Easter V
By The Rev. Martha Frances+
Year C, Easter V - 6 May 2007
Text: John 13:31-35. Other Readings: Revelation 21:1-6, Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148
During the Easter Season, we've been exploring Jesus' resurrection appearances to his disciples, but in today's gospel, we flash back to the Last Supper, Jesus' last meal with his disciples. The meal & after-dinner discussion actually take several chapters in the Gospel of John. It's as if Jesus, like a mother who all of a sudden realizes her child is leaving for college or the military the next day, rushes to tell his disciples all they need to know before facing the world out there without him. Now, they've had their meal, Jesus has washed his disciples' feet, & Judas has gone.
Here, today's gospel begins. Jesus affectionately addresses them as "little children." This isn't one of Jesus' public speeches in the countryside to crowds of people. Rather, it's an intimate gathering of those closest to him, a family meal really. Jesus, again stressing he won't be with them much longer, gets to the heart of his message.
Earlier Jesus has told the disciples what we've come to know as the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do to you. As fine a guideline for life as it may be to treat others as we would like to be treated, the Golden Rule compares our behavior to that of other people.
Jesus moves beyond a strictly human standard of measurement when he gives his new commandment. Jesus tells them to love one another just as he has loved them. How awesome! He tells his disciples his love is a standard for the quality & quantity of love they offer each other.
Such a guideline may sound to us like a wonderful goal to reach for but not very practical in real life, but then he adds an awesome teaser. He says others will know they are Jesus' disciples when they see the love they have for one another. Jesus is challenging the disciples to walk the walk & not just talk the talk. Here we have one very important aspect of the incarnation. After all, why did God need to become man? In order for humans to be able to see in no uncertain terms what the love God expects us to demonstrate for one another looks like & feels like. After all, they've been on the receiving end of Jesus' love. What they have received, they must now give.
Jesus is doing 2 things here. First, Jesus wants his disciples to be strong as a group so they can withstand what he knows is in store for them after he is gone. Jesus knows they have to be a community, ever strengthening their ties with each other, gaining strength from one another. Remember, he's talking to those with whom he's been closest here on earth, with whom he's walked the hills of Galilee & traveled to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. He's heard them bicker among themselves about who is the greatest. Now, they have to grow up & take responsibility for the nurturance of the faith community without him there to settle their squabbles.
But Jesus is also giving the disciples a glimpse of effective evangelism, what is necessary in order to grow the Body of Christ, the Christian community. He's telling them that, unless their lives reflect his own love, no one will be attracted to their new way of life; they won't be able to spread the Good News across the street, much less to the ends of the earth. He challenges them to a standard greater than ever before. Furthermore, it's clear he has confidence they can fulfill this new commandment.
Isn't this a sweet story? Jesus calls in the homeboys—& some of the homegirls, too, we presume—& gives them guidelines for living. Now we could come get our weekly portion of bread & wine, sing a hymn & go over to the parish hall for coffee & conversation this morning & then go our separate ways during the week discussing how well or how poorly Jesus' disciples followed his suggestions for a faithful life. We could make ourselves feel better about our own failings by coming to Bible study & pointing out places where the disciples failed to carry out his suggestions.
But you know what? These "suggestions" are sort of like the "suggested steps" of Alcoholics Anonymous. While those AA steps are just suggestions, folks say, if alcoholics & addicts intend to stay clean & sober & live a better life, then those are 12 Steps you darn well better take! This new commandment is that same sort of suggestion: it's the standard. Not only does Jesus expect it; Jesus says we'll be identified as Christians by how faithfully we do it!
And it wasn't just a new commandment for the disciples gathered in that upper room the night before Jesus' death. This Sunday morning, the 6th of May 2007 , Jesus gathers US, this congregation we call Hope, to him & says even to us today: "Little children, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you." His referring to us as little children isn't demeaning but affectionate, intimate. Jesus tells us we are to love one another, to be a community. Jesus says his love is the model for our love for each other.
We've come a long way in developing community in the 2 plus years we've been together. Our work is not over, however, & our first reading today from the book of Acts also challenges us to use God's guidelines rather than our own in how we do church, how we form community. Despite Peter's blatant denial of Jesus just hours after the Last Supper scene we've just revisited, he has become a leader of the orthodox group of believers at home in Jerusalem. He's been in Joppa, & when he returns to Jerusalem , the conservative Jewish believers dress him down about allowing the dirty Gentiles into their sacred club. Not only that; horror of horrors—Peter has shared table fellowship with these heathens! He's got some serious explaining to do!
By way of explanation, Peter describes God's object lesson for him in the form of a vision he received when at prayer. He himself felt quite self-righteous when a sheet was lowered to him full of all sorts of foul animals that Jews were forbidden to eat. Can't you just visualize Peter's pride at being able to withstand temptation as he tells the Spirit, "Nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth"? What a shock he must have had when the Spirit proclaims that even these previously-forbidden animals are not only acceptable but clean in God's sight!
Well, Peter may be slow, but he's not stupid. Even Peter cannot miss the irony of the timely arrival of three Caesarean men sent to fetch Peter to Cornelius' Gentile house that he might preach salvation. The Spirit tells Peter he is to make no distinction between them & the Jews, so he preaches to them &, by golly, they are given the gift of baptism & the Holy Spirit. Peter explains to the home folk back in Jerusalem that to do anything else would have been to hinder God. Our scripture tells us that, despite their centuries-held exclusivism, they hear the Holy Spirit's desire in Peter's words & are silenced. We know from the rest of Acts & Paul's epistles that not all the resistance to including the Gentiles dissolves with this one encounter, yet this is a powerful witness to God's desire to bring all people into relationship with one another & with God.
This past week the Dalai Lama spoke out at Rice University & challenged our city to move toward what he called "inner disarmament." He encouraged us to lay down the weapons of destruction—hatred, anger, & jealousy—which we have in our hearts & to strengthen our resolve toward peaceful coexistence in this cosmopolitan city so that Houston might be a model for a new global reality of peace. Yes, we are truly a multi-cultural city, yet it is easy to get complacent, allowing prejudices & unfortunate experiences to close us to the acceptance which Peter came to in today's scripture.
Another news story this week cited surveys a year apart with attitudes toward those who have settled here from Katrina. Houstonians were basically positive about our new neighbors a year ago yet today, are decidedly negative. I realize this is a complicated situation, but it shows an attitude I became very familiar with at Lord of the Streets we labeled NIMBY—not in my back yard. The social issues which migrated to Houston with Katrina were merely unfortunate when they were in New Orleans , but we didn't really have to deal with them. Now they're ours, & we don't want them, thank you very much. Similarly, as near town ordinances have forced homeless folk out into neighborhoods such as ours, many folk want them to go elsewhere once again rather than we, as a society, having to face the underlying issues of homelessness. When I taught English as a Second Language at the local community college, I worked regularly with young men & women newly settled in our city to deal with traffic tickets & housing regulations & other issues heightened by our citizens' negative attitude toward foreigners. Recently, I've re-viewed the movie Crash & then unpacked it theologically with a group. I would suggest that Hope have a showing sometime soon & then discuss where Christ is in that movie & with which characters.
I've only touched on one of many issues paralleled in the New Testament church, but we at Hope are called to grapple, with who we really are to be as intentionally-inclusive a community as our mission statement states: we are called to spread God's transforming love to all people. Tonight several of us will gather at the Comstocks' to continue a conversation about what it means for us to live as Easter people active in our community today. There's still room if you want to be part of that discussion.
We are only one little church in one city of the Diocese, but our baptismal responsibility is similar to the Daughters of the King motto which can apply to us all: "For His sake. . . I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do. Lord, what will you have me do?"
Sometimes we just don't feel like showing self-giving love to each other & to others beyond our community, do we? That's when we have to remember that it's not our own love we proclaim nor is it our own strength. It's Jesus' love. Do you remember when Jesus' teaching occurs? It's at the last supper, just after Judas has gone out to betray Jesus. Jesus knows the end is near, & he's told the disciples that several times though they don't yet know what he means. No one would have blamed Jesus had he just gone off in a huff to protect himself & mope about all he'd done for these ungrateful bums.
But what does he do? He spends quality time with his closest friends to guide them to use his strength & his love as they mature into a community, & then he goes out to the garden where he faces almost certain arrest & death. The disciples sort of slip away after that & hide out until the Holy Spirit breathes new life into them at Pentecost. And then what happens? This little band multiplied into a worldwide religion, a global church which continues to grow.
We at Hope have the challenge before us to be a force for Christ in this community, to be agents of transformation around us. In order to do that, we must fulfill our budgetary obligations & provide the seed, the soil & the fertilizer for God to continually transform us to nurture others. Our capacity may never be that of the mega-churches in quantity, but our felicitous obligation is to do our part for God to use us as a force for good in this neighborhood. I'm reminded of the boy whom the fisherman met as he walked along the seashore. The boy was tossing beached starfish back into the water. The fisherman scoffed at his seemingly-futile attempt to save the starfish. He said to the little boy, "Don't you know what you're doing won't matter? You can't ever toss enough of them back." The boy replied confidently, "It matters to the starfish."
Year C, Easter V - 6 May 2007
Text: John 13:31-35. Other Readings: Revelation 21:1-6, Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148
During the Easter Season, we've been exploring Jesus' resurrection appearances to his disciples, but in today's gospel, we flash back to the Last Supper, Jesus' last meal with his disciples. The meal & after-dinner discussion actually take several chapters in the Gospel of John. It's as if Jesus, like a mother who all of a sudden realizes her child is leaving for college or the military the next day, rushes to tell his disciples all they need to know before facing the world out there without him. Now, they've had their meal, Jesus has washed his disciples' feet, & Judas has gone.
Here, today's gospel begins. Jesus affectionately addresses them as "little children." This isn't one of Jesus' public speeches in the countryside to crowds of people. Rather, it's an intimate gathering of those closest to him, a family meal really. Jesus, again stressing he won't be with them much longer, gets to the heart of his message.
Earlier Jesus has told the disciples what we've come to know as the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do to you. As fine a guideline for life as it may be to treat others as we would like to be treated, the Golden Rule compares our behavior to that of other people.
Jesus moves beyond a strictly human standard of measurement when he gives his new commandment. Jesus tells them to love one another just as he has loved them. How awesome! He tells his disciples his love is a standard for the quality & quantity of love they offer each other.
Such a guideline may sound to us like a wonderful goal to reach for but not very practical in real life, but then he adds an awesome teaser. He says others will know they are Jesus' disciples when they see the love they have for one another. Jesus is challenging the disciples to walk the walk & not just talk the talk. Here we have one very important aspect of the incarnation. After all, why did God need to become man? In order for humans to be able to see in no uncertain terms what the love God expects us to demonstrate for one another looks like & feels like. After all, they've been on the receiving end of Jesus' love. What they have received, they must now give.
Jesus is doing 2 things here. First, Jesus wants his disciples to be strong as a group so they can withstand what he knows is in store for them after he is gone. Jesus knows they have to be a community, ever strengthening their ties with each other, gaining strength from one another. Remember, he's talking to those with whom he's been closest here on earth, with whom he's walked the hills of Galilee & traveled to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. He's heard them bicker among themselves about who is the greatest. Now, they have to grow up & take responsibility for the nurturance of the faith community without him there to settle their squabbles.
But Jesus is also giving the disciples a glimpse of effective evangelism, what is necessary in order to grow the Body of Christ, the Christian community. He's telling them that, unless their lives reflect his own love, no one will be attracted to their new way of life; they won't be able to spread the Good News across the street, much less to the ends of the earth. He challenges them to a standard greater than ever before. Furthermore, it's clear he has confidence they can fulfill this new commandment.
Isn't this a sweet story? Jesus calls in the homeboys—& some of the homegirls, too, we presume—& gives them guidelines for living. Now we could come get our weekly portion of bread & wine, sing a hymn & go over to the parish hall for coffee & conversation this morning & then go our separate ways during the week discussing how well or how poorly Jesus' disciples followed his suggestions for a faithful life. We could make ourselves feel better about our own failings by coming to Bible study & pointing out places where the disciples failed to carry out his suggestions.
But you know what? These "suggestions" are sort of like the "suggested steps" of Alcoholics Anonymous. While those AA steps are just suggestions, folks say, if alcoholics & addicts intend to stay clean & sober & live a better life, then those are 12 Steps you darn well better take! This new commandment is that same sort of suggestion: it's the standard. Not only does Jesus expect it; Jesus says we'll be identified as Christians by how faithfully we do it!
And it wasn't just a new commandment for the disciples gathered in that upper room the night before Jesus' death. This Sunday morning, the 6th of May 2007 , Jesus gathers US, this congregation we call Hope, to him & says even to us today: "Little children, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you." His referring to us as little children isn't demeaning but affectionate, intimate. Jesus tells us we are to love one another, to be a community. Jesus says his love is the model for our love for each other.
We've come a long way in developing community in the 2 plus years we've been together. Our work is not over, however, & our first reading today from the book of Acts also challenges us to use God's guidelines rather than our own in how we do church, how we form community. Despite Peter's blatant denial of Jesus just hours after the Last Supper scene we've just revisited, he has become a leader of the orthodox group of believers at home in Jerusalem. He's been in Joppa, & when he returns to Jerusalem , the conservative Jewish believers dress him down about allowing the dirty Gentiles into their sacred club. Not only that; horror of horrors—Peter has shared table fellowship with these heathens! He's got some serious explaining to do!
By way of explanation, Peter describes God's object lesson for him in the form of a vision he received when at prayer. He himself felt quite self-righteous when a sheet was lowered to him full of all sorts of foul animals that Jews were forbidden to eat. Can't you just visualize Peter's pride at being able to withstand temptation as he tells the Spirit, "Nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth"? What a shock he must have had when the Spirit proclaims that even these previously-forbidden animals are not only acceptable but clean in God's sight!
Well, Peter may be slow, but he's not stupid. Even Peter cannot miss the irony of the timely arrival of three Caesarean men sent to fetch Peter to Cornelius' Gentile house that he might preach salvation. The Spirit tells Peter he is to make no distinction between them & the Jews, so he preaches to them &, by golly, they are given the gift of baptism & the Holy Spirit. Peter explains to the home folk back in Jerusalem that to do anything else would have been to hinder God. Our scripture tells us that, despite their centuries-held exclusivism, they hear the Holy Spirit's desire in Peter's words & are silenced. We know from the rest of Acts & Paul's epistles that not all the resistance to including the Gentiles dissolves with this one encounter, yet this is a powerful witness to God's desire to bring all people into relationship with one another & with God.
This past week the Dalai Lama spoke out at Rice University & challenged our city to move toward what he called "inner disarmament." He encouraged us to lay down the weapons of destruction—hatred, anger, & jealousy—which we have in our hearts & to strengthen our resolve toward peaceful coexistence in this cosmopolitan city so that Houston might be a model for a new global reality of peace. Yes, we are truly a multi-cultural city, yet it is easy to get complacent, allowing prejudices & unfortunate experiences to close us to the acceptance which Peter came to in today's scripture.
Another news story this week cited surveys a year apart with attitudes toward those who have settled here from Katrina. Houstonians were basically positive about our new neighbors a year ago yet today, are decidedly negative. I realize this is a complicated situation, but it shows an attitude I became very familiar with at Lord of the Streets we labeled NIMBY—not in my back yard. The social issues which migrated to Houston with Katrina were merely unfortunate when they were in New Orleans , but we didn't really have to deal with them. Now they're ours, & we don't want them, thank you very much. Similarly, as near town ordinances have forced homeless folk out into neighborhoods such as ours, many folk want them to go elsewhere once again rather than we, as a society, having to face the underlying issues of homelessness. When I taught English as a Second Language at the local community college, I worked regularly with young men & women newly settled in our city to deal with traffic tickets & housing regulations & other issues heightened by our citizens' negative attitude toward foreigners. Recently, I've re-viewed the movie Crash & then unpacked it theologically with a group. I would suggest that Hope have a showing sometime soon & then discuss where Christ is in that movie & with which characters.
I've only touched on one of many issues paralleled in the New Testament church, but we at Hope are called to grapple, with who we really are to be as intentionally-inclusive a community as our mission statement states: we are called to spread God's transforming love to all people. Tonight several of us will gather at the Comstocks' to continue a conversation about what it means for us to live as Easter people active in our community today. There's still room if you want to be part of that discussion.
We are only one little church in one city of the Diocese, but our baptismal responsibility is similar to the Daughters of the King motto which can apply to us all: "For His sake. . . I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do. Lord, what will you have me do?"
Sometimes we just don't feel like showing self-giving love to each other & to others beyond our community, do we? That's when we have to remember that it's not our own love we proclaim nor is it our own strength. It's Jesus' love. Do you remember when Jesus' teaching occurs? It's at the last supper, just after Judas has gone out to betray Jesus. Jesus knows the end is near, & he's told the disciples that several times though they don't yet know what he means. No one would have blamed Jesus had he just gone off in a huff to protect himself & mope about all he'd done for these ungrateful bums.
But what does he do? He spends quality time with his closest friends to guide them to use his strength & his love as they mature into a community, & then he goes out to the garden where he faces almost certain arrest & death. The disciples sort of slip away after that & hide out until the Holy Spirit breathes new life into them at Pentecost. And then what happens? This little band multiplied into a worldwide religion, a global church which continues to grow.
We at Hope have the challenge before us to be a force for Christ in this community, to be agents of transformation around us. In order to do that, we must fulfill our budgetary obligations & provide the seed, the soil & the fertilizer for God to continually transform us to nurture others. Our capacity may never be that of the mega-churches in quantity, but our felicitous obligation is to do our part for God to use us as a force for good in this neighborhood. I'm reminded of the boy whom the fisherman met as he walked along the seashore. The boy was tossing beached starfish back into the water. The fisherman scoffed at his seemingly-futile attempt to save the starfish. He said to the little boy, "Don't you know what you're doing won't matter? You can't ever toss enough of them back." The boy replied confidently, "It matters to the starfish."
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