The Rev. Dr. Austin Leininger
Sermon of the 6th Sunday of Easter
6 May 2018
Readings:
Acts 10:44-48
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Psalm 98
Well, Calvary family, the long anticipated day has come. After our 10:30 service today, we’ll be taking out the vestments, vessels, sacramental elements, and pretty much anything of value in the church in preparation for the termite tenting tomorrow and roof tear off the following week!
In last week’s readings, we were given hope that in this process of change and pruning, we draw even closer to the vine of Christ’s love and God’s care for us, and we were encouraged to see this as a time for our community to come even closer together in mutual support—which we’ll be doing both in terms of our smaller worship space, and, I hope, in terms of our relationships with one another—as we find balance and prepare for whatever new growth and fruitfulness God has in store for us.
This week, our readings expand on the universality of John’s message of love from last week’s Epistle, drawing us into relationships of God’s love and committing us to one another’s care as communities in which there are no out-groups, no less important members, but in which love for God, love for self, and love for each other are all of a piece in abiding in God’s love.
The overlap in today’s readings is significant as the work of the disciples is an echo of the new song in today’s Psalm and flows out of Jesus’ call in John’s gospel as it is further explained in John’s letter.
As described in Acts, The universality of God’s call to relationship in Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit on Jews and non-Jews alike was a surprise to the early Christian community, who, like many of us still today, didn’t grasp on an intuitive level that there is no out group whom God doesn’t love and doesn’t call. We, in fact, continue to be surprised by the Spirit’s outpouring on those we have placed outside of God’s love and calling, but the Spirit, in this way, and as described by Peter in today’s first reading, demands the baptism of those God has called, sometimes even in spite of us.
Acts is full of these kinds of surprises to the early community. Priscilla, a woman, becomes the teacher of all. Greeks and Slaves are found to have the gifts of the spirit that bear fruit in their communities and beyond. This is a book that is full of surprises and demonstrates the early church living out the proclamation we often hear from Paul that the divisions of hierarchy have been dissolved and that there is no longer Jew or Greek, Male or Female, Slave or Free, but that we are all truly one in Christ.
Our Psalm, written over a thousand years before the coming of Christ, sings, as it says, a new song of praise for the marvelous things God has done and is doing, in which all of creation from people, creatures on land and sea, and even nature itself sings out to the one who will come to us each on an equal playing field, restoring the equity of God’s outpouring of love on all of creation. This love, John’s letter tells us, is universally given and universally shown back to the world by all who love in response, and it is a love, as we heard in last week’s part of this letter, that casts out fear, which is one of the deepest despairing influences of our world. This week John’s letter continues, drawing that teaching forward that the love that casts out fear, that is born of God, conquers the world.
John’s metaphor of the world refers to the reality in which his listeners lived—a place of hierarchical, patriarchal power, of fear, division, strife, and hardship, a world of temptation to give into the despairing influences that kept his listeners disempowered, kept them dominated, kept them enslaved to the whole system that was designed against them. This was the field in which they labored, and which was the heavy burden under which they lived. Our own world is still a place in which many experience the burdens John’s community faced. And even in our own lives, to whatever degree we might enjoy the privilege of living in the time and place in which we live, the temptations to give into our fears remain very real.
But, John reassures his listeners, there is victory to be had through the strength of love’s work in communities that cast out fear by supporting one another, reaching out to care for one another, and which makes Christ’s commandment to love one another a lifting of the burden of fear and powerlessness—which makes Christ’s commandment, in his words, not burdensome, but liberating.
As Christ exhorts his disciples, and each of us today, to love one another as Christ loved us means being willing to lay down our lives for one another—which means being willing to lay aside our agendas, our plans, our commitments, or whatever else we might rather be doing when a friend is in need, and to support them In other words, being willing to drop whatever we’re doing when a friend needs us, and to help them. You show yourselves to be the ones for whom I have laid down my life, he tells them, when you also do love’s work of laying aside your own lives to support one another. In this, we become no longer servants to, but participants in and of God’s love. In this, we become community, where the doing of Love becomes the lifting of the burdens of this world, and where we find kinship in one another and with God.
Moving forward from last week’s hope that in this process of change and pruning, we draw even closer to the vine of Christ’s love and God’s care for us, this week we are encouraged to remember that by loving one another, supporting one another in this time of change and renewal, showing up together to do love’s work in this place in worship and ongoing ministry, and being willing to drop what we’re doing and help when our friends most need us, we not only find our hope for renewal as community, but we actually do the work of renewing ourselves as a community and drive out the burden of fear from our midst.
Of course, this all comes to the fore at a time for our community when we are about to leave our beloved sanctuary for a few months. Sometimes it takes being in a position in which the cares of the world weigh heavily on us before these stories really stand out for us—costs of re-roofing, organization of efforts to empty out the church, fear of damage or theft while we’re out of the building, unease at the prospect of worshipping in another space for the next 11 Sundays, concern for those who rent our space finding alternate locations, fear that they may not return when the work is completed… the list continues, but the response from our faith remains constant—hope, pray, love one another, be one in Christ, and gather together as a community of mutual support. All of these collectively, we’re told work to bring God’s love alive, bring God’s kingdom alive, remind us of God’s presence with us, and ease the burdens of this world.
My friends, we have all the tools we need to thrive during this time. The key is simply to do it together, and that is something Calvary has gotten very good at over the years.
As we re-assemble next week for our first Sunday in the parish hall, may our hope be kindled in one another, may our sense of community deepen, may we find God’s presence near to us to sustain us, and may we celebrate our time together in the last coming week of Easter as we prepare also to celebrate the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost. We are one in Christ, and God is with us. May the coming days be ones we look back on fondly together.
Amen.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.