St. Paul's Episcopal Church

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
425 Cleveland Ave SW
Canton, Ohio 44702
Phone: 330-455-0286
Fax: 330-455-9818
E-mail: office@stpaulscanton.org

Sixth Sunday of Easter
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Canton OH
Acts 10: 44-48, Psalm 98, John 15: 9-17

May 17, 2009
The Rev. Barbara L Bond

Loving with the right side of our brains

Have you ever heard of the right side of your brain? And how it is really different from the left side? This isn’t just a metaphor – our brains do have two sides, and depending on which side we trust and use the most, we can come to very different expressions.

Our society loves the left side of the brain – that is where the sharp analytical thinking takes place, where computer programmers work, where all the facts are stored. With our left brains, we can be precise, we can be sharp and definite, we can reel off facts and figures. Probably the best developed left brain usage is in mathematicians, lawyers, scientists, and folks who know they are right!

But the other side of the brain has its good points too. The right side encourages us to free-associate, to feel emotions, to express ourselves poetically, to feel music and art, touchy-feely things that are not so precise, but which add great beauty to our world. One way to access the right side of your brain is to work with your left hand, if you are right-handed. Left hand: right brain. It works the opposite way if you are left-handed – lefties can access their poetic side by using their right hands.

Some of these truths came home to me this past week, when I attended a clergy conference. Here was a whole room full of pointy-headed erudite clergy – well, at least we thought we were -- very much in control and good at all that Bible stuff – and we were being led into strange language exercises by a poet. Poet Marie Howe held us captive and led us through exercises that connected us to the imaginative side of our brains. About sixty priests and five bishops participated. We wrote with our non-dominant hand – in my case, with my left hand. And strange stuff starting pouring out, freed up from our control, released from the need to make perfect sense.

With this freeing exercise in mind, I read today’s lessons with a different lens. We did not read the psalm appointed for today, because we sang a paraphrase in Hymn 412. But in Psalm 98, and in the hymn we sang, “Sing to the Lord a new song for he has done marvelous things.” Isn’t that the truth! And the psalm continues, “With his right hand and his holy arm has he won for himself the victory.” OK, assuming that God is right-handed, God has won a victory with God’s dominant hand. With my left hand, I have seen beyond my own controlling vision into a world much larger than I had understood. I see into the world of poetry. And the Gospel of John is poetry.

So what Jesus is saying in our reading from John makes sense, if I think about it being written with the left hand. If God’s right hand writes of victory, God’s left hand writes of love. Jesus in John’s Gospel tells us to abide in his love: that we love one another as he loves us. These are words sometimes read at weddings, and the couple pledges their love to each other and in front of witnesses. Notice, though, that Jesus doesn’t say, “Abide in love.” He says, “Abide in my love.” And how do we do that? Jesus continues, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Jesus is asking us to love the way Jesus loves. The marrying couple I mentioned before probably doesn’t hear all that: they probably just hear the part that says, “Abide in love.” And they are very prepared to do that! Our whole society is wrapped up in the same assumption.

But we are hearing it all today, and hearing that Jesus invites us into a much bigger love than just our spouse, or our family, or those like us. If the left side of our brain is discerning and tight and precise, the right side is fuzzier, without the controlling edges. Through this poetic scripture in the Gospel of John, Jesus invites us into a love much bigger than our narrow understanding. Jesus invites us into an all-inclusive vision. We are asked to love everyone. Everyone.

In our first reading from Acts, we hear about Peter suddenly understanding what Jesus meant. He and Cornelius, a Roman solider, had each had a dream that led them toward each other – one coming from an exclusively Jewish world, the other from an exclusively gentile world. Peter thought Jesus’ words were only for the Jews. But suddenly he was in a gentile’s home, and he got it. Astonished, Peter says, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” (10:34) And then, as if to prove it, “the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. [Peter’s Jewish followers] were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.”

God’s love falls on all of us, and Jesus commands us to abide in that inclusive love, following his example. Love everyone. Not just the Episcopalians. Love everyone. Not just the ones who agree with you. Love everyone. Not just the ones who bathe regularly. Love everyone, even the rat-finks and the jerks. God shows no partiality. Why should we?