Be… Perfect?
Preached at Redmond United Methodist Church on February 20th, 2011
Texts: Leviticus 19: 1-2, 9-18; Matthew 5:38-48
Today is Valentine’s Day, and I wish all of you a day filled with live-giving, healing, transformational love. Let none of us be satisfied by the saccharine over-sweetness of infatuation or the self-serving pungeance of lust; let us only be satisfied by unconditional, pure, and abiding love.
I profess the religion of love,
Love is my religion and my faith.
My mother is love
My father is love
My prophet is love
My God is love
I am a child of love
I have come only to speak of love
– Jalaluddin Rumi
This sermon was preached originally on January 3rd, 2010, at All Pilgrims Christian Church. I preached an updated version of it on January 2nd, 2011, at Magnolia United Methodist Church. The manuscript is from the 2010 worship service, and the audio is from the 2011 worship service. As usual, I recommend listening if you are able, because vocal tone and inflection is important in the preaching event.
Audio: Word of God; January 2011 Sermon by Katie Stickney
The Word of God
Text: John 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
These are the first words of the gospel of John, the only gospel that starts out with such cosmological, poetic language. The other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell the story of Jesus’ life in much more down-to-earth ways. These gospels begin with stories of people doing things in the world. Some talk about Mary’s pregnancy, Jesus’ birth and early days, others include lists of Jesus’ ancestors. John begins with the cosmological language: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
If these words have a familiar ring to you, it’s probably because they also begin the first book of the Scriptures—the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter one, verse one, begins: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…” and the passage goes on to describe what God did each day of the first seven “days” of creation. Genesis starts out by saying that in the beginning God created. In the beginning, God existed. In the beginning, God simply was. John, who is attempting in this gospel reading to convey to the hearer who Jesus was, refers back to the early language of Genesis. For John believes that Jesus, being God’s son and being God himself, was always with God. John’s claim here is that the person of Christ existed always, not only during the life of the man we know as Jesus. That Christ was present back in that creation story recorded in Genesis, and even that everything came into being through him. John says: All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
All of the gospels tell us about the life, ministry, and love of the man Jesus. John in particular focuses on the divine nature of Jesus, on the belief that Jesus was himself fully God. Church tradition tells us that Jesus was simultaneously fully human and fully God. Frankly, in some of the other gospels, one might not even get the “fully God” part of that. It is in this book of John where the “fully God” part of Jesus’ nature is really expressed. This is who John believes that Jesus is—fully one with God in heaven, fully divine, but emptying himself of part of his divinity for a period of time to come and dwell among us on earth.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. This part of the passage would have been the most shocking to the original hearers of this message. In those days, that which was of the spirit and that which was of the body were sharply divided. “flesh” was the term used to describe that which was of the body, and it signaled by definition that which was devoid of God. In this category folks would put our desires, our sexuality, our hungers, and our sin. One of the primary tasks of the religious folks of this time was to try to rise above “the flesh” and be spiritual, which was synonymous with being loving, self-denying, and holy. To say that God’s Son, the Christ, took on the flesh was quite a radical thing to say. In that sense, John was disagreeing with folks who want to make this sharp distinction between the flesh and the spiritual. No, John is saying, the flesh is not something that we should try to run away from! Jesus himself came to us in the flesh so that we could better understand God’s love for us.
Better understanding God’s love for us was the primary purpose of Jesus coming to us. This is why Jesus here is referred to as the Word. Jesus’ presence with us was a way for God to communicate with us that God loves us. The Greek word used for “Word” here is logos which could be translated in many ways, including simply “word,” or speech, discourse, language, thought, reason, message, account, document, or book. All of these involve communication. All of them involve trying to convey a message from one person to another. Jesus is the Word of God and that word is Love!
Jesus demonstrated love to the people he was with. He unconditionally accepted and loved everyone around him, even when they abandoned or betrayed him, even when they were caught in sin. He even asked God to forgive those who crucified him! But his life wasn’t the only way that Jesus demonstrated God’s love for us. Just coming at all was a demonstration of this love. If Jesus was truly with God, and was God, always, then choosing to come to earth in the flesh was a choice Jesus made to limit himself. There is a term for this, which theologians like to use, called kenosis. Kenosis is the Greek word for emptiness and when used to describe Christ it means that he emptied himself of certain aspects of his divine nature in order to assume a human nature. By definition God is infinite—we can’t pin God down with language or images, because whatever we use to describe God, God is always so much more than that. By choosing to reveal Godself in a human form, God had to give up some of the infinite nature.
There are three things we need to address here in talking about Jesus emptying himself and coming to us in human form.
First, what I am describing to you here is one way of understanding the person of Jesus, and not necessarily every Christian believes these exact things. You don’t have to believe or agree with everything I’m saying here. In fact, what’s important is not so much whether this is all exactly how it happened or not, but rather the important thing is the truth this story conveys about the deep and unconditional love that God has for all of us. This story has been with us for centuries, that God became limited so that God could communicate God’s love to us.
Second, this isn’t just a pretty story. Jesus’ choice to empty himself of some of his infinite nature, some of his divine power, was not just in being alive as a human man but also in dying a human death because the “powers that be” in his culture were not able or willing to accept the truth of his message. The love Jesus demonstrated here is not just a warm fuzzy feeling. It is truly a love which is willing to experience hardship, sorrow, and pain in order for others to find ways of truly living. As John describes it, Jesus was the light shining in the darkness, and the darkness had not overcome the light—we know that, because we know that Christ is still alive and with us today. And yet Christ also did not eradicate darkness. There are still many ways we all experience darkness in our lives, and it can often be very difficult to accept the message of God’s love for us—not only because it is often hard to feel worthy of that love, but also because that love often challenges us in our comfortable places, to go out and do things that are scary or painful. The kind of love that Jesus demonstrates is the kind of love that comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable… but most of us here in this room have some areas where we are afflicted and some areas where we are comfortable. God’s love is there to comfort us in areas where we are experiencing oppression and pain… but God’s love also challenges us in areas where we have gotten too comfortable or experience too much privilege. The reward, though, of accepting and responding to this healing and challenging love is that we become children of God, adopted into a heavenly family that is full to the brim of the unconditional love that all of us seek.
Third, it is important to answer the question: Why would God have to be limited to communicate God’s love in the first place? Why must there be a Word at all?
The answer to this question is simply that we are finite, embodied creatures. We have bodies that have clear boundaries. We exist in this form for only a short and finite period of time. We do have sparks of the divine in us; the Holy Spirit dwells within us, but we also experience the world in embodied ways, through touching, hearing, tasting, and seeing. Because we ourselves are embodied, we can only experience God in embodied ways. Thus God came to us in the person of Jesus as a human being that we could touch, see, and hear. While Jesus could not stay alive foreve in human form, his words were written down for future generations—that’s us!—to have something tangible to pick up and read (pick up Bible if possible).
Jesus isn’t the only Word of God. Sometimes we refer to the Bible as the Word of God. We don’t mean that the Bible contains the literal words of God, we mean that just as Jesus was a physical embodiment of God’s love, so too is the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God insofar as it provides an experience of the living God and God’s love for us. And the Word of God can be communicated through all sorts of other ways too! You don’t often hear it in these terms, but truly, wherever we encounter an embodiment of God’s love, something that stirs us change our lives for the better, to help those in need of help, to be more loving, to seek justice, that is also a Word of God. That means that music can be a Word of God. A book, whether it’s written by a Christian author or not, can be a Word of God. A website, a blog, a text message, a phone call can all be Words of God. The beauty of creation in the changing color of the leaves can be a Word of God. A pet that provides us comfort and companionship when we are lonely can be a Word of God.
And the coolest part is that this means that WE too can be Words of God for each other! I had a professor in seminary, Fr. Keith Brehob, who said, “Each of you is a sacred Word of God, spoken only once.” God spoke each of you into existence, with unique gifts, talents, and passions, and only you can love the world in the unique way that God made you to love the world. As we enter a time of silence I invite you to think about what specific ways God may be calling you to speak God’s love into the world right now. You are a sacred Word of God, and you have been created to speak God’s Word of love into the world.
The following is the full text of the January edition of my monthly column, Tea & Empathy, in the Redmond UMC Newsletter. Click here to go to the RUMC website to download the newsletter.
Did you make new years resolutions this year? I made two. One was to be more intentional about journaling. The other, much more difficult and important, is that I have resolved to be kind to myself, and the most difficult aspect of that, for me and for many of us, is to be kind to my body. After all, this is a time when we are bombarded with advertisements for diet plans and gyms, we are reminded of our “overindulgences” of holiday food and drink, and we are told that there is something inherently flawed or deficient about our bodies that needs changing. It’s a powerful cultural message, and I believe each and every one of us, to one degree or another, has internalized it.
So I’m here to propose a different way, a better way, a freer way. How about, instead of holding our bodies up to an external standard, we learn to trust and listen to our bodies? It is in this way that we can truly be kind to our bodies and our selves. Instead of trying to fit the size and shape of our bodies into a culturally defined (and thus external) norm, what if we accept the size and shape of our body, as it is now… no ifs, ands, or buts? What if, instead of adhering to rigid (again, external) diet plans, we learn to trust our body’s hunger cues to tell us what and when we need to eat? What if we found ways to play and dance and enjoy the way our bodies can move and work, instead of forcing ourselves into external expectations about going to the gym X times per week, or spending X hours a day “exercising”?
What I’m proposing is a radical idea: to make peace with our bodies. Peace, after all, is a radical proposition in any form. At Christmas we talked about Jesus being the Prince of Peace. Often, that word “peace” gets watered down to mean something closer to “niceness,” an artificial politeness rather than the kind of radical trust and vulnerability that is required for true peace between peoples. If we all took the charge for peace seriously, we would have to face the reality that peace is political. It means no more war. It means no more oppression. It means no more divide between rich and poor. This is the fundamental message of the Christ, who showed us how to live in peace with one another. It is a charge that we Christians today are not living up to very well.
But even if we wanted to live up to this charge of peace better, how could we ever get there if we’re not even at peace with our own bodies? If our mind and our body are not integrated, not working in tandem, without kindness and trust, there is no peace within us. And if there is no peace within us, then how can we be at peace with others? How can we seek peace in the world? So yes, what I am calling us to is radical. I’m calling us to radical kindness, trust, acceptance, and love of our own bodies, for that first step is the only way that we can ever begin to find that same radical kindness, trust, acceptance, and love of our neighbors next door and all over the globe.
The following is the full text of the December edition of my monthly column, Tea & Empathy, in the Redmond UMC Newsletter. Click here to go to the RUMC website to download the newsletter.
This year, two radio stations (106.9 and 95.7) both started playing Christmas music at midnight on Saturday, November 13th. Years ago, 106.9 played Christmas music the weekend after Thanksgiving, which turned into Thanksgiving day, then the weekend before Thanksgiving, and this year the weekend before that. So, if it seems to you like Christmas is coming earlier and earlier every year… well, you are right!
Some of you are excited about that; I know because I have seen the twinkle in your eyes as you talk about Christmas coming and I have seen your Facebook statuses celebrating the arrival of Christmas music on the radio. But some of you are less than excited about it. You may be concerned that by the time Christmas actually comes, you will be tired of Christmas. Or perhaps you are a theological pedant and insist that we are in advent; Christmas does not come until midnight the 25th!
I have been in each of these positions over the years. Some years I’ve been way too excited about Christmas to wait, while other years I’ve wished that culture could hold off a bit. This year, what strikes me is that perhaps we are all in need of a bit of a lift.
Let’s face it, RUMC. We’ve been in an economic recession for two years. Money is still tight for many of us; and for some of us we are out of work or worried about lay-offs. On top of that, many of us have been dealing with illnesses and the loss of loved ones. For some of us, maybe we just need to have a reason to celebrate.
Christmas music may give us a new spring in our step. The thought of children ripping paper off of presents with delightful anticipation may bring a smile to our face. Sometimes seeing the twinkling lights and hearing jingle bells warms and soothes our heart. And if that brings you the hope, joy, love, and peace that we celebrate throughout advent, then I say this is a good thing.
I also want to recognize that for some of us, the holidays may bring the opposite feelings of what I’ve just described. Some of us may feel anxiety about gift-giving with finances being tight, others of us might feel the pain of missing a loved one who is far away or has passed away. If you find yourself in this position, please know that you are supported and prayed for by your church family. Don’t hesitate to share your prayer requests with us. And if you need someone confidential to talk to, my door is always open.
Bottom line: do what you need to do this holiday season to be as happy and safe as you need to be, and let’s all collectively decide not to worry about what anyone else thinks!
Part 2: Matthew 25 Sermon Series, Parable of the Sheep and the Goats
Preached at Magnolia UMC on 8/9/10
Audio Clip: Parable of the Sheep and the Goats
There is not yet a transcription of this audio clip. This post will be updated if/when one becomes available.
This year I attended my first Pride parade, and it inspired in me some reflections about Pride festivities in general. Allow me to share these reflections with you, along with pictures taken at Seattle’s Pride parade.
Pride festivities are usually pretty well-known for the more outrageous, outlandish, and sometimes shocking displays. Naked (with full body paint) bicyclists join men in leather fetish gear and 8-inch platform heels. Women and men alike don feathers, sparkles, and wear very little else. Here are a few examples:
Of course, many others join in the Pride festivities who don’t make quite the same impression. Take, for example, the Seattle Librarians, doing a choreographed dance with book carts:
There are also sports groups, political figures, and military representatives:
Most people know there are the religious nay-sayers who stand on the sidelines and make their disapproval known. This man held up a sign near us; his sandwich board read, “Fear God”:
another woman across the way was holding a sign pointed at the parade marchers that said something like, “God loves you and hates your sin.” Seems like it just wouldn’t be pride without the naysayers.
In the midst of all of this, I personally believe that the true crux of the matter is this:
Pride is about love.
It is about loving shamelessly, loving without regret, loving unconditionally. It is about loving ourselves the way we are and loving one another in the midst of our differences.
It’s about encouraging and celebrating romantic and familial love in all its glorious incarnations:
It’s about God’s love for ALL of us, exactly the way we are:
Simply put, it’s about love.
So to all the outrageous, outlandishly-dressed Pride partiers, I say, more power to you! And to the churches and political figures and librarians and everyone else who came to show their support, you are so very appreciated. And especially, thank you to those who point out the heart of what Pride is really all about: love.
Love has been on my mind lately!
Lately I’ve been experiencing a synchronicity as a variety of different areas of my life are pointing me toward love. I have been thinking about love and the many questions about it. What is love? From where does love come? What does it mean for God to love us? What does it mean to love ourselves and our neighbor?
I have been reflecting on how Jesus was the embodiment of God’s love for us, and how we in turn can embody God’s love for others. (This was the topic of the sermon I gave at All Pilgrims Christian Church yesterday morning).
Many people like to start out their new year with resolutions. They will go to the gym more often, spend more time with family and friends, organize and/or get rid of things they no longer need. Many people also forget their resolutions by February or March, but despite this, we keep making them year after year.
This year, I encourage you to start out the new year with love. It’s a new year, a new decade, a new start. How will love inform your actions this hour, this day, this year? How do you love those it is easy for you to love, and how do you love when it is difficult?
I will leave you with the “love chapter” of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, to meditate on:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Psalm 100 (King James Version): Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God; it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Whitney and Sam, we are all so thrilled to be here with you as you covenant with one another today. You come to us with joy, in a sound relationship with a rich history. In this history of your relationship, there have been easy times and difficult times. There have been fun times and there have been boring times. There have been times where you were on the same page and times when you were in totally different books! But in all the times, there was your relationship, growing stronger, closer, more intimate day by day. Today is a different kind of day; today you are taking a new kind of step, embarking on a journey of a new way of being with one another.
Whitney and Sam met each other for the first time at a Chrysalis retreat in the fall of 2000. At the time they met, they were both dating other people! But such is the beauty of the connectional nature of the United Methodist Church. As both of their life circumstances changed and they both grew, mutual friends and church activities continued to connect them. They remember fondly a dinner they shared with some mutual friends, where they wound up sitting together and experiencing some of those initial giddy sparks flying. Slowly and tenderly over the following months, the relationship took its first steps in the form of a trip to the zoo, a Supertones concert, and holding hands while watching the movie Super Troopers.
This relationship has taken them many more steps forward, through a variety of experiences that brought you closer, till today, where we are all gathered here about ready to witness, in just a few moments, the two of you walking fully into a new way of being with one another. The vows you are about to make are both an outward sign of an inward state of the relationship, and they will also speak something new into being. Just as when we say “I love you” for the first time… we love the person already, but saying it speaks a new way of being into the relationship. So it is as well today. You two have already gone through the kinds of ups and downs that might strain or even break an unstable marriage. The vows you are about to speak are not new in the sense that they don’t speak to a new way of being you have never experienced. You already are committed to one another, in sickness and in health… and yet even though the vows speak about the way you already feel and the commitment you’ve already made, the very act of speaking them, here in this place surrounded by your friends and family, will speak into being a new way of relating to one another.
I’m a pastoral counseling student at Seattle University, and one of my classmates, John, recently pointed out that a marriage doesn’t really become real until the couple faces its first real challenge to the marriage. This may take the form of finding out something about the other person you didn’t realize or don’t like, or it could take the form of an external force causing pressure and tension in the marriage that the couple must now navigate as a team. It is at this point, John says, that the marriage is solidified. I agree with my friend John, and I think that it is especially true for couples who don’t have long relationships or engagements before marriage. Because in this case, rather than cautioning you to be ready for the “downs” as well as the “ups” together, I would say you, Whitney and Sam, already know this truth of married life. You haven’t just had good times, it hasn’t all been the “giddy honeymoon phase.” You have faced some serious challenges over the years, and you’ve done so with grace and integrity and in the face of those challenges your relationship has become stronger. I could stand here before you today and caution you that it’s not “always going to be easy” and that “it’s going to take work.” But I don’t need to, because you already know.
I love that in the midst of a very tough year for the two of you, the scripture you picked for your wedding was one of praise to God. Psalm 100 is a call to worship, encouraging people to come from whatever circumstances they find themselves in, to join together and worship God. This scripture lifts up praise, and your choosing of the scripture is so telling. It tells me that in the midst of pain, strife, and weariness can come praise to God. And what better example of the unbreakable human spirit to hope and to live and to love than a celebration of a wedding in the midst of economic turmoil? The external circumstances of the world may bring us security or insecurity, pleasure or pain, comfort or affliction. But in the midst of that we are called to praise God. By choosing this scripture, and choosing this time, to make these vows to one another, you are affirming the hope and joy that comes from God alone and is not dependent on external circumstances.
In a few minutes, as you make the wedding vows to one another, remember that just as the scripture you chose is a call to worship, so too can your marriage be a call to you both and to others to live fully into life, to live with hope and courage, and to love fully in the midst of whatever trials may come. Let your vows be a joyful noise unto the land, declaring that God is an everlasting God of love, goodness, and truth.
Amen.
Becca, Anthony, we are all so thrilled to be here with you as you make this commitment to one another today. You come here together, in a relationship that already has a rich history of ups and downs, fun times and tougher times, times of perfect harmony and times of not-so-perfect harmony.
I still remember the day that Becca first told me about Anthony. There was something different in her voice, and a different kind of sparkle in her eyes. It’s hard to put a finger on, and I don’t think she actually said “I think he’s the one” but something in her demeanor said that. She had never been quite so excited about a guy before. She told me they had been introduced by a couple of friends—it was only later that I found out that Anthony was supposed to have been set up with a different friend that night! But God managed to still draw these two together that night.
So here we are, celebrating your decision to embark on this new covenanted journey. What does all this mean? What is so special about what’s happening here today anyway? Well, we could probably spend all day talking about the nuances of what makes marriage a unique relationship, but let’s focus on one aspect of it—the way the love between two married people shines in the world.
Matthew 5:14-16 reads: ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
The purpose of a light shining isn’t that the light itself be seen, but that it illuminates something else. According to this scripture, our light shines so that glory can be given to God. With regards to marriage specifically, I would say the light that shines from a marriage illuminates God’s love for each of us. A marriage is like a city on a hill—it is unable to be hidden from the world. The kind of love that you two will share in marriage can be a beacon of light illuminating the kind of love that God has for us.
What are some of the characteristics of this kind of love? To name just a few, mutuality, work, joy and play, a life-giving quality, and mystery.
When I say “mutuality,” I mean that it is a relationship between two persons who are equally empowered and equipped by God. Two persons who have unique gifts and shortcomings, unique strengths and weaknesses, both walking side-by-side, partners in God’s unfolding plan for their lives.
The two of you already know that relationships take work. The kind of love that we celebrate in marriage isn’t the love of pop songs and chick flick movies (though we’ve had our fun watching those together, haven’t we Becca?). It’s not Cinderella and Prince Charming riding off into a “happily ever after.” There will be times when life throws something difficult your way, and there will be times when your relationship itself encounters speed bumps of one kind or another. But the kind of love you are covenanting today will help you to work through those issues and face life’s problems together, with your shared strength.
Joy and play is an important one that I don’t think gets enough attention in our society. I mean, just look at Jesus—the very embodiment of God’s love for us. And we just heard about him performing his first miracle. Did you notice that Jesus’ first miracle was giving wine to people who were partying? Jesus was God’s love letter to humans, and that part of the letter says, “there are times when it is good to party!” But even when it’s not a time to party, there can still be playfulness and fun. So find times to let your inner child out. Play the Wii together, travel, heck, even have a food fight! Delight in the precious gift you are to one another.
When I say “marriages are life-giving” I don’t just mean in the sense that children may be born. I mean something more than that—that the love in marriages nurtures and sustains life. This may mean children born into that marriage, but it also means the lives of one another, of friends and family, and of the community in general. The kind of love in a marriage is nurturing in that it provides support and comfort, and it is sustaining in that it sees that the needs of each individual, and of the relationship itself, are met.
Finally, this love is a mystery. Rainer Maria Rilke says, “Once the realization is accepted that, even between the closest human beings, infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky.” I love this idea, that even though marriage is the most intimate human relationship we can enter into, we will still never fully know the other. That if a lot of us here are gathered again in 2058 to celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary, there could still be something new you’d learn about each other that day. That is just cool to me! I also love the image that we must stand back from one another before being able to see the other “whole against a wide sky.” And that we must learn to love this distance between us so that we can enter into that wonderful living side by side.
This mysterious, life-giving, joyful love that you two will share will be a beacon of light into the community. The love you have for one another comes from and points to our God who rejoices with us in good times, supports us in tough times, nurtures and sustains us, and however intimate and close God comes to us, always still somehow remains a great mystery. May you find yourselves wrapped ever tighter in this mysterious love in your years together, and may the community around you be blessed by the light of God’s love shining through your love for one another.