Sunday, May 6, 2018
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Faithful God,
make our hearts bold with love for one another.
Pour out your Spirit upon all people,
so that we may live your justice
and sing in praise the new song
of your marvellous victory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
When we were going away for a week last summer, we had neighbours check in on our cat. Being a bit over-the-top with our care for her, we had them over ahead of time to go over what needed to be done, and where everything could be found: the food bowl in the hallway; the food bowl in the bedroom; the third food bowl in the living room, just in case something happened to the others. The water fountain — yes we have a fountain for the cat — in the living room; the water bowl in the hallway; and the water bowl, just in case, in the bedroom. We wrote down the phone number for the vet, and showed them the fridge magnet from the animal hospital, just in case they misplaced the note. We went over the most important things, and did so multiple times, and in multiple ways: verbally, written down, by doing a tour of our apartment’s layout, and so on. And after all that, we said, “or if it’s easier, just take her over to your place.” Which is what they did.
The Jesus we encounter toward the end of John’s Gospel knows that events are going to take him to the Cross. And even if John’s Jesus has confidence that death won’t be the end, he does know that he will one day go away, or return to the Father, return from where he came. And he’s leaving his disciples with instructions. Instructions a lot more consequential than our cat-care guidance. And he returns again and again to a few themes: love one another; abide in me (or, stick with me and my ways); and follow my commandments.
And while my overabundance of water and food dishes reflects more on my eccentricities, I think Jesus is repeating his instructions for good reason: because he knows that people need it. Because we have trouble with loving each other; sticking with Jesus (as evidenced by his disciples’ abandonment of him after his arrest), and following his commandments. It was a struggle from the earliest of times in the Church, and it’s a struggle now. Because we’re human. And in our short-sightedness, we often act from a place of selfishness. (The irony being that we might actually get out from this cycle of selfishness if we actually followed Jesus’s commandments, followed him, and loved one another.)
And I think that’s his point, and indeed, his hope. Jesus isn’t just lecturing his followers to exercise his authority, or to ensure that his cat doesn’t starve in his absence. No, he calls his disciples friends because these instructions are for their, and everyone’s, benefit. Because they’re actually involved in this new thing that God’s up to in the world; “I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father,” Jesus tells them. They’re not servants, they’re not passive recipients; they’re actors, or do-ers. And they’ve been chosen. Something in itself that we would do well to think about. How God can and does actually work with actual, flawed people like us. But they and we are chosen to “bear fruit.” To take what the religious authorities of Jesus’s day labelled as reckless and irreverent, and what the civil authorities of our day label as quaint and irrelevant, and actually make a difference in the world.
The second reading today uses the language of “overcoming the world.” Hearing that expression — overcoming the world — removed from its context I get thinking of everything from ‘invasion of the saucermen’ to the girl with the dragons on Game of Thrones to the Religious Right to colonialism. Something to do with domination, or rising up and conquering. But that’s not what would have been understood by the churches that were built up around the Gospel and Letters of John, where we read that “no one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This is the overcoming that we see in the Cross; an overcoming that is at odds with our natural inclinations toward selfishness. An overcoming that we see in how Jesus lives his life as an offering and sacrifice, by living for others, and giving himself for others, and to God, to the fullest extent, and in God entering into the darkest corners of human experience, the world — that we perpetuate in our fallenness — is overcome. Overcome by forgiveness, compassion, and surprise.
We have an instance of this overcoming in the first reading, from Acts. Where not only is Cornelius and his household brought to faith, and baptized. But Peter, too, is changed. Peter experiences a conversion in how his understanding of salvation is stretched, when the Gentiles — the ‘others’ — are welcomed into God’s household as much as the Jews, the chosen people. It’s an overcoming of assumptions. An overcoming of prejudice. An overcoming of division. An overcoming of himself. Maybe we can say, a getting over of himself. Getting over himself so that he can see that God is just as present in the other as in himself.
So for us the question is: how do we live more like Jesus, and live for others? How do we abide in Jesus, stick with Jesus? How do we get closer to following his commandments? How do we get over ourselves? I think, with a nod to that Acts reading, it’s in baptism. Where we commit to living differently, when asked the questions:
Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbour as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain, and renew the life of the earth?
And the answer to those questions, and to the big question of how we get over ourselves, and abide in Jesus is: with God’s help. As much as our own effort is good, and needed, the deeper truth is what we heard in the Gospel: “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” And in Christ choosing us, and sending us out to bear fruit, he’s calling us to choose one another — even the perceived ‘other’ — and to see God at work in them. Amen.
© 2018 The Rev’d Matthew Kieswetter