You GET to Love

[This message was shared at the funeral for Edith, a ninety-one year old member of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Matthew 22:36-40
1 John 4:10
During my first visit with Edith about a month-and-a-half ago at the Logan Health Care center, I asked her, as I often ask nursing home residents, how she liked living there. Her answer came in an instant. She liked it very much, she told me.

Now, I have to tell you that I don’t always get an answer like that. Moving into a nursing home after a lifetime of independence is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone. Rare is the person who can look past those feelings to accept the necessity of their new living situation. But Edie did accept it.

Why is that?

I got a few clues as our visit proceeded. For example, immediately after telling me that she liked being at Logan Health Care, she said, “We’re one big family here.”

As if to confirm that, a short time later, as I was preparing to share Holy Communion with her, Edith said, “There’s a man in the next room who likes to take Communion when I do. Would that be okay?” That was more than okay with me. So, Hubert came to Edie’s room and received Holy Communion at the same time.

Part of the reason that Edith adjusted so well to life in a nursing home, then, is that she was willing to do the work necessary to create a kind of family with the other residents and the staff at Logan Health Care.

This is remarkable, when you think about it. Edith after all, was already part of a family. And, boy, did she love that family! During that first visit I had with her and almost every time I visited with her in the hospital, Edie spoke with me about her sons, Chuck and Robert and their wives, Eva and Kay. She never failed to mention that she loved them and was proud of them.

In the time since that first visit, I’ve learned more about Edie and her sense of family. The other day, Mr. Brown, the local funeral director, told me about his long association with Chuck and through him, with Edith. He talked about the cards he often received from her. Often, she signed them, “Mom Eaton.”

What this tells me is not only that her family was important to Edith, but also that her family included more than just those related to her.

I get this same sense about Edith when I talk with people at Saint Matthew. And I can tell you that to them, Edie was more than just a name on the church roster. She was a beloved member of our Christian family!

In short, Edith seemed to know how to love, to make people feel valued and included. That is a special gift, one which, by all accounts, she exhibited with good humor. This gift, in fact, cuts to the very heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, you remember, was once asked what the greatest commandment from God is. Jesus, summarizing all the laws found in the Old Testament, said, “'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind'...And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’"

All of God’s laws and the words of all the prophets, Jesus goes on to say, are built on these two commands.

God our Father wants His family, the entire human race, to be held together by the strong bonds of love made available to us through Jesus Christ.

But, let’s face it, it’s not often that you and I see people who exhibit the capacity to love in this way, to treat so many as though they are part of “one big family,” the way Edith did.

If she could be with us right now, I suspect that Edith would tell us the source of her capacity to live so differently, to love so expansively didn't come from inside of her.

She might point to words from the apostle John, who writes in the New Testament, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

God loved us before we were even born. He died on a cross for us and rose from the dead for us before were ever knew that we needed a Savior. Edith believed in this Savior, she trusted Him with her life. It was Jesus Christ Who gave her her remarkable capacity to love!

Years ago, an eminent Methodist bishop spoke to a gathering of Church leaders and admitted, “For forty years, I’ve gotten it wrong. I’ve been telling people, ‘You’ve got to love. You’ve got to love.’ But what I should have been saying is, ‘You get to love.’”

Deep inside of us all, we want to love others as God first loved us through Jesus Christ. We want others to get a sense of the love that changed our lives forever when God sent His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will never perish, but have everlasting life.

Edie, it seems to me from meeting her and talking with those who knew her, went beyond wanting to live like that to actually, very often, living like that.

As you grieve your loss, dear family and friends, the greatest memorial you can erect in Edith's honor is to follow the Savior she followed and to remember that through Jesus Christ, Who loved you from a cross and an empty tomb, you get to love. You get to treat others as though they were part of one big family.

I think that Edith would like it if you lived like that!