           Permit me to take you back about 40 years to the Baltimore Catechism. My parish priest is explaining about mortal and venial sins and conveying why my soul is like a milk bottle with black spots. Mortal sins are a wholesale turning your back on God and makes your soul (milk bottle) black. Venial sins are small ways of turning our back on God and hence make your milk bottle speckled with black particles. You can, he explains, achieve the same effect as a mortal sin by continuously choosing small sins, speckling your 'milk bottle' until it is essentially all black. Interesting explanation and it does has some merit even in it's (over) simplicity.

           And what of our good actions? Let's think of them as karma. Can we bank sufficient good deeds to overpower the dark particles of sin? Must we literally lay down our lives for a friend or can we achieve the same by living our lives, laying down a little bit at a time. Can we die to ourselves in the name of love by random or focused small acts of kindness?

           The Roman church is replete with saints who were martyrs, literally giving up their lives in the name of Jesus Christ, at least in the ideal. (some interesting people though have become saints based on human judgements). Other churches, the Episcopalians I note specifically, honour and remember saintly people, holy men and women who may not have given up their lives but have contributed to the kingdom here on earth. The 'rules' for "canonization" are less stringent if present really at all.

            Some people look at life as if success or faith is based on some grand gesture or some great worldly achievement.  Our contribution to God's plan of salvation can easily be made by simply living good and decent lives, speaking up for the marginalized in any way we can and consistent efforts to do good in the world in which we live, even if that sphere of influence is minute. It's as if we laid down our lives one pure speck at a time overcoming those little specks of darkness that exist.  It is that idea of a single candle point of light.  How powerful is it when a darkened church is filled with everyone holding a small lit candle. It is glorious!

            Let me end by telling you about Sainted Anna Schuster. You will not find here name in the official Roman roster of saints, not even the Episcopalians although they are much more likely to recognize her in spirit that the Romans even though Anna was a devout Roman Catholic. Anna was a gifted, dedicated and awarded teacher. In a time when medicine might seem to us today as close to butchery, she became immobilized by a broken hip. Here world was a bed in her bedroom and extended to a wheelchair in her living room when she had sufficient help to move her there for a few hours each day. Anna prayed and journaled and was a beacon of faith. Not complaining and ever faithful, she witnessed her love in such a small world but yet gave a resounding example of laying down her life, gently succumbing to her ailments but living brightly none the less. Her life was a grand gesture of a different type not recognized by formal religion but she was, I am sure, exalted by God as friend, beloved daughter and faithful servant.

            Here is to laying down our lives for our friends, known and unknown in actions big and small, all the days of our lives. Go out and live the love that resides in your heart and soul.

                      

‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.