SERMON OF JANUARY 10, 2009
M. Bruce McKay
Pilgrim - St. Luke’s United Church of Christ
"Never Forget that You are Loved"
Isaiah 43:1-7, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

 
Two days after Christmas we held a memorial service here at the church celebrating the life of Kathleen Brady, a 46 year old woman who died of cancer.  She was the daughter of Marilyn, our organist before Carmen.
  Kathleen worked throughout her adult life with children, most of whom had developmental disabilities.  Her gentle compassion was a wonderful blessing in the lives of the children she worked with and their families.
As one mother wrote to Kathleen during her illness: “Thinking and praying for you today and always…you have had an enormous impact on our lives…”
This mother enclosed a small cross with her card and went on to say: ”May it be a reminder that you are not alone.  God is with us…May you never forget that you are loved.”
May you never forget that you are loved.
But of course we do.  In the course of our lives we often forget that we are loved by the God who is love. (I John 4:8)
We get distracted by events and circumstances – and forget that we are loved.
We get disoriented by the dizzying pace of our daily lives - and forget that we are loved.
We get discouraged by the difficulties we encounter - and forget that we are loved.
We all get distracted, disoriented and discouraged by what life brings our way -and forget that we are loved. 
We have a print at our house of a little boy sitting on his front step with his head in his hand.  He’s wearing a floppy hat and has big, sad eyes.  Under his picture it says: "Nobody loves me.  I'm going into the garden to eat worms. Yesterday I ate two smooth ones and one woolly one.”
Even though, chances are, none of have ever eaten any worms, we all know what it feels like to be that little boy.
That’s why, on the second Sunday of January, at the beginning of each New Year, we remember our baptism and renew our commitment to live as those who have been created and called by God to never forget that we are loved.
On this Sunday, every year, we might think of our Still Speaking God as showing up in a Buffalo bar and trying a little karaoke.  The song that begins to play is Stevie Wonder’s – “I Just Called to Say I love.”
No New Year's Day to celebrate
No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away
No first of spring
No song to sing
In fact here's just another ordinary day
I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
You get the idea? 
I could try singing it, if you think that would help.
I didn’t think you’d want me to do that. 
On this Sunday, every year, God calls to say I love you.  We hear this call by remembering the baptism of Jesus and our own baptism. 
 We hear this call  by remembering that our identity and value as human beings isn’t something we earn, discover or deserve. 
Our identity is simply given as a gift of God’s grace – a gift of the One who said at the baptism of Jesus, “You are my Beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” – a gift of the One who said at our baptism, “You are my Beloved Child, with you I am well pleased.”
We aren’t the first to often forget that we are loved and we won’t be the last.
Hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, the people of Israel were driven into exile in Babylon.  They’d been uprooted from all that had given their lives meaning and purpose and felt abandoned by the God who’d promised to never abandon them.  Many had long forgotten that they were loved when word came through the prophet promising a new future and a living hope:
“But now thus says the Lord, the One who created you, O Jacob, the One who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, your are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)
The people of Israel could abandon fear because they now knew that they had not been abandoned. 
They now knew that God’s love for them had not ended with their exile, but that God had been present with them all along – the God who had lovingly knit each of them together in their mother’s womb – the God who loved each of them as if there was only one of them to love. 
“You are precious in my sight,” God said through the prophet, and honored and I love you.”
And I love you!
The people of Israel, like each of us, had forgotten that they were loved – and needed a reminder from God. 
 For us, as Christians, this reminder comes in the sacrament of baptism – when we too, like Jesus, are washed with the cleansing waters of God’s grace and goodness, God’s healing and hope.
 In the waters of baptism God says simply, very simply, “I love you.  I love you not because of what you’ve done but because of who you are, a beloved child of mine.  Never forget that you are loved!”
 When Martin Luther was wrestling with forces that would diminish or deny his dignity as a beloved child of God he would cry out, “Martin, remember your baptism!”
 This was his way of working to never forget that he was loved.
 This worked well for Martin Luther – and it may work well for us. 
 There may be times, however, when we need reminders from God that come through God’s presence and God’s grace at work in other people.
I heard a story a while ago about a sixth grade teacher who was having great difficulty working with her class.  The class seemed uninterested in learning and the students were always at each other. 
The students seemed to have little respect for her, for each other, or for themselves.  So she decided to try something she’d never done before.
 She asked each student to write down on a piece of paper one positive thing about every other student in the class that they had either learned from that student or appreciated about that student. 
 
The students spent well over an hour doing this.  The teacher then collected the information and compiled it so every student in the class was given a list of the things that their classmates had either learned from them or appreciated about them.   
 The students seemed genuinely touched by the affirmation they received from their classmates.  The teacher, however, didn't fully realize how important this was until several years later, when she attended the funeral of one of the students in this class who was killed in a car accident just before graduating from high school.
 At his funeral one of his friends read the list of things written about him by his classmates back in the sixth grade.  This list was in his wallet when he died. 
 At the reception, after the funeral, other students in that sixth grade class came up to the teacher.  Each of them told her how much it had meant to them to get that piece of paper in the sixth grade.  Several students produced the list as they spoke, for they'd kept it with them as a reminder that they were loved and appreciated by others.
 Our baptism with water and the Holy Spirit is like that crumpled piece of paper that many of those students produced.  It's a reminder - a living reminder - of our preciousness as a beloved child of God - who knows us far better than anyone ever can or ever will - and loves us still.
 In our baptism God says to each of us, “I love you.”
 At a Bible Study class several years ago, Bobbie Grimm mentioned that a friend of hers, Susan Mix, the national president of Church Women United, lost her husband two days after Christmas.  He was only 62 years old and had been in good health.  It was in the middle of the day and he went out on the porch to do something.  The last words he said to his wife, as he went out the door, were "I love you."
 Those were the last words he spoke.  His daughter found him lying on the porch soon after he'd gone outside.
 The word spoken at the beginning of our life as Christians - is the same word spoken at the end - and at every point along the way..."I love you."  If we can remember  our baptism we will never forget that we are loved, with a love that is stronger even than death.
In the weeks before he died, Walter Sogn, one of the saints of our congregation, began doing something that at first seemed very strange.  Walter was a reserved, very modest man who wasn’t openly expressive of emotion, reflecting his Norwegian roots growing up on a farm in Minnesota.  You had to know Walter for a good while to realize the depth of his intelligence, his kindness and his compassion.
Walter was at home, under the care of Hospice, when I first noticed the change.  After sharing communion with him and his wife Margaret, just as I got up to leave, Walter said, “Bruce, I love you.” 
I was caught off guard. 
After an awkward silence, resulting from my own reluctance to say such a thing, I said, “Walter, I love you too.”
Now at first I thought this change in behavior might have had something to do with me being Walter’s pastor or with his just having received communion.  But it wasn’t long before I realized that he wasn’t just saying this to me, but to everyone else as well – every time they stopped by to visit. 
And he wasn’t just saying the words.  Walter Sogn was always a man of few words.  So you always knew that he meant what he said and he said what he meant.
The week after Walter died, Margaret told me what had happened the day before. 
 
Zorita, one of the Hospice workers who’d been caring for Walter, came to the house.  No one had told her that he’d died and she’d come to report to work. 
When Margaret told her what had happened her eyes filled with tears, and she said, “When I left last week he said, `Zorita, I love you.’  No one – no one ever said that to me before.”
Zorita had been a foster child who had married an abusive husband and been on her own for a number of years.  Not only had no one ever said to her, “I love you,” she had been told in countless ways that she was not loveable. 
As those created and called by a God who says to each of us “you are precious in my sight…and I love you” may we never forget that we are loved and may we always have the courage to say, “I love you.”
Kathleen Brady spent the last few days of her life at the Hospice facility in Cheektowaga.  On a tray table at the foot of her bed was a picture of Joshua, a 17 year old high school junior. 
When Joshua was a baby Kathleen had been his foster mother for 2 to 3 years.  Shed continued to be a mother to Joshua until the day she died.  Working with and supportive of Joshua’s birth mother Kathleen devoted her life to making sure Joshua never forgot that he was loved.
Next to Joshua’s picture on the tray table was a nativity set with the baby Jesus, his parents, the shepherds, the magi – reminding Kathleen of the love of God  that became incarnate – that took on flesh - in the Bethlehem baby and takes on flesh in all those created and called by name to reveal the glory of God by never forgetting that they are loved.
May it be so in each of our lives and in our life together!
May we always remember our baptism!
And never forget that we are loved!
Amen!