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Fifth Sunday after Easter
May 6, 2007
Delivered by Reverend Sandra Stayner
Acts 13:44-52
Revelation 19:1, 4-9
John 13:31-35
"I give you a new commandment that you love one another as I have loved you."
On Saturday morning I wandered into a little coffee shop at the bottom of our road to get an early morning cup of coffee. The shop is adjacent to and run by members of a store front church that ministers to young people, and I was intrigued by a lively bunch of young men in their late teens and twenties who were excitedly discussing the different ways they were experiencing the love of Christ in their lives and relationships with one another. They smiled and said hello when I entered the shop and I listened to them chat as I fixed my coffee. Their conversation was so compelling that it was hard not to pull up a chair and ask if I could join in, but I had to get to a wedding so I couldn.t stop! The conversation about love is a conversation that has been going on among Christians forever, and will continue to go on wherever Christians gather simply because it.s what our lives are all about as soon as we become a part of the community of the baptized. The reason Christians spend so much time talking about it, reading the scriptures to understand how to love more perfectly is because it will take a lifetime and more than a lifetime before any of us will even begin to love as Christ has loved us, so we have to keep working at it, failing at times, encouraging one another to get up and try again, all the time growing in our ability to love as we experience the depth of God.s love for us.
Of course the commandment to love was not a new one. It is written in the book of Leviticus .You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.. (Leviticus 19:18) The Greek word used for .new. in our gospel passage does not actually refer to something that has never before existed instead it refers to the renewal or restoration of something. What Jesus asks of those who would follow him is a renewed understanding of the meaning of love, an understanding that is informed by the way he himself lived out his life on earth. The love command is given to his disciples as he tells them that he will shortly die. The nature of his love will soon be seen as he willingly gives his very life for the sake of those he loves, acting on behalf of those who are not able to act on behalf of themselves.
Dennis Linn, a Christian counselor and author tells a story which shows how he began to understand more about God's love. He says,
One day Hilda came to me crying because her son had tried to commit suicide for the fourth time. She told me that he was involved in prostitution, drug dealing and murder. She ended her list of her son's "big" sins with, "What bothers me most is that my son says he wants nothing to do with God. What will happen to my son if he commits suicide without repenting and wants nothing to do with God?"
Since at the time my image of God was like Good Old Uncle George, I thought "God will probably send your son to hell." But I didn't want to tell Hilda that. I was glad that my training had taught me to (instead) ask.." What do you think?"
"Well," Hilda replied, "I think that when you die, you appear before the judgment seat of God. If you have lived a good life, God will send you to heaven. If you have lived a bad life, God will send you to hell." Sadly, she concluded, "Since my son has lived such a bad life, if he were to die without repenting, God would certainly send him to hell."
Although I tended to agree with her, I didn't want to say, "Right on, Hilda! Your son would probably be sent to hell." I was again grateful for my theological training which taught me a second strategy: When you don't know how to solve a theological problem, let God solve it. So I said to Hilda, "Close your eyes. Imagine that you are sitting next to the judgement seat of God. Imagine also that your son has died with all these serious sins and without repenting. Your son has just arrived at the judgment seat of God. Squeeze my hand when you can imagine that."
A few minutes later Hilda squeezed my hand. She described to me the entire judgment scene. Then I asked her, "Hilda, how does your son feel?" Hilda answered, "My son feels so lonely and empty." I asked Hilda what she would do. She said, "I want to throw my arms around my son." She lifted her arms and began to cry as she imagined herself holding her son tightly.
Finally, when she had stopped crying, I asked her to look into God's eyes, and watch what God wanted to do. God stepped down from the throne, and just as Hilda did, embraced Hilda's son. And the three of them, Hilda, her son, and God, cried together and held one another.
I was stunned. What Hilda taught me in those few minutes is the bottom line of healthy Christian spirituality. God loves us at least as much as the person who loves us most. (Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God, by Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn pg. 8-11)
Jesus healed a woman unclean with a flow of blood. He healed the child of an officer of the occupying force. He healed the ear of a Roman Centurian on his way to the cross. And he reached out to a convicted felon hanging on the cross next to his. What is the new commandment of love we have been given? It is to love even those who we might consider unlovable because that is how Jesus loved.
There are so many words Jesus might have left with his followers as he prepared to leave them. He could have told them that mighty miracles would signify his presence to the world - or that they should build large build buildings - or found and institution. He could have laid out doctrines that had to me memorized - or special learning to be pursued - or secret practices and initiations that only a select few would know. Instead he commanded all of his followers, all Christians throughout the ages to love as he loved. This love is not a feeling or a concept or an ideal. It is not at all abstract. In fact, it is found as it is practiced among people who are willing to love and count among their numbers the very people who find themselves unacceptable to the majority of society. It is a renewed understanding of the meaning of the old commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. It is the commandment for us to give every moment of our lives for the healing of the world as Christ gave his life that we might live.
This week a small group of women from St. Peter's joined women from all over the diocese at a yearly gathering of Episcopal Church Women. The main speaker was the director of Women's ministries at the National Church called Margaret Rose. At the end of her speech she showed a short video about a meeting of young women at the United Nations. For the first time ever, young women from all over the world were brought to the United Nations to speak about the plight of other young women in their country. After several days together they were invited to respond to two simple questions. "What is your greatest desire?" and "What would you like to say to the church?" A young aborigine woman from Australia spoke about her life. She was taken from her family when she was seven years old because of abuse. She was placed in the care of the state and lived in a series of foster homes. Since that day has never seen her parents or siblings again. Her greatest desire she said in a halting voice was to be able to forgive her mother, and for her whole family to be together again even for one day. The question she had for the church was asked in a gathering at which our presiding bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori was present. Bishop Jefferts Schori stood next to the young woman and held the microphone as she spoke. "I would like to ask what the church can do to help people like me" she said. Very quietly Bishop Jefferts Schori took her hand and said, "we can stand in solidarity with you, and we will stand with you."
That simple statement and the way it was stated was really a quite profound moment, because in the end the most important thing we can do is show our love for those whose lives have been devastated in any way by caring enough to listen to their stories and by standing alongside them as they seek to find their voice. In the end it was Jesus' compassion for outsiders, for those with no voice of their own, for those who didn't have a place at the table that took him to the cross that became the place of God's glory as his power was made known in the resurrection to new life.
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