These are the bees on our roof. Bees work themselves to death. That’s how they die. Well, that and in procreating with the Queen.
The bee hive is an icon, really, to the way we are called to live by Jesus which is why the Mormon faith chose it as their chief symbol for their longings as a church. The bee hive is so close and so interconnected that, in the darkness of the hive, they smell each other and so work together as a community.
We heard on Sunday that God’s call on our lives is to love one another. But what does that mean? How do we do that? Surely it must be more than polite nods in hallways and gentle chats over coffee after church. It must be more than simply sitting next to each other in church or kneeling beside each other at an altar rail.
What is loving each other means to let go? What is love is about releasing our grip on “mine” and opening our fists to let go of that to which we so tightly cling as “mine?”
When Jesus married the church in Holy Week there was no prenup. He just let us have him. And at the Eucharist we symbolize that reality. So what would it look like for us to offer ourselves to each other?
As we encounter this pledging year, we have an opportunity to give ourselves away a bit. I hope we may take the opportunity to learn to love by learning to give.
