Sermon: Are you worthy of God's love?
After
Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered
Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill
and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to
him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they
appealed to him earnestly, saying, ‘He is worthy of having you do this for him,
for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.’ And
Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion
sent friends to say to him, ‘Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy
to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But
only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set
under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes,
and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave
does it.’ When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd
that followed him, he said, ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such
faith.’ When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave
in good health.
Soon
afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd
went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was
being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with
her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion
for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then he came forward and touched the
bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you,
rise!’ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his
mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great
prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’
This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.
One: Listen to what
the Spirit is saying to the church.
All: Thanks be to God.
REFLECTION: Are You Worthy Enough for God’s Love?
I am a huge fan of Brené Brown’s as some of you may be aware! She is a research professor at the University
of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past thirteen
years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. (www.brenebrown.com/about)
Over
the last year I have read 3 of her books and watches many videos and when I
learned that today would be about worthiness, I knew her work would be perfect!
So I’d
like to begin our time today with 2 short videos where Brené Brown talks about
worthiness, shame, and perfectionism.
Video 1:
Notes from video:
What is our struggle with
believing we’re enough?
We have to be perfect, we’re
not allowed to be vulnerable
It’s about waking up and
feeling that No matter what I’m enough and I’m worthy of love and joy
Wholeheartedness is about
engaging with the world from a place of worthiness.
Video 2:
WhyBrené Brown Says Perfectionism Is a 20-Ton Shield 3.5 min
Notes from video:
When perfectionism is driving,
shame is always riding shotgun, and fear is in the backseat.
We struggle with perfectionism
in areas where we feel shame (eg. I don’t feel shame at the state of my office
because I am not perfectionistic about that…my body, my job, my role as mother,
friend, is different)
If I’m perfect, then I’ll be
worthy
Perfectionism - what will
people think?
You can’t be brave if you’re
wearing the straight-jacket of what will people think
In preparation for this sermon today I watched a lot of videos of Dr. Brené
Brown speaking and tried to find the ones that fit best with our reading for
today, but I’d like to share one thing Brené shared in one of the videos I didn’t
show. She said that when she is on an
airplane and sits next to a stranger, she has 2 different answers for the
question “so what do you do” based on whether or not she feels like
chatting. If she’s in the mood to chat
she said “I study courage” and people are often curious about that. If she’s not in the mood to chat she begins
with “I study shame” and people always stop the conversation and go back to
what they were doing. No one wants to
talk about shame! We avoid talking about shame at any cost!
Shame hides in the darkness, telling us we are not worthy of anyone’s
love let alone God’s love. The secret to getting rid of shame and realizing you
are worthy of love and belonging is to bring shame into the open. The centurion sent word to Jesus telling him
that he believed he was not worthy of Jesus’ miracle, and once it was out in
the open, Jesus chose to not only heal the slave, but to lift up the openness
of the centurion as a tremendous act of faith.
Do you believe that you are worthy of love and belonging? Do you believe that right now, just as you
are, that you are worthy of being healed by Jesus, by being touched by God in
love? Or in the back of your mind are you thinking to yourself. Yes, I am worthy...as soon as I catch up on
my Bible reading, I’ll be worthy of God’s love after I get better at praying,
I’ll be worthy of belonging to God once I’ve put money in the offering plate.
The Centurion thought he wasn’t worthy of Jesus, he didn’t even feel
like he was worthy of Jesus’ time by coming all the way to the slave: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to
have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But
only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.”
The widow whose son had died
did not even approach Jesus, he didn’t know her from anyone else, but he saw
her in pain, had compassion, and used his gift to better her life - he didn’t
ask if she was worthy of his time, he didn’t ask if the son was worthy of being
resurrected, he simply acted freely out of love and compassion.
When we come to worship we
talk about God’s love for all - we pray for anyone in the world who is hurting,
we praise God for the love freely given, we thank God for the ways God loves
us, but in our heart of hearts, do we truly, fully believe that we are worthy
of God’s love? Just as we are? Without one single change, do you think you
deserve God’s love?
I think for most of us, we’re
not sure if we truly are worthy of God’s love.
I’m not sure most of us truly believe we’re deserving of love and belonging
from the world. Because if we were… we
wouldn’t struggle with sharing our gifts openly and freely, we wouldn’t judge
those around us, we wouldn’t hide those things we’re ashamed of, we wouldn’t
hurt one another and ourselves…
In the New Testament there are 4 gospels, 4 books of the Bible that tell
us about what Jesus did and who Jesus was - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Some of the Gospels have similar stories,
some are very different, but each book has a few nuances to set them apart from
the others. Scholars speculate that the
book of Matthew for example was written by Jewish person for a Jewish
community. The book of Luke that we’ve
read from today is the shortest of the 4 Gospels, and one of its defining
characteristic is that in the Gospel of Luke, over and over again Jesus shows
that he is for everyone - Jew or Gentile, deserving or not, in Luke, Jesus
shows everyone belongs, in Luke, Jesus brings God’s love for everyone.
Are we deserving of God’s love and grace? Are we worthy of God’s presence in our lives?
Today we are reminded that Jesus didn’t question whether someone was
worthy or deserving of his time or care - he healed and taught anyone who came
to him - with the widow today, he healed her son even though she never
approached him. Today we see that
everyone belongs, everyone is deserving, everyone is worthy of God’s grace and
love.
Are we worthy? This is a question
we ask of ourselves or perhaps we ask of others - but God never asks is we are
worthy, God freely gives and God freely loves us, in God we belong no matter
what.
In the gospel of John we are reminded of God’s abundant love given to
all when Jesus says, “For God so loved
the world that God gave God’s only Child, so that everyone who believes in that
Child may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16 Inclusive Bible)
God so loved the world, God so loves us, Jesus loved the people so much.
In love Jesus healed the servant.
In love Jesus healed the woman’s son.
In love Jesus died on the cross and rose again to show us the way.
Today we are reminded that even though we may not always believe it, we
are worthy, we are deserving of love and belonging. So if we begin to believe that, then
what?
When I first began seeing my psychologist on that very first visit he
helped me to understand that I struggle with perfectionism, and one of the
reasons for that is because I struggle with feeling like I am enough just as I
am. As Brené Brown talked about earlier -
if I can just be something more, THEN I will be enough. And through trying to be the perfect mother,
the perfect wife, the perfect friend, the perfect minister, I was quite
literally killing myself trying to prove that I was enough, that I was worthy.
The exercise my psychologist gave me that first day is one that I still
use when I’m struggling. After a
conversation reminding me that I am inherently enough just as I am, he asked me
to say this phrase regularly throughout the day.
“I have nothing to be ashamed of, I have nothing to prove. So if I truly believe that in my heart of
hearts, what will I do differently?”
Let’s take a minute here and say those words together with feeling: “I
have nothing to be ashamed of, I have nothing to prove. So if I truly believe that in my heart of
hearts, what will I do differently?”
And one more time.
“I have nothing to be ashamed of, I have nothing to prove. So if I truly believe that in my heart of
hearts, what will I do differently?”
Each and every one of us here has nothing to be ashamed of - we may make
mistakes or make poor choices, but at our core, each of us is doing the best we
can, not one of us here has anything to be ashamed of.
Each and every one of us here has nothing to prove - sometimes we aren’t
doing exactly what we want to be, but at our core, we are doing the best we
can, each one of us here is enough just as we are, we have nothing to prove.
So if that is true - if we have nothing to be ashamed of, and if we have
nothing to prove, then what will we do differently?
If we believe that we are deserving of God’s love, if we believe that we
are worthy of belonging, then what do we do differently?
Then we share ourselves openly and freely with God; we share ourselves
openly with one another - we let go of what we might feel shame for, because
for God it doesn’t matter. We bring
shame into the light and see it for the lies it tells us. We risk being vulnerable with one another and
with God.
If we really believe we are worthy of God’s love and belonging, then we
let go of what others think - what does God think? What do you think?
We love ourselves just as we are …and THEN we can love others just as they are.
We don't worry about what we don't have and we see all that we do have
and we give thanks to God.
We stop trying to be all things, we stop trying to do all things, and we
live into the gifts God has given to us as unique individuals.
God created each of us perfectly unique – as we talked about in Children’s
time, God coloured outside of the lines making each of us different and unique from
one another. So let us live into those
difference, embrace those differences, share those differences, and live as God
intended for us, open, vulnerable, imperfect and loved.
“I have nothing to be ashamed of, I have nothing to prove. So if I truly believe that in my heart of
hearts, what will I do differently?”
Thanks be to God who loves us so fully and so openly, who loves us just
as we are.
Amen.
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