Active Abiding

sermon by Carrie Eikler
John 15:1-8, 1 John 4:7-21
Easter 5
May 10th, 2009

There is nothing more enlivening that watching two year olds at play. If Sebastian was hearing me speak, he would correct me: two and a half. It’s even more charming to watch two and a half year olds try to be still.

Sebastian is finishing his second year of Parents’ Place, the nursery school here in our church. It gives me a lovely break from him for two hours, twice a week…just enough to miss him. This week they were working on Mother’s Day projects, something that stilled their little two and a half year old bodies.

On Wednesday he came screeching out of the room in excitement…and you know what Sebastian’s screeching is like. In his little hands were flowers—some pansies—in one of those small waxy cups that you have in your bathroom. The yellow blooms stood tall above the crushed cup that he held a little too firmly in his excitement.

As he was playing, his teacher Ms Ruth, talked about the planting process. She said they planted the seeds a few weeks ago, but only a few really germinated so she just bought some flowers to put in the cups instead. “But you should have seen them planting the seeds,” she laughed. “Once we put the seeds in the dirt, and poured the water on them, they all sat around staring at the cups, just waiting for the flowers to come up.”

If I had known that to get Sebastian to stop and be still for 3 minutes simply involved putting some dirt and a seed in a waxy paper cup, I would have invested my money in Burpee seeds and Dixie Cups a long time ago, and shared this secret with the world.

Could this be an early lesson not only in patience, but in the practice of abiding?

Both of today’s scriptures use this word: abide. In the first scripture from John 15, the word abide comes up ten times in eleven verses, and in our second reading it comes up five times. Now, one of the first things we learn in seminary when we learn to study biblical text is this: if a word is repeated over, and over…and over, it’s probably pretty important.

We don’t use the word “abide” much in our vocabulary. There are other words we would probably use: “wait,” “stay,” maybe “tolerate.” We use variations on the word, such as bide: “I am just biding my time until something better comes along,” All in all the connotation of the word, as we use it, is not necessarily negative, but it’s just…boring. Although it is a verb—an action—it seems rather dull and inactive.

But how the word “abide” is used in these scriptures for today is anything but inactive. Abiding is a necessary action! Abiding in the vine in order to have life…Abiding in love so that we might abide in God and God abide in us.

Abide…not simply twiddling our thumbs waiting, “killing” time. Abide...as if, to make one’s “abode,” one’s home. Abide in love: make your home in love. Abide in God: find your rest in God. Abide in the vine: find your nourishment and safety in the rooted tree of life.

Abide in love so that you may abide in God and God in you.

I’ve been struck by how much true abiding I, and we as a congregation, have witnessed in the last few weeks. We have witnessed the qualities of an abiding Mother God in those who have abided with mothers, with those who have been like mothers, with those who wait in anticipation of becoming mothers.

Our sister Linda abided with her mother as she made her “last big trip” from this life into the next. Linda shared with us that she had crept into her mother’s bed and slept with her for the last three days of her life. She wrote that she slept with her so she could be attentive. Perhaps listening for her breathing, feeling a body in need of sustenance and release all at the same time. Linda spoke of it as “intimate“. I would also speak of it as abiding in love.

Last week Torin and I gathered around Jane Calvert, Joe Moore’s aunt, with Joe and his family and friends. There were probably ten people who laid hands on Jane. We anointed her, and I have never done an anointing that felt so much like I was administering a last ordinance to someone, but it felt like that. Joe spent the past two years sleeping in the chair next to her, changing her clothes, and caring for her—a woman who wasn’t his mother, but who was like a mother to him, like a mother to many people. At times I’m sure it felt like simply waiting, biding time, as he put his life on hold to be a caregiver. But as he spoke of his love for her and the choices he made to care for her, I would say that he took on the holy task of abiding with Jane.

Sue shared with us last week that her son and daughter-in-law, Mike and Rebekah, are waiting with unknown diagnoses for the child Rebecca will birth in a matter of weeks. They are preparing to make a home for this beloved child, abiding in the knowledge that things may be difficult. They aren’t simply waiting to see what will happen. They are abiding in their love for their baby. Their baby is abiding in their love. They are abiding in God, just as the child who is eager to make its home outside of his mother abides in God.

Abiding is not passive or boring. It takes our energy, often all the energy we have. It takes endurance. It takes a commitment to love and sacrifice.

Maybe it is the reason that John exhausts the word. More than likely it is used over, and over, and over in order to press upon us the difficult task of rooting ourselves in the pain, and the love, and conditions of someone else. And maybe it is by doing that difficult work that we come to understand how God roots herself in our pain, our love, and our condition.

And maybe, that’s how we extend God’s love to others, by being vessels who help root Her love in this world. Planting seeds in the dirt held by a crushed, waxy paper cup, and watching for the bloom.

When Shasti O’Leary-Soudant, a woman from Buffalo, NY was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease, she found the abiding presence of her husband, Jethro, transform one of the most difficult days of her treatment into one of the happiest days of her life. Shasti and Jethro recorded their memory of the struggle with StoryCorps, a traveling project that records and archives peoples stories. National Public Radio weekly airs some of these stories on their news program. This one was aired on 2006:

Jethro began the segment: “I remember the most scared I was was when you were diagnosed. That was frightening and I remember, you know, bawling due to not knowing what lie ahead for you and us. I didn't cope with it as well as I could have.”

To which Shasti, his wife, replied “I think you coped pretty well considering… I mean, you never let me see any of it. The happiest and the worst day of my life were the same day. It was pretty late [into] the chemo--I think it was probably about five months into it. I was getting really sick.”

“Every time they'd have to take me into the back room cause they couldn't give it to me with all the other patients and the moment that we walked off the elevator, I started feeling nauseous and then we walked into the back room and the moment that the needle punctured the skin and the port, I threw up and you were ready for it. You, like, caught it, and I soiled myself. I peed. I couldn't control any of my bodily functions. I was crying hysterically and you said something that made me laugh and I still can't remember what it was. You were just looking at me. You were looking at me right in the eye and you said something really funny.”

“…it was like you were radiating love just out of your face at me and it was like shining a light on me. I felt like I was looking into the sun. It was the most incredible moment of my life because I had no doubt.// I knew you loved me. I knew that if I died it would never stop cause it was just really--you can't think of being in any worse shape than I was at that exact second except that I was laughing and all of the sudden I just felt like no matter what happened, everything was going to be fine.”

“That’s when you kind of broke,” said Jethro. “You finally submitted. That was probably the lowest point, but then became the highest point simultaneously.”

“I guess I just sort of let it happen from that point on,” she said. “I let you take care of me, but that was a long slog, boy. That was a fight.”

I think about having the strength to abide with someone in this way. I think about having the humility to have someone abide with me in this way, to release all illusion that I can control what happens in my life. I think about having enough love to radiate a shining light when I’m scared out of my wits about the unknown, or being able to laugh hysterically through my tears because no matter what happens—death or life, pain or joy—no matter what happens, someone’s love is rooted in me. My love is rooted in someone else.

And I know I couldn’t ever do that by myself.

“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” AMEN

--(If you want to hear Shasti's story on StoryCorps, click here: http://www.storycorps.org/listen/stories/shasti-oleary-soudant-and-jethro-soudant)