May 9, 2021: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
Today is not only the sixth Sunday of Easter, but as we all know, it is Mother’s Day, and of course we wish all of you who are celebrating this holiday, a day filled with love. It is a day we honor moms and all the ways that they are a part of our lives. For some, this is their very first Mother’s Day – a special moment to be sure. For most, this is a wonderful day – especially as we emerge from this pandemic, perhaps some moms will get a chance to be with those they love in person. I, for one, fully expect my kids Lexi, Katie, & Lauren, to have a present for me when I get home…being that two are cats and one is a dog, I will likely be presented with hairballs and lots of licks as my gifts.
But this is also a difficult day, or one that brings about mixed feelings, for many. Those whose mothers have died, those whose mothers are absent – in whatever way that may mean, those mothers who have lost a child, or those who are unable to have children – for these, Mother’s Day can be troubling, awkward, or even painful.
And so, as I say each year, that is that is why I like to think of today as less about Mothers specifically, and more about women – mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, nieces, aunts, and friends. Women who have been a part of our lives – nurturing, mentoring, loving, caring. That is what we really celebrate today – the journey of women – us, if we are women, and those women who have been a part of our lives. Because family is not defined by blood, but by one thing – loving relationship.
Now, one of the reasons we celebrate our parents on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is because we are grateful for something – something that was given to us – something that in healthy parent-child relationships is unconditional – that something is…love. When we think about the ideal of a mother’s love, we may bring to mind a newborn baby, fed with love by her or his mother. We may think of the creative process of the world as Mother Earth. There is a real sense of pure joy and peace in those images. Mothers as the ones to feed, to nurture, to warm, and to love unconditionally.
Yet, this maternal ideal is not only something that can be overwhelming for new mothers, but as I said, it is also a fantasy for many, whose relationships with their mothers, or with their children, is anything but the stereotypical idyllic mother-child bond. Many folks are likely in the “it’s complicated” place when it comes to parents and children, standing among the greeting cards in the store wanting to throw their hands up because none of the sappy Hallmark sentiments match how they really feel. It isn’t the love part necessarily that is the issue, but the ideal of it being unconditional, that creates conflict within us at times. Yet that is what Jesus is talking about in the gospel today, and it is what the Holy Spirit demonstrates dramatically in our story from the Acts of the Apostles too.
In the gospel today, we are reading from John part of what is called the Farewell Discourses – when Jesus is trying to prepare his followers for his death, resurrection, and ascension – for a time when they would not be together as they once had been. And he tells them – repeatedly – to abide in his love as he abides in God’s love, that his joy may be in them. To make that even more clear, Jesus makes it a commandment – the only one he gives: that they love one another, as he loved them.
Let’s also take a look at what happened in that story about Peter, and it’s a kind of funny one too. As it said in the text “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.” But it is the next part that gives us a clue that we are missing something here. “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles…”
So, it would appear we are in the middle of the story – sort of like Star Wars starting in Episode IV…well, actually, that made sense. Maybe it is more like being dropped into the middle of Game of Thrones. To understand just how powerful this moment is, and for that matter the gospel narrative too, you need to know what came before.
See, that’s the problem sometimes with our lectionary is that we don’t often get the full picture of what is really happening, and if we lose sight of that, we can fail to grasp the full power of the text for us.
So, as I do each time this story is told, here’s the cliff notes version… previously on the Peter Channel, a Centurion, one of the Roman leaders, has an odd vision that tells him to get this Jewish guy Peter to his house. Meanwhile, back at the apostle ranch, Peter is having the weirdest dream. In it he sees a sheet filling the sky with animals on it – animals he cannot eat…and God tells him to go ahead and feast on anything he wants. While Peter would sure love to have him some bacon, being the good Jewish boy that he is responds with “No way God…is this some sort of test?” But God insists that whatever God has created no human can call unclean, so God tell him to fire up the bar-b and eat. Now, nobody asked the animals how they felt about it, but I am guessing they wished God would have told Peter all about the virtues of being a vegetarian. Anyway, Peter wakes up, and before he can grab some breakfast, some folks drop by telling him to go to this Centurion’s house, which is a big deal because again, Peter is being told to go somewhere that good Jewish boys (or girls) just don’t go – into the home of a Gentile. I mean his mother would be furious!
Fast forward and Peter sees that the Holy Spirit is with the Centurion, and like the dream, Peter realizes that human law or understanding of God has no bearing on how God actually works in the world. God can do whatever God wants with whomever God chooses. Period. Peter then is explaining this to his astounded followers, none of whom can quite understand why Peter is there with “those people.” Then BAM! The Holy Spirit gets impatient, and anoints the Centurion and all the other Gentiles present. So, the newly evolved Peter says “I told you so – time for a baptism folks!”
That is why this little piece of scripture we heard this morning is so powerful – the Holy Spirit was shattering the walls humanity builds to keep some in and some out – not to mention reminding all preachers to keep the sermons short (note to self). Jews and Gentiles were not supposed to hang out together. Gentiles were deemed unclean, and unworthy. But that was a human construct – not God’s. How often do we do that today?
Now let’s look at that Gospel reading again, because it too is missing the context. It seems plain enough – like a Beatles song – “All you need is love”…doo, doo, do do doo – you know, sounds kinda good on its own, right? But Jesus is saying these things: abide in my love, love one another as I loved you – between the betrayal of Judas and the denial of Peter. Talk about your call to unconditional love!
Here he had already washed the feet of his followers, including Judas and Peter. Judas left to betray him, and Peter later deny he knew him over and over again. Yet Jesus calls his followers to love as he loved them – yes, even as he loved Judas and Peter. But perhaps most of all is his use of the word “abide” or μένω in the Greek. And while abide is a good translation of μένω, the meaning is deeper than we might imagine. It is to “remain,” or even better, “to continue to be present.” So Jesus is saying essentially, “continue to be present in my love. Just as God continues to be present in love with us, we must continue to be present in love with one another.”
This word – abide – really is so very important – because Jesus is saying that even when we feel that we cannot love anymore, we should continue – to just keep being present in it. It is an invitation into the type of unconditional love we are being called to as children of God, for we are not born into this world to build walls, but to build community – the Beloved Community. And make no mistake about it, the Beloved Community (as Peter and the others discovered) isn’t about being surrounded by those who are just like you – the ones who think, look, act, believe, or love just as you would do. No, the Beloved Community is beloved because it is filled with the diversity of God’s creation – and all of God’s creation is deemed good – no matter what we humans might try to say about it. Jesus calls us to abide – to continue in loving relationship – with all of it. And when we resist – the Holy Spirit will give us a wake up call, just as Peter and the others experienced.
Love, the kind Jesus calls us too, isn’t easy. It asks us to continue to be present in love with those who may drive us nuts, who do or say things that we abhor, and yes…even family, even those who criticize how we load the dishwasher (when we know for a fact we are the only ones who know how to properly load it in the first place). As I have mentioned years earlier – many totally get the great night talk show host, the late Johnny Carson, who once said about holiday gatherings “People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often.”
But if there is one grace that has emerged from our isolation in this pandemic, in our national divides, in the constant cycle of violence and hate we see on the news, it is perhaps a better understanding of what is, and is not, important; and, how to continue to be present in love, because we have seen and experienced the absence or separation from it. We know that it could all disappear far easily than we realized before, and how vitally important those relationships are to us, and to our lives as follower of Christ. Because, if we can’t abide in love with our friends and our family, how possibly will we abide with God – continue to be present – partnering with God to heal this broken world?
See, that is the key – God is doing this work already. Peter and the others found that out, didn’t they. While he was speaking, the Holy Spirit just said “enough already” let’s get on with it. Whether Peter responded to that dream or not, whether the people responded to Peter, God wasn’t about to wait until they figured it all out. The same is true for us now. God’s grace doesn’t follow us into the world, we follow it, and God brings us into the movement of the Holy Spirit that is already active, already present, we just have to be open to seeing it and to being a part of it. And that, as Peter and the others discovered, is a choice we make. We choose whether we will participate in the on-going work of God in the world – and God hopes we do choose to join in, because that work is transformative not only for others, but for us too.
The thing is though, as Jesus was well aware, as God was aware in the moment with Peter, we humans find unconditional love nearly impossible. We prefer to build walls rather than bridges, and we are really good at it too. They are built out of fear – of what we do not know or understand, of what is different, or even of being hurt. Perhaps that is why Jesus asks us to abide – to continue – at that particular moment in his earthly life. In that invitation is a sense of understanding of our human propensity to walk away, to turn our backs, to betray and deny. Remember that Judas and Peter both loved Jesus, but in his anger Judas betrays him, and in his fear Peter denies him.
Now before we go any further, I want to dispel the poor theology of the cross that we should somehow allow ourselves to remain in abusive, hateful, or oppressive relationships. That is NOT what Jesus is saying here at all. Jesus asks instead, in that moment, between those two acts of denial and betrayal, that when we are drawn to anger or fear, to choose another path – to abide – to continue to be present in love, and that presence is with HIM, and he would never want us to be in a place that is harmful to us. To continue to be present in his love means that we will not allow our fears, our anger, or our pain to bring us down a path of self-destructive hate. As the adage goes – hate is like drinking poison hoping the other person will die – it only destroys us from within.
Jesus instead is inviting us to abide in love – his love – love that nurtures, love that forgives, love that brings his joy into our hearts, that we in turn may live in his joy, and joy, as we all know, is infectious!
Jesus bids us to continue to be present in love…
To be present in love with the one whose views we despise.
To be present in love with the one whose way of life we don’t understand.
To be present in love with the one whose relationship with God is different or non-existent.
To be present in love with the family member who absolutely drives us insane.
To be present in love with the stranger, the homeless, the sick, the forgotten, the addicted, and the oppressed – no matter how foreign their experience may be to our own.
Because in being present on love with them, we abide with Jesus – we abide in His love.
And in that choice to abide in his love – and it is a choice –– even when we have to fake it to make it – even taking it one day, one hour, one moment at a time – when we continue to be present in his love, we begin to know the fullness of grace upon grace, and with the Holy Spirit, we will transform the world, and our joy in Christ Jesus will be complete.
Amen.
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The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
May 9, 2021
The Sixth Sunday Of Easter
1st Reading – Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
2nd Reading – 1 John 5:1-6
Gospel – John 15:9-17
