God of Grace, help us to hear the hard words you set before us so that we may let them enter into us and take root. Amen.
Have you ever seen a child show her parents her art work? The child is filled with joy and pride as she awaits praise. The child believes when the parent tells her that she has done a good thing and is excited by the idea of putting it up on the refrigerator for everyone to see. Somewhere along the way, though, something happens.
I am starting to think that for many adults, the hardest words to hear are the words of praise.
Watch sometime when an adult is given a complement, “You did great,” or “You are special.” What I see is somewhat predictable as the person shrugs in an awe shucks fashion as they look uncomfortable and quickly find some way of saying, “It’s nothing.” It is not nothing. It is something.
Imagine hearing these words from Isaiah, “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you…” “I love you…”
If you can’t take a compliment, how much harder to hear these words, “I love you.” “You are loved.” Again, look at some people’s face when they hear those simple words and what you will often see is a furrowing of the eyebrows, an oddly quirked lip, and in the eyes, a question, “How can that be right?” “How can I be worthy of love?”
I don’t claim to know where this comes from. Maybe it is something that these people carry with them from a difficult childhood. There are so many sad stories of abuse and neglect in this world that there seem very few children, and adults, who have not been hurt by these times.
There may be some people whose religion taught them it was pride to think themselves loveable. Perhaps some people are basing the idea that they don’t deserve love on something they did once or something that they did not do…or something that was done to them. It gets confusing doesn’t it: All these reasons people find to believe they are not worthy of love?
Just the words, “I love you” bring up, for some, questions of worth and value, fears of rejection, fears of being found out? What if they knew this about me? What if they knew that I once did this, said that, thought this, felt that…?
Would they love me still?
Could they love me still?
So for some, the words. “I love you” are the hardest words to hear.
Somewhere between the wonder of childhood, and the worlds of possibility; and the realities of adulthood, and the world of responsibilities; some piece of imagination was lost. And these people just cannot imagine that they deserve to be loved.
And if you are the person who loves that person, what are you going to do? You can talk yourself blue in the face trying to convince them of their worth and all that they bring to your life, but sometimes the years of doubt have done such a job that nothing seems to break through.
Except, except, God broke through the very heavens. God broke through and became flesh and blood. God broke through and became human, as a baby, even. God, in the form of the man Jesus, lived among us. Mary whispered in his ear of how dear and wonderful and loved he was. The dove descended upon him at his baptism, the Holy Spirit, and God spoke and said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus was so loved by God.
We know that he was.
We know that the love God has for Jesus is a reflection of the love God has for each and every one of us. We are the children of God, by the Spirit of adoption and by the indwelling resurrected Christ in each of us, we are God’s children. And God loves us all.
You, the unlovable, the unworthy, the wretched, the abused, the abuser, the secret-keeper, the truth teller, the sad, the broken, the unfulfilled, and the still dreaming. You. God loves you!
Don’t forget that as Lutherans we baptize infants. God claims you and loves you from moment one. God knows everything you have and have not done; all that has been done to you; all that you could never confess to your parents, or your spouse, or your children; every dream of childhood, and every misstep and U-turn that lead you here to this moment. It isn’t that God doesn’t care about all that, it’s just that Love matters more.
God loves you. Jesus loves you. I and we and so many more beyond the doors of this place love you. I can’t make you believe. But I pray, you can someday hear those words and take them in and give them roots to grow.
God loves you.
The rest is details…
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