Pastor Judy Lee and Good Shepherd Community,
Ft. Myers, Florida
"Blessed be the Tie that Binds"
Today we are told how to live in loving community, especially how to proceed when there is trouble for or with any one of us. There is a hymn I learned a long while ago and I will teach it to you today-these are some of the words:
"Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love:the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above...
We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear,
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
Our comforts and our cares...
When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain:but we shall still be joined in heart ,and hope to meet again."
As I rehearsed this song to teach you tears ran down my face and my voice cracked as I recalled the church and the Pastors and members that I grew up in and whose love continues to nurture: to correct and nurture.
(Here I will place on the altar some pictures of my Pastors and peers, two of whom I just visited in NY where our beloved Pastor struggles with advancing Parkinson's desease).
What I learned then, and I know now is that we not only speak a word of guidance or"correction" in love- spoken otherwise it can hurt more than help. But there are times that it must be spoken. Ezekiel was told that if he did not preach the prophetic word (to God's people collectively (and I think individually) the guilt was "on him". The Psalm tells us that God is our shepherd reaching out to us when we get lost. And I'm so glad because I have no sense of direction! But as we follow Jesus we learn that we must be the good shepherds for one another.
Paul tells the church in Rome that love fulfills the Law, and never hurts anyone. And Jesus tells us how to win a sister or brother back in love one- on- one when a trust has been broken, and if that doesn't work, go with a few and try again and if that doesn't work it is the business of the whole church. And if not heeded, we are to regard that person as an outsider/gentile or tax collector/ fraud or sinner then it will be left up to God. God intervenes and heals and includes as Jesus did with those persons. Wow!!
Here we have it: first, be a loving community and then in that love if there is a probelm to be resolved act directly and in love and with a process. And if together we can't fix it, God can. And then in the Gospel there are the verses used by the Church usually regarding the priest's binding or loosing of sins-but in the total context here, I think it is not "sins to be bound or loosed/forgiven" only (and clearly that is the community's job in this Gospel), but it is PEOPLE who must be bound in love to a community, a church, and the tie that binds us together is Jesus' love and therefore, it lasts forever. The Scriptures go on, if you can AGREE together, in prayer, including the prayer of your communal life, Jesus is in the midst. Wow!
There is another hymn sung in the EpiscopalLutheran church that supports us with their love that now rings in my ears: "bind us together, God, with ties that cannot be broken-bind us together in love!" Yes! in love and guidance and 'correction' like the prophets of old and our Brother Jesus teaches: Bind us together! And Blessed be the tie that binds! AMEN
Love and peace,
Pastor Judy Lee. ARCWP
Church of the Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community
Ft. Myers, Florida
Association of Romann Catholic Women Priests
http://www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org/
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