My brother, John, made Allstate Gold Band playing the bassoon and maybe Silver band on his marching band instrument the tuba. John made the Madison Scouts drum and bugle corps and played his bassoon in college bands and ensembles. These days John plays the guitar for fun and plays bassoon in a community orchestra. His wife Rebecca had many operatic leads in college, and while raising two children Rebecca taught music in various middle and high schools as she moved with John, who is also a Methodist preacher. My Baptist parents raised two Methodist preachers! At one family gathering Rebecca played the piano, John the bassoon, 12 year Richard his trumpet and 9 year old Sammy played her flute to a piece that John arranged for them as a family band! Beautiful! 

When we were children John and I rode our bikes over to our piano teachers apartment for lessons. I called John on Monday, and asked about his lessons. John said, “At first piano lessons were not the most fun thing in the universe, but at some point I began to understand that I was learning a second musical language. I felt my brain unlocking new musical experiences and it intrigued me.  I learned the foundations of music that have enriched the rest of my life”.

That was not my experience. 

John always took the first lesson, while I rode around the block. If I timed my ride just right, I would not be there when John called for me and he got another 5 minutes. My lesson began with an inquisition into my practicing. Perhaps, Mrs Marks did not know what to do when I did not progress.  I fumbled along. She sighed and pointed out my many missed notes. I rarely looked at her, felt sick and just hoped the lesson would end before I burst into tears. Five years of lessons did nothing for me except plant a deep resentment in me for Mrs Marks.  

In five years, Mrs Marks never asked me what I was struggling with.  My piano teacher did not care enough to link my struggles in school with my struggles on the piano bench.  My dyslexia sometimes made the letter B look like a D or 12 look like 2, so those lines and dots on the musical score just look like an unintelligible squiggly mess. Just sitting on the piano bench felt like failure. Every lesson ended with judgment:  “Paul, if you would practice more like John- Oh John Cellon-that is a musician” Monday, my generous brother told me how Jimmy Hendrix never learned to read the dot and lines of music, instead Hendrix developing his own unique and elaborate annotation system inside spiral notebooks. Some of you may know that Jimi Hendrix’s in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. No doubt, John, the star of the Purdue musical scene, suffered some secondary trauma watching me be bullied each week. John gently added, “sometimes when Rebecca is teaching a piano lesson, I imagine you as a child sitting on the piano bench. Rebecca is not focused on your missed notes, she sings the notes with you tuning your ear and hands so that you can access the music along a different neural pathway. Rebecca has done this hundreds of times with her piano students.” 

I hated the piano bench. It is hard to love what produces fear, anxiety, and a sense of your imminent doom.   If church first feels like a judgment, if the church gives you the name “sinner”, if you feel unloved and condemned to hell,  it is hard to show love to your neighbors, because maybe you do not know you are loved or can love yourself.  If you do not feel loved by God, or understand God’s love as steadfast, immovable, and never-ever failing then it may be almost impossible to love your neighbors, much less your enemies. If we conceive of God as an angry judge, the great scorekeeper, one who expects every note of our life and every letter of our creed to be perfect, we will struggle to show love.  It is hard to pass along love, we do not have.  So how do you conceive of God? Is She a teacher who names your faults or one who sings along with you until the lessons of love resound deep in your heart and flow through your hands sewing love into the world?  

1 John 4 is a good test of any theological creed: Love is from God… God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them.  Have confidence on the Judgment Day- (you are loved!) There is no fear in love.  Perfect love drives out fear, because fear is connected to punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love.  We love because God first loved us. God is love. (Adapted)

Do we baptize our theology in the Love of God? Do we let love wash away all the theological dross?  Do we move beyond theology that shackles with a heavy burden, pushes down beneath a load of religious guilt and church shame? Do we believe that God so loved the world that God came into the world and still abides with us today? Do we soak in belovedness until we understand that God is Love, we are loved, they are loved: all people are loved? 

At times, I may have been guilty of making the Fruits of the Spirit a kind of test: are we producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Maybe we should ask, are we abiding in God’s presence- are we dwelling in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and serenity? If I know God loves me, rejoices in me, stirs peace within me, is patient with me , is kind, good, faithful, gentle, and serene, then having been Loved, I am empowered to love. My experience of  Love expands my capacity to love others as myself.  Feeling Divine acceptance, I allow God’s deep embrace to flow out through me into the world. 

Hear again the theology of God’s steadfast immovable Love they sang in ancient Temple. . 

Let my whole being bless the Lord!
    Let everything inside me bless God’s holy name!
Let us never forget all God’s good deeds:
    how God forgives all your sins, heals all your sickness,
    saves your life from the pit,
    crowns you with faithful love and compassion, 

(Imagine God placing a crown on love and compassion on your head)
    

God satisfies you with plenty of good things
        so that your youth is made fresh like an eagle’s.

(Slow down and name 1 good thing)

The Lord works righteousness;
    does justice for all who are oppressed.
The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
    very patient, and full of faithful love.

(Where do you need to be patient and merciful with yourself? God is already merciful and patient!)

 
The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
    very patient, and full of faithful love.

God won’t always play the judge; God won’t be angry forever.
The Lord doesn’t deal with us according to our sin
    or repay us according to our wrongdoing,

(What if you imagined you were forgiven for every crappy thing you have ever done? How would that change your living?)
    

As high as heaven is above the earth,
    that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor God.
As far as east is from west— that’s how far God has removed our sin from us.
Like a parent feels compassion for their children—
    that’s how the Lord feels compassion for us. 

Oh that Love might become the language of our faith, that we might understand the ancient truth that “the steadfast love of the Lord never fails us”- new mercy comes every day, God’s forgiveness is boundless. God forgets the sins we cling to. God is very patient- full of love! Friends, God is so loving: She sits on the piano bench with us, rooting us on; She gently sings the notes with us knowing one day the songs of love will find their way into our fingers and move through us out into the world. God is compassionate, merciful, very patient with us. Let us live within that Love.  Amen