ACL, Awe, Curiosity and Love for Christ

It is not good for man to be alone.

In his recent book, “Together”,

Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general of the United States,

laid out the epidemic of loneliness that currently exists.

He maintains this loneliness epidemic predates COVID,

but certainly with COVID, it has become evident to all of us

how important we are to each other,

how much we need each other.

He does not mean just the nuclear family,

but that we need each other in settings like this.

It is innate in us.

We are made to connect with one another.

And that is the antidote to loneliness,

connection in gatherings like this, family gatherings,

connection in extended family gatherings.

You have heard me talk about this book before.

It is a powerful read because he makes this link

between loneliness and connecting

with one another to fight against it.

What is the interesting thing in the first reading

from the book of Genesis is that

we were made this way, God created us this way.

Genesis lays out this ancient parable or mythical archetype

that God has created us for each other.

And we hold this up as the ideal of marriage

that man and woman come together

for the sake of family and community.

We know that is a good thing for society.

In fact, every society, since early days

have been built on the fabric of family.

How important it is that we love one another inside the family

and that becomes, if you would,

the social fabric of our community

which is relied upon and woven together.

But in today’s gospel, Jesus brings up a very difficult subject.

The Pharisees bring up maybe not a honest question

because they were not really trying to ask him question,

they are really trying to trick him to try and test him.

But with this question about divorce,

Jesus does what he always does.

He answers the questions in a roundabout way

and then reframes the question to where they are blind.

First of all, he says that Moses wrote

this command of a divorce because of your hardness of heart.

He does not blame the divorcing couples.

He blames the religious leaders and their hardness of hearts.

Then he turns it around with a very curious issue.

We see that the evangelist Luke reframes this and looks at children.

It is sort of like a cognitive dissonance.

Wait, we are talking about marriage.

Then he reframes it by looking at children.

He tells them just how important children are in this view.

I know of no one who plans to get divorced.

No one goes into a marriage intending it to fail.

I have prepared over 200 couples for marriage.

Every one of them are eager for it to work.

And they have made every effort to make it work.

But sometimes life happens in ways

that disagreements and conflicts happen.

Maybe it is because of the wounds of one

or the wounds of the other, or maybe it is the wounds of both.

Things are said that can not be unsaid.

And there are real differences that become insurmountable.

The reality is that separation and divorce are sometimes

the best option of all bad options.

And as difficult, as painful as that is,

it is the best that those people can do in those current situations.

We all know some people who are divorced,

some in fact are here today, and they are doing the best they can,

given what has happened in their life.

The intention is that all the people

who I know who have gotten divorced

would never give up on the ideal of marriage,

even though themselves have been subject to a breakdown.

They do not want to give up on the ideal

and often will try again to live up to that ideal

and often succeed with great love in their lives.

But here is the part that is super important.

Their commitment is still to love.

Their commitment is to love one another.

Their commitment is to be together with others

in whatever way that they can be now and to love others.

This is true for all of us.

We are called to be together and love one another.

I want to come back to this last section where Jesus brings up the children.

What are the attributes of a child that Jesus holds up?

He says, you have to be like this child to enter the kingdom of God.

There are a couple attributes.

First of all, a child knows that it is dependent on love.

They need to love and reach out.

A child reaches out all the time, “Love me, love me!”

They reach out their hands and

they constantly give their heart away to be loved.

They are aware of their dependence on love.

And that is what God wants for all of us.

He wants us to know that we are loved

and he wants us to reach out to him and be loved

and to love like a child.

It is so beautiful to see a child just reach out their hands.

They do this all the time and there is no sort of judgment to it.

It is just love me, hold me, take me like, just love me.

It is a beautiful thing that children do.

I just returned last night from our pilgrimage

and I had a long trip home.

I finished the pilgrimage in Greece and Turkey

and then I flew to Vienna for a Stanford class reunion.

Then I flew from Vienna to San Francisco last night.

So I had all this time, and it is a lot of time in the airports.  

One of the things I love to see while traveling

is how children and parents interact.

God bless the parents; it is a lot of work!

You guys know when you are traveling with kids,

they push all your buttons.

But what is beautiful, and this is true of every father or mother,

Turkish, Greek, Austrian American, African, Indonesian,

it does not matter where they are from.

They love their children.

And when their child reaches out their hand,

“Daddy, mommy!” they come running.

Whether it is over a bag or whether it is through the plane,

it does not matter what is in the way.

The exchange of that love is beautiful to see.

That is what the Lord wants for us.

He wants us to reach out and to be loved and to love.

That is the thing Jesus holds up as a model for children.

They ask about divorce and he focuses on love,

on what the most in life.

Now to finish, I want to share with you,

that I asked a friend of mine who is been married over 60 years.

He is just a wonderful man full of love

and loves his wife and kids with grandkids

and great grandkids with great affection.

So I asked, “What is the secret of being married so long?”

And immediately answers “ACL.”

I said, “Your knee ACL!”

“No, no, no, no. Not that. ACL, it is an acronym.”

He said, “Awe, Curiosity and Love.”

He said, “I am always in awe and wonder at my wife.

Awe, about what she continues to do for me and what she is for me.

I am always curious because she is constantly,

even now, teaching me new things I never knew.

Even after 65 years, I am still finding out things I never knew.

And finally, all things in love.

I love her and I allow her to love me

in my best times, in my worst times.

And I love her in her best times and her worst times ACL.”

Not bad advice.

That is what children can do for us.

They always have wonder and awe.

They are always curious and they are always loving.

So today, whether we are married one year or 65 years,

whether we are divorced and remarried,

or whether we are not married at all,

may we remember awe, curiosity, and love and let love to the end.

It is not good for man to be alone.