Sermon Archive
Sixth Sunday in Easter
Acts 17:22-31
- `For we too are his offspring.'
Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, `To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him-- though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For `In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said,
Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
1 Peter 3:13-22
Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
John 14:15-21
Jesus said to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."
Sermon
The Rev. Susan Norris
"If you love me, and obey the command I give you,
I will ask the One who sent me to give you another Paraclete, another Helper, to be with you always----- the Spirit of Truth . . ." (Inclusive Bible trans.)
In nomine . . .
What does it mean to "love" Jesus?
What does it mean to love God - or indeed, to love anyone at all?
Especially when the idea of love is framed as "obeying the command"
Jesus gives us?
What I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean
is something we parents frequently hear.
"If you really loved me, you would let me do/let me have/let me act like . . ."
Translated - "If you love me, then let me HAVE MY WAY!"
We often hear this passage and other similar statements of Jesus
In that sort of "translation."
We tend to hear, "If you love God-
which you will prove by being a VERY GOOD PERSON -
then I (Jesus) will take care of you and welcome you into heaven when you die.
Otherwise, sister/brother, you are headed for TROUBLE."
Believe me.
that is not a right translation of Jesus' promise to us!
Jesus here says that if we love him, (By) obeying His commandment -
uh, which commandment?
Actually, it's the "new commandment" given earlier in this chapter of John,
"Love one another in the way that I have loved you."
Which begs the question - "In what way have I loved you?"
Well let's see - Jesus took them away from their jobs,
homes, and families, and had them traipse all around the Galilee,
teaching, eating and sleeping wherever they could find food, shelter and people.
It must have been fun, interesting, often inspiring, and sometimes just a drag.
The picture the gospels paint looks like many a
teacher and his students talking together,
mixed up with young adults on a "helping trip"--
say a college group working at rebuilding New Orleans.
We learn about some of the disciples: impulsive, foot-in-mouth Peter,
the Thunder boys, "James and John"
Matthew, the government accountant and Judas the local hothead.
Jesus lives with them, eats with them, argues with them,
gets mad at them and pretty much loves them as we
love those people of our families and workplaces.
So that's all there is to it?
I don't think so.
What is so is that the Jesus and the disciples' lives
were in many ways like ours.
That pretty certainly means that, among themselves,
the disciples and Jesus experienced many of the same joys and problems
we have right here at GraSP - or in our own families,
our workplaces and our community.
So, "Love each other as I have loved you." must be about loving each other
in the course of their - and our - normal lives.
From John's mouth "as I have loved you"
quite certainly refers to Jesus' death on the Cross,
to His Resurrection and His Ascension back to God.
John is speaking about self-sacrificing love, about forgiving love,
about love that recreates people,
about love that heals terrible wounds & divisions.
In a clergy meeting on Thursday, one person spoke of the "language of love."
I would speak of the "languages" of love.
Certainly one language which expresses and elicits love is gratitude.
Another is empathy, another laughter, another healing, another creativity,
another self-giving; still another is music and, above all,
the language of love that we call forgiveness.
A life - or a vocabulary - which is filled with those things is very likely
to be the life of a person or persons who love one another
as Jesus loved the disciples.
Now that is not to say that such a life is easy
or will always leave us feeling "happy."
It does say that lives marked by gratitude, understanding, laughter, healing,
music, self-giving and forgiveness will be contain so much hope and love,
that Jesus' presence among us will be easy to see and to trust.
Living that way is a clear path toward the salvation Jesus has promised.
"Salvation" - remember, is not a promise that if we're good enough,
or if we believe correctly, we'll get into heaven.
That's such a small, almost petty, interpretation of the gift
compared to the real richness of the word.
Salvation promises the restoring of our relationship with God
and with every other part of creation - both now and in the life to come.
Salvation is about water in the desert and the blind's seeing ---
and not merely because all people need water to live,
and because sight is a wonderful thing.
The "salvation" in those and other images also promises
that all ecological and global destruction will be reversed,
and that people's blindness about and fear of each other will be wiped away.
Salvation promises the cessation of human greed, fear and war,
and the elimination of poverty, racism, nationalism, and many other "isms"
as well as the elimination of mental and physical illness and disability.
All this newness, this fullness of life is the gift of God in Jesus
to the community of human beings, both living and dead.
Salvation promises the complete restoration of our present lives,
by restoring our relationships to God,
to the world & to each other in this life -
(not merely in the next world if we're good!)
Consider: Some of you may have grown up, as I did
reading the advice column "Dear Abby" by Abigail Van Buren
I have never forgotten and have always loved her response
to the young man/woman (I don't recall which)
who wrote,
"Dear Abby, I'm a pretty good kid. I get good grades. I don't drink or smoke.
I'm not sexually involved, I pay for my own gas and don't fight with my sister.
How do I get my Mom to quite yelling at me to
'clean up my room, pick up my clothes, brush my hair,
help around the house and get a job?'"
Abby's response reminds me of Jesus' reply today:
"Dear 'Good Kid,' (she wrote)
clean up your room, pick up your clothes, brush your hair,
help around the house and get a job!"
Translation: Love each other as I have loved you.
This is not about "being good."
This is about genuinely caring for and about each and every "other."
Jesus is commanding us to learn the language of love,
because only as that love flows and spreads through
the communities, families, churches and workplaces in which we
spend our lives, will our connections to each other, to God,
and to God's creation be restored.
That's a huge undertaking,
and Jesus also promises also that he will send us
another Paraclete - another Helper - another Comforter.
(There are lots of appropriate translations.)
This "Helper," is the Spirit of Truth who will remain with us and live within us
who will work within and among us
to establish the fullness of the Reign of God.
This great flow of energy and power and love, whom we name "the Holy Spirit"
Is God's final gift to us in Jesus.
The Spirit is given to make it possible for us to
"love each other as Jesus has loved us."
The Spirit is not merely, or even possibly, given
for us to become eternally "good."
The Spirit's power comes to make us reeds blown by the wind,
prophets, healers, companions, clowns, musicians, co-creators -
to make us and to sustain us as God's people --
a people through whom the blowing wind, the living water,
the light and the power of God
are transmitted and celebrated as they renew the face of the earth
through the ministries of those of us who love each other,
and the whole creation,
as Jesus has first loved us.