1 Corinthians 13:1 – 8a, 13
 1If I speak in the tongue of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,
but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind.
 It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 8Love never fails.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
­­­­­­­­­­­­­_________________________________

Where is “home” for you?  Who is “home” for you?

Let me tell you the beginning of a story of a woman I grew to love.

In the summer of 1917 a child was born in Lancashire, England.  A little girl.

Her mother, an unmarried woman –
although old enough to bear and give birth to a child –
was, in many ways, a child herself.

Who knows what was running through her young heart?
Who knows what she was thinking or feeling?
We don’t know and will never know.

But she bundled up her little girl to whom she had given birth
and left her in a basket on a doorstep of  a family.

Who knows what was running through her young heart?
Who knows what she was thinking or feeling?

Maybe she couldn’t face up to what people would have thought about her.
Maybe she believed that she couldn’t give her baby much of a life
and believed that this family would.
Who knows?
She left her baby in a basket on a family’s doorstep.

And that family, on discovering this gift at their doorstep,
opened the gift even as they opened their hearts
and welcomed that little child in as though she were their own.

And they loved her.
Loved her through her first words and first steps and first days at school.
Love her through tears and laughter,
through scraped knees and days filled with sunshine.
Loved her as though she was their own.
They loved her.

When this little girl was twelve years old
her birth mother, who had since married her birth father,
wanted her back.

How it happened or why it happened I don’t know
but this little girl was returned to her birth parents.

The gift was taken back.
And loving hearts were broken  -
the hearts of that little girl and those who had become her family.
For four years they lived apart.  Four years that felt like forever passed.
And when she was sixteen that little girl left that home
and returned to the doorstep where she had been placed as a baby
and was welcomed in, as she had been taken in, those many years ago.
Loving doors once again were opened to her.
Loving arms once again embraced her.
Loving hearts once again welcomed her.

And that little girl, gift that she was, grew up.
She grew up into a fine woman …
married a man she dearly loved and who loved her back …
was blessed with a family of her own …
and possessed a heart filled with love.

And along the way, many came to her doorstep –
the doorstep of her heart.
And they were welcomed.
And loved.

As she had once been a gift wrapped in a blanket
and left on a doorstep for someone to take in,
she continued to be a gift to countless people
who came to the doorstep of her heart –
and she welcomed them in.

“If I speak in the tongue of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

“If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,
but have not love, I gain nothing.”
_________________________________

Where is “home” for you?  Who is “home” for you?

He was just a teenager.
He had been brought to the funeral home in a police vehicle
and was escorted across the doorstep into the building by two officers.
His hands and feet were manacled.

His father’s funeral service, which I was presiding at that day, was about to begin.

His was no petty crime.
His was no misdemeanour.
His was no slap on the wrist for bad behaviour.
He had killed his father.

His father had been an abusive man.
He hadn’t always been that way.
The boy’s mother had seen things in him to love.
His mother loved him so much she married him.
But love gets twisted around, sometimes,
and things get lost along the way, sometimes.

Through the years, growing up in that home,
he had been witness to the abuse.
First it was verbal violence.
Then it was physical violence.
And although he and his siblings had been abused,
it was his mother who was the recipient of most of the abuse.
His mother had become, in many ways,
the doormat for his father’s outrage and anger.

Until that day.
His father had come home.
Drunk.
Belligerent.
Explosive.

 

They were in the kitchen
when the father was about to strike the mother.
The son stepped between them …
told his father to leave his mother alone.
When the father shoved the son aside
the boy took a knife from the kitchen counter,
and pleading with his father to stop hitting his mother
and getting no reply other than the yelling and hitting,
he stabbed his father.
His father died.

And there he was at the funeral home.
Hands and feet manacled.
He had been charged with manslaughter.
His father was dead.
But the beating had stopped.
His father was dead.
But his mother was alive – and safe.

It was for love that he had done it.  For love of his mother.

“Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
_________________________________

Where is “home” for you?  Who is “home” for you?

They gather down at the David Busby Street Centre.
“They” gather, as if “they” were not like us.
We speak of them as “those” people, as if, somehow we were better than them.

Why are they there?  What’s it all about?
What circumstances or what choices have placed them on that doorstep?
Perhaps she grew up in a home where a relative sexually abused her.
Perhaps he grew up in a home where his life meant nothing to anyone.
Perhaps she was degraded, like one bride I knew, by a father
who said to her through the years: “No one will ever love you.”
Perhaps he, like many I know, was told, when he was sixteen,
that he had to move out and make it on his own.

We don’t know what “perhaps” has brought people to that doorstep.

Perhaps they befriended people who loved them, cared for them
but who led them down a dark path of alcohol or drugs.
But it was better than home.
Any kind of love would be better than home.

We don’t know what “perhaps” has brought people to that doorstep.

Perhaps she left an abusive relationship
and having no way to support herself
has found herself on that doorstep seeking help.

Perhaps he is trying to get his life together
but his record makes it difficult to find work
and he has found his way to that doorstep.

We don’t know what “perhaps” has brought people to that doorstep.

But they are there.
The lost.
The troubled.
The passed-by.
The ignored.
The walking wounded.

There they are and there they are welcomed.
And like that baby that was left at a doorstep
they have been welcomed in and helped.
The hall at the Street Centre is their living room.
It’s not like most of our living rooms.
It’s smelly and noisy and raucous.
But there’s coffee there.
And conversation.
And people prepared to listen, and help.
They have crossed the doorstep of their hearts and have been welcomed in.
And wherever love welcomes there is hope.

“Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.”
_________________________________

Now this may not sound like much of a Mother’s Day message
or as many in church circles call it – Christian Family Sunday.

This may not feel like much of a Mother’s Day message.
But it is, and it is the message we need to hear.
This is what happens in families …
this is what happens to people …
to more people than we dare think about.

I grew up  in the 1950’s when television was just beginning.
From 1954 until 1963 I watched “Father Knows Best.”
I can tell you that most families
are not like Jim and Margaret Anderson’s family
with Betty and Bud and Kathy growing up
in an idyllic home in an idyllic community
where “Father” always “knows best” …
where love prevails and family security is always intact.

I can tell you that most families
are not like the Cleaver family
with Ward and June and Wally and Theodore, the “Beaver,”
where the father is always wise and the mother is always insightful,
a family where love and respect and happy endings are the order of the day.
But thank God many are.
          And they are because when things are wrong there is forgiveness …
                   they are because when things are broken, the mending begins …
                             they are because when things are difficult they work them out …
                                      they are because when trouble comes they stand together …
                                                they are because they work at loving and all that loving means.
                                               
And if we’re wise we’ll discover that LOVE  -
capital “L” … capital “O” … capital “V” … capital “E”  -
isn’t an option for anyone.
LOVE is a necessity.

Where is “home” for you?  Who is “home” for you?

Let me tell you a beautiful story,
a story that speaks not only of the necessity of love
but of love’s transforming power.

Once upon a time there was a great woman
who married the man of her dreams.
With their love, they created a little boy.
He was a bright and cheerful little boy
and the great woman loved him very much.

When he was very little, she would pick him up,
hum a tune and dance with him around the room,
and she would tell him, “I love you, little boy.”

When the little boy was growing up,
the great woman would hug him and tell him, “I love you, little boy.”
The little boy would pout and say, “I’m not a little boy anymore.”
But the woman would laugh and say,
“But to me you’ll always be my little boy.”

The little boy who-was-not-so-little-anymore left his home and went into the world.
As he learned more about himself, he learned more about this great woman.
He saw that she truly was great and strong,
for now he recognized her strengths.
One of her strengths was her ability to express her love to her family.
It didn’t matter where he went in the world,
the woman would call and say, “I love you, little boy.”

The day came when the boy who-was-not-so-little-anymore
received a phone call.
The great woman was damaged.
She had had a stroke.
She was aphasic, they explained to the boy.
She couldn’t talk anymore
and they weren’t sure that she could understand the words spoken to her.
She could no longer smile, laugh, walk, hug, dance
or tell the little boy who-was-not-so-little-anymore that she loved him.

And so he went to the side of the great woman.
When he walked into the room and saw her,
she looked small and not so strong at all.
She looked at him and tried to speak, but she could not.

The little boy did the only thing her could do.
He climbed up on the bed beside the great woman.
Tears ran from both of their eyes
and he drew his arms around the useless shoulders of his mother.

He thought of many things.
He remembered the wonderful times together
and how he had always felt protected and cherished by the great woman.
He felt grief for the loss he was to endure,
the words of love that had comforted him.

And then he heard from within the woman the beat of her heart.
The heart where the music and the words had always lived.
The heart beat on, steadily,
unconcerned about the damage to the rest of the body.
And while he rested there, the magic happened.
He heard what he needed to hear.
Her heart beat out the words that her mouth could no longer say …
          I love you
          I love you
          I love you
          Little boy
          Little boy
          Little boy.

It was over the doorstep of her heart that he had crossed
and heard the words “I love you, little boy.”
But he more than heard them.
He felt them.
And he felt safe and secure and wanted and blessed because of them.

And although he could no longer hear those words
the beat of her heart shouted them loud and clear.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.”

Where is “home” for you?  Who is “home” for you?

Wherever it is, whoever it is,
may the doorstep of your home
and the doorstep of your heart always be a welcoming place
                                                                                                                   a loving place
                                                                                                          a safe place.
                                                                                                May love always be your necessity.

Soli  Deo  Gloria