This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

This Tuesday, The Rev. Diely- Betsy- and I drove up to St. Stephen’s Wilkes-Barre for a diocesan clergy day.And there, three blocks from the Church, was a detour. The road was closed. It was torn up and workers were swarming all over it to repave it.

So I turned left and traveled one block. But that street was one way in the wrong one way.  So I drove one more block. And turned. And missed my turn. And went too far. To another one way street in the wrong one way.  So I drove blocks and blocks trying to get back  to Franklin Street.

The best I can say is that Betsy stopped me from crossing the river.

At one point, we thought our surest plan would be to get back on the interstate and try the city streets all over again.  A do over. We laughed. Thinking how we’d explain ourselves.

It was a classic case of "you can’t get there from here."

Ten minutes later, I was parking the car in Boscov’s lot. The Church is across the street. We were late. We were forgiven our tardiness.

That round about journey, circling St. Stephen’s,  got me to thinking.

You can’t get there from here.

What keeps us from living in the love, abiding in the love, Jesus holds out for us?

What keeps us circling and unable to love one another  as Christ loves us?

What are the roadblocks we face? And the wrong turns we make? Why can’t we get there from here?

Three thoughts: We are going too fast, we are too car driven, and we are so focused on the destination that we loose the sense of journey and adventure.

Now, remember, I’m not really talking about cars and speed limits. I’m talking about what it means to practice the presence of God, about abiding with Christ and loving one another.

Remember the song "Slow down, you’re going too fast"?

Of course, we are going too fast. No one is going to argue that. Speed kills.                                          And it robs us of many opportunities to be present to one another and to love one another.

Think of Jesus.

He walked. Traveling about 4 miles an hour. Talking to his companions. Looking at the homes, businesses and countryside.

Can you tell me what’s going on on Chestnut Street? Any new shops? Yes.

How about your neighborhood?  Any new faces? Families?

Walking 4 miles an hour, Jesus could hear blind Bartimaeus call out,                                               "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me."

And the woman, who had spent all her money seeking a cure from the doctors,                                  could reach out and touch the hem of his robe.

Recently, I watched a group of young people... a posse..., they are now college graduates and still hanging out together. One of them had a serious skiing accident in high school and he uses a wheel chair. This group didn’t dash from place to place. They oozed and ambled. Sort of going at their friend’s speed. Whoever was closest bumped him up and down steps. Car doors stayed open, and they talked back and forth, until he was seated. Then they drove off in a caravan. Now they weren’t going 4 miles an hour. But they had their own loving pace.

A colleague came back from a three-moth sabbatical, he wrote in an on-lline post that he had been asked what he had learned that would help the church. "The most important thing I learned," he wroste in all seriousness, "is how to breathe in and breathe out."  He had not yet learned how to meditate, but he now knew how to sit quietly for a few moments and breathe in and breathe out. He continued, "And I am learning how, in those moments, to be aware of how Jesus sits with me and loves me. I imagine myself "reclining" like the beloved disciple, sitting with Jesus and leaning on his shoulder, abiding in his love.

Abide in my love.

I think we think we are to abide in our cars! Our SUVs. Our Vans.                                                        We eat in them. Fast food, of course. We watch videos in them.                                                          We are very vehicle oriented. We are car driven.

Have you seen the current Volkswagen tv ad?

There is a couple in a Volkswagen. He’s driving. She’s in the passenger seat. And she’s holding a bull horn. People in the cars around them— a Lexus, a BMW, a Saab– all have bull horns too. And they are using them.

LOOK AT ME. SEE THE CAR I DRIVE!                                                                                                 LOOK AT ME. SEE THE CAR I OWN!

So the couple looks at one another. He nods. She throws the bull horn out the window. They smile and . . The voice over says... "Low ego emissions."

Low ego emissions.

I like that.

It seems sometimes we are so full of ourselves  that there is no room for another, for others.

Frank Sinatra’s song, "I did it my way." may be a great song for one of the would be American Idol’s to sing. But it is bad theology.

Think of Jesus.

St. Paul describes how God emptied himself, humbled himself, taking the form of a servant, a slave...and then Jesus bends to wash the feet of his disciples.

M. Scott Peck, in his best selling book,  The Road Less Traveled, wrote that love is an act of will...the decision to act for another’s mental, physical. emotional  and spiritual well-being and growth.

The major way we act in love is to pay attention to the other.                                                             The major way we pay attention is to listen to the other.                                                                   And when we listen, we must self-empty.

If we are full of our own voice, our own agenda, our own solution or answer to their concern, we can not listen.

So in loving, we let go.                                                                                                                       We let go, and let God into that relationship.

Do you remember the bumper stickers that read... God is my co pilot?                                                Well, how about the retort... If God is your co pilot, you are in the wrong seat.

We have trouble letting go and letting God. Letting God be the pilot.                                                   And then loving others and ourselves becomes a burden.

We tend to treat love as a kind of goal-oriented affection. We love so that something will happen to somebody.

Can we find that way, that balance, where loving is just a holy thing to do? Not a means to an end?

We love because God first loved us.

Today we are blessed to baptize Matt and Susan’s son. There he is...loved. And returning that love. He’s not speeding... he’s not even creeping and crawling yet. He may be full of himself but he’s drinking us all in...taking everything in with delight. Learning and growing with each breath. He has no agenda other than the immediate needs of warmth, food and the attention of others.

He doesn’t have to do a thing to earn love. To deserve love. He is love. He is loved. He loves.

And he is a wonderful icon of what it means to Abide in my love. Love one another as I have loved you.

SAFE TRAVEL and GOD SPEED.