Love one another, as I have loved you.
Theresa Parlier’s Witness
(Preceded Father Tim’s Sermon)
May 9, 2021
Good morning, I am Theresa Parlier. I recognize that I have been on the parish prayer list this past year and I thought I would let you see my face and bring you the rest of the story.
Father Tim has given me permission to speak to you about my cancer diagnosis and treatments this past year and about some things I am learning. First, I want to wish all of you a very happy Mother’s Day.
Chances are that even if you are not a mother, grandmother or great grandmother or married to one, chances are you had one. I’d like to give a shout out to all the mothers living and deceased, and particularly those who may be struggling with health issues, be they physical, emotional, financial or spiritual. Just know you too are loved.
I want to sincerely thank you. We were floored at the response to Lisa’s request for meals for Mark and me during my treatment. It was so great to know that there was always good food in the refrigerator for us and that we didn’t have to figure out that piece. I thought about reading the list of people who stopped what they were doing and brought us meals but honestly if I did we would be here all afternoon and I figured you had other things to do. You know who you were. 😊
It was also great knowing all of you were praying for me as I went from full on chemo treatments, losing my hair and trying to embrace the baldness, many tests, several surgeries, one, two and sometimes three trips to Lakeland a week for one kind of treatment or another and then follow up with 28 radiation treatments in Lake Wales and another eight more challenging ones in Davenport, and many moments of angst of one kind or another.
At the end of the day I can say I do not have cancer and have no plans for it to revisit.
What got me through, you ask? The food, prayers, calls from friends and family members, many, many cards, and of course the in-person visits. (These were only on my front porch or in the backyard, after all we were in a worldwide pandemic.) That was another reason why the food was so paramount, as going to the grocery store during that time really felt like we were taking our lives in our hands.
Was there anything else? Yes, I could feel God tapping me on the shoulder whispering in my ear, “Take one day at a time. Put one foot in front of the other. Focus on what you have that day, even that minute, don’t look at the big picture and keep in mind the phrase of the day is ‘This is Temporary.’”
Life here in Earth School has many classrooms. Cancer is just a classroom. I never saw the cancer as the most horrible situation. Here I want to fit in a shout out to my brothers and sisters in the chemo chairs next to me and to my own father and brother whose cancer stories were also their tickets off the planet. I respect the fact that for many, cancer can be life threatening and fearful.
For me it was not something I wanted to fight or go to war against. That did not make sense to me. I figured there must be some reason I was handed this classroom and it might become obvious as time went on.
When I heard someone that does not know me very well express condolences by using words like fight the cancer, it is your enemy, or go to war against this enemy, I resented it. I am sure it was actually meant as a kindness, like when you commiserate with someone facing a trauma by putting words together to allow them to feel seen and valued in the middle of their overwhelm. I felt more like cancer was an uninvited family member that came to stay and needed to be loved back to health so he could walk back out through the front door.
While I am so grateful to no longer be doing cancer treatments, I am also grateful for everything I am learning. And I would like to share a few of those thoughts with you on this very lovely Mother’s Day. Another shout out here to my mother, Frances, who I am looking more and more like as my hair comes in. I see her now every time I look in the mirror, which definitely keeps me on my toes. And another shout out to those two beautiful sons, who made me the mother I am today and whose love I cannot even describe, it goes beyond words.
The love of God is unconditional and constant and that is the message of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. We are loved always and all the time regardless of whether or not we feel it at any given moment for ourselves or for our brothers. We are loved, loving and a physical manifestation of love itself as we emanate from God who is the source of love.
The challenge as I see it is to get quiet and still enough to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit always available to give direction and reassurance over that the louder, often more aggressive voice that keeps us stuck or spinning.
The decision each morning whether to put on a shirt that says, “Poor Me. I am less than. I am a victim. I am not important, valuable, relevant or important” or a shirt that says, “I am a Holy Child of an infinite, abundant and loving creator and therefore entitled to Miracles” feels the same to me as how we perceive God. We can perceive a God whose love is conditional on us behaving a certain way, who has judgement, limitation and punishment as tools in His arsenal to control us, OR we can believe in a God that Jesus described and modeled for us who is limitless, abundant, infinite and whose love is unconditional. It is our choice and the choice can be made again in every moment.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians Chapter 3 verse 12 says, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Thank you for allowing me to, in a sense, use the cancer card to remind myself and all of us to remember who we are, whose we are, and where we came from AND to be cognizant of what shirt we put on in the morning.
Thank you and Happy Mother’s Day.
Easter 6: May 9, 2021
Fr. Tim Nunez
Love one another, as I have loved you.
Today’s sermon follows a thankful witness from Theresa Parlier.
Thank you, Theresa, for your heartfelt witness to the ways that you have experienced God’s grace through the care and support of family, friends and in particular your church family. This is also an example of God’s timing. Theresa didn’t know that her witness would so fittingly illustrate our readings and especially our Gospel passage today (John 15:9-17.)
She gives thanks for the many ways she has been blessed through her very long course of treatment and all the challenges that came with it. We thank God that she is able to proclaim she is “cancer free,” and her testimony gives light to those who are in their own battles and struggles, those fighting cancer and/or other chronic illnesses.
Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) He said it here in chapter 15, and he has said it a dozen times or more either exactly that way or in other words just in these 5 chapters where John recounts what Jesus said the night before he died. And it’s all through all 4 Gospels. “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you love me you will keep my commandments.” It undergirds most of his parables and, honestly, most of his healings.
There is an angle on all of that here that bears further thought and reflection. Right after restating this commandment, and affirming it as a sacrificial necessity, laying our lives down for our friends, Jesus shifts the tone even as he affirms his commandment.
We most often think of the word “commandment” as a top-down order, to be carried out as in the military. Jesus himself honored that sort of faithful obedience when he encountered the Centurion who asked him to heal his servant.
But the Greek word used here, εντολη (en-to-lay), also means a commission, a charge, or a precept that they not only must abide by but must abide in. It is a choice to be made, a commitment to be embraced and a foundation upon which they are to build themselves, their families and their communities.
These nuances come clear as he calls his disciples friends instead of servants. A servant gets ordered about. He or she is to do as the master commands without question and as a matter of pure obedience, regardless of what he or she may think of it.
A friend, however, is invited, encouraged, challenged to take part, to participate. Can you help me assemble the swing set? Can you help us move? I’ll drive you to the doctor. I’ll bring you a meal. I’ll stand by you when you are accused, even when you are wrong.
We can apply that logic to all of God’s commandments. Do we not steal because God said so or because he has convicted us in our hearts that it is wrong? When we struggle with covetousness is it because God said so or because we know it is just wrong?
Jesus calling us friends doesn’t make his charge, his commission, any less absolute. That doesn’t make it any less imperative. But instead of seeing this as a top-down order that we must do whether you like it or not, we should see this as an invitation to an extraordinarily difficult and necessary adventure. It is the mountain to be climbed, the quest to be achieved, the treasure to find and bring home and to share. If and when we fail to pursue it, how lost are we?
Our maddening capacity to not love each other, or God, or even ourselves as Christ commands is the dragon to be slayed, the demon to be banished, the enemy - Satan himself - to be beaten down and placed beneath Christ’s feet. Satan is always there to accuse us when we fall short; every time we lose our temper or our hearts harden out of frustration with how difficult people are.
We celebrate Mother’s Day with tributes to our mothers’ love. We all have a vision of that ideal – of birthing new life, of nurturing, caring and incredible strength. I look back on my own mother’s efforts raising 5 kids and Meg’s raising 4 and I wonder how they did it. They wonder how they did it. But they did. Their love took form in feeding, cleaning, educating, transporting, holding children accountable.
At the core we find a deep truth. One of the most dangerous places to be in the entire world physically is between a mama bear and her cubs. Yes, love is nurturing and caring but it is also fierce.
Jesus loves all of God’s children. It is comforting to think of him holding his lambs, feeding and healing them. All of that is true. But our Good Shepherd also defends and protects them. He rescues them. He went to the cross to save them – to save us. He got between us and eternal death and ran it off. He laid down his life for his friends, for us. When we lay down our lives for him, observing his commands, taking on his charge and commission, putting him first as the guide to our entire lives, then we can bear fruit, fruit that will last forever.
AMEN