The Graduation of Helena Casenave
Class of 2016, Summa Cum Laude
Romans 12: 9-18
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
SUMMA CUM LAUDE
There are many kinds of sermons. Some sermons teach about the Bible, some give practical life instruction, some focus all their attention on the challenges of living in a fallen world, and others call our attention to the glories of God and our heavenly destiny. But there is another kind of sermon, one that points to the Lord by reflecting upon the life of a saint.
Poet Edgar Guest said somewhat famously:
“I would rather see a sermon than hear one any day.”
Today’s sermon wrote itself, for it has been written by the life, witness and ministry of Helena Casenave, a child of God, lover of Christ, and faithful member of this congregation for many years. What is more, her life is for us a sermon that is easy to see.
Be Good to Each Other
In our text from Romans, Paul instructs the church at Rome—and by extension, us—to be good to each other.
Stay positive.
Lift one another up.
The part of us that criticizes, or puts others down—the part that measures and judges others—needs to be silenced and put in its place. It is hard work, but it is part of our discipline in following Jesus.
We have an earthly example of this in Helena Casenave.
Witness
The Bible uses a great word for living the kind of life of love that truly reflects the nature and character of Christ. That word in Greek is martyr; in English it is witness. A witness is one who points beyond him or herself to another—one whose life and lifestyle gives a testimony to another.
When Christians talk about witnessing, they often mean “talking about the Gospel of Jesus” or sharing the good news with a stranger, but I would remind us again of Edgar Guest’s quote: that the world would rather see a sermon than hear one. It is a life rightly-lived that points beyond oneself to another, and it is our goal, Growing in Christ and Making Him Known, to point beyond ourselves to our Lord Jesus.
The qualities of Helena’s life that we celebrate are those traits through which we saw her pointing to her Lord. Her witness. Helena’s was indeed a mature Christianity, a kind of witness every one of us can happily imitate, emulate, and otherwise aspire toward.
What Does the New Life in Christ Look Like?
When we use words like “justified” or “sanctified,” what we really mean is that those who seek to live the new life in Christ ought to look qualitatively different from the way they did before. The greatest witness is a changed life. What does that new life in Christ look like? I tell you today it looks a lot like Helena.
Love, light, goodness, life, even innocence—it is altogether winsome. To say it is winsome means that it changes others and charges them with positivity.
To spend any time at all with Helena was to be positively charged. It was as if her good will and loving affirmation were transferred onto you, making you lighter and sweeter, more positive and willing to give that same goodness to others.
If you knew Helena, you get what I’m saying completely.
Helena loved me. I know it. I felt it. She never failed to bless me with good words and her sweet, sweet heart. It feels like it was personal even if it is not! It doesn’t matter. It was in her to love me not because I was her pastor but because she was loving.
God’s love works this same way: God’s love is not measuring; it is making.
Love builds up others; it does not take them apart through analysis or criticism. We don’t need all of that. All we need is a positive charge, not a negative.
Some find this troublesome and worrying. They imagine that life, family and society would fall apart if all we did was build each other up all the time:
[in character, wimpy, whiny]: “But if we’re only positive all the time, society would fall apart, everybody would be okay and no one would get corrected by me and my friends and I wouldn’t be able to judge others all the time, which I truly enjoy….”
ending the Inner Pharisee
Part of the Christian witness—part of the necessary work of our discipleship—is killing off the inner Pharisee that is in each one of us. We need to let it go, let it be crucified on the cross of Christ.
To say we renounce judgmentalism does not mean that we have no rules or standards—we need to raise children with a knowledge of the law and train them in righteousness—but as adults, we do not treat each other as children. It’s not your job to be measuring another Christian’s worth or spirituality.
In the Bible we see that Jesus, the revelation of God’s total and complete love, had judgment only for the judgmental. He never targeted run-of-the-mill sinners with angry words—those were saved for the “Righteous Ones,” the Pharisees and the anxiously devout. He was ruthless only with the ruthless, judging only with the judgmental. He was the friend of sinners, the friend to Israel’s enemies, and lover of every soul.
We need to kill off the inner Pharisee; something I think we saw in Helena.
We really don’t need that judgmental self. In fact, the part of us that criticizes and judges tends to get in the way of that other part of us that loves and builds up one another.
How do we do it?
One way is that we learn from others who have done it first. Like Helena.
Positively Loving
Can we do it? Here? Now? Can we agree that we don’t have to be right all the time, but that we just have to love?
TEST: Fill in the blank:
I would rather be right than __________.
What would you put there? I would rather be right than wrong? Of course, we all would. But I think we have our inner Pharisee revealed to us when we put other words in that spot. Would I rather be right than happy? I might say no way, but is my need to be right hurting my happiness or more importantly, the happiness of others?
Would I rather be right than joyous? Or rather be right than at peace? A good deal of our fighting comes from the need to be right. But there is one that is more important than all to followers of Jesus: Would you rather be right than loving? Here is the acid test. Does your need to be right ever keep you from showing or giving love? Ever? That is your inner Pharisee! That is what Jesus most clearly disdained. That is what you and I would improve our witness to renounce, expel, and/or otherwise exorcise.
Can we let it all go today? It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been negative, snippy, snobby, or high-horsed. What if we all just…let it go?
What would it be like if we were to simply, here and now, pronounce one another forgiven—all forgiven—and live the new life from here on? What would it look like?
Imagine an entire community of Helenas: people loving one another and building each other up, outdoing each other only in showing honor. What would that be like?
Scary for some.
[in character] “Question: But what would I be without my judgments?”
A: Better.
“But we would be so vulnerable—people out there might try to take advantage of us!”
Really? Did we with Helena?
We have everything to gain, nothing to lose but our sin and misery.
Q: “But how can we sustain it? We might come to the altar in tears now, but in two or three days we’ll be back to our old, normal, judgmental selves?”
A: We need a covenant, a collective agreement. We need to feed on good stuff and reject the bad. Every time we lower ourselves to “righteousness” we must return to love and the spirit of Christ.
An Exercise
Think of some difficult people in your life. People unlike yourself who see things differently than you. People who dislike you, think you’re wrong, or even those who may be hounding you. How can you love them and build them up?
Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. That is the high bar, that is truly mature Christian love, that is where we are all headed.
If Helena had enemies, I don’t know who they were. She had love for everyone and saw the beauty of Jesus Christ in every one.
How much better would our lives be if we all played that way?
If you really loved everyone else, how do you think you feel about your own life? I guarantee: you would feel happier—more whole and complete.
And how do you think others would feel about you? Would they be anxious at your approach, wondering how to cover themselves, where and how to guard and block? No, they would be happy at your arrival and uplifted after your departure.
What would happen to a congregation of Christians who all agreed to silence their inner Pharisees and to practice outdoing one another in showing honor—in building each other up with Christlike love?
What would an entire congregations of Helenas look like? How would it feel?
Let’s find out, shall we? Whatever it is that made Helena Casenave so irretrievably kind and positive, I pray that it is catching, that we all become infected, and never ever recover.
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