On Trinity Sunday, I will be preaching at St. Paul United Methodist Church. It's not really my home church, since I grew up Baptist, but these were the folks who supported my decision to attend Duke Divinity School, welcomed me into the pulpit multiple times, and cared for me and my family, especially my mother, while she was living/dying with pancreatic cancer. So, in many of the ways that really matter, it is my home church.
This Sunday is also my daddy's birthday. The above picture is 2 or 3 years old, taken by my daughter when Daddy and I were telling family stories at his brother's grave. Harvey died in the Battle of the Bulge, and later his body came home to lie in the family cemetery with countless other relatives. Whenever the last chapter of my life is written, I will be buried next to him with a spot on the other side for Scott. My request is that the inscription on my headstone be simply, "She Offered Them Christ." My deepest desire and hope is that my life and ministry will warrant those words.
I recently preached a sermon at First Prez called See How These Christians Love Each Other. I suggested that our spiritual life is a journey of finding out how our own story is caught up in God's story and said that ultimately, it is a journey and story of love, love of God and love of our sisters and brothers.
This idea is rooted in Scripture, of course, one repeatedly articulated by John and Charles Wesley. Just for fun, flip through the United Methodist hymnal and count how many times the word "heart" appears in Charles' hymns. Browse through John's journals and note how often he speaks of living a life of holiness in which the Holy Spirit transforms the Christian into a person filled with perfect love for God and neighbor. Both Wesleys believed that it is possible, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for a woman or man to be made perfect in love in this lifetime, even though that might not happen until the moment of death, and they encouraged the people called Methodists to "go on to perfection."
Whether or not that terminology makes sense to you, I encourage you to look at your life in the light of Jesus Christ and see if you are becoming more like him, filled with love of God and others. And reflect on these words written by John in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection:
God only requires of his adult children, that their hearts be truly purified, and that they offer him continually the wishes and vows that naturally spring from perfect love. For these desires, being the genuine fruits of love, are the most perfect prayers that can spring from it.
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