Give Me Your Unconditional Love

Did you know the classic tune from Camp McDowell is a Donna Summer almost hit?

Acts 10:44-48

Psalm 98

1 John 5:1-6

John 15:9-17

 

 © 2021-2024 The Rev. Seth Olson

This sermon was preached at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles on Sunday, May 5th and video of it may be found here. 

The title track off of Donna Summer’s 1983 album She Works Hard For The Money was a huge hit. It topped the Billboard R&B chart for three weeks and reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. It remains one of Summer’s most well-known tracks, played around the world and streamed tens of millions of times.

 

The second single off that same album was a commercial disappointment, only reaching #43 on Billboard’s pop list. I am sure Summer and Mercury Records were upset by the lukewarm reception of this track. However, the late Donna Summer would be happy to know that the youth of our diocese love this song, which is entitled, “Unconditional Love.” If you have been around a diocesan youth event, you may have heard it: 

 

Don't take too long to find

True love transcends all time

That non-reacting, everlasting love

 

Give me, your unconditional love.

The kind of love I deserve

The kind I want to return.

 

Until a few years ago, I had no idea of the genesis of this classic camp hit. My friend and fellow former associate rector at All Saints, Charles Youngson, revealed the original singer of this song, and I was so confused. “’Unconditional Love’ was sung by Donna Summer? Like, ‘Bad Girls’ Donna Summer? ‘Last Dance’ Donna Summer?” After googling and going on Spotify to make sure Charles had not lost his mind, I explored a little more. 

 

Discovering that this song had a less than stellar reception amongst critics and radio listeners alike actually did not surprise me. We prefer to put our energies into working hard (for the money) instead of receiving and giving unconditional love. This is true not just about Donna Summer’ songs, it is true throughout life. Of course, we in the Church love love.

 

We love talking about love. We love putting love in our mission statements—“At the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles, our mission is to… love Christ in every person”—but what do we really mean by unconditional love, transforming love, or in the Greek agape? Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson gives us some clues as to the immensity and the difficulty of participating in God’s love.

 

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love,” Jesus told this to his disciples on the night before he died. Sometimes we believe that God loves us because God is Our Heavenly Father (or Mother or Parent depending on your piety). However, that is getting things backwards. As a beloved friend once preached, “God doesn’t love us because God is our heavenly parent. [God] loves us because that’s who God is, and it is the love that God has for us that makes us God’s children—not the other way around.”[1]

 

Think about it this way, most of us probably believe deeply that we love our grandparents and parents, our children and grandchildren no matter what. We may even strive to practice unconditional love with them, so that when they hurt us profoundly, we still come back with the same unabashed affection. This is wonderful, and it’s another form of love, sometimes referred to as storgē familial love. Jesus was calling his disciples (and us) to abide in this agape love. This sounds great, but what does this love look like?

 

Agape is revealed in keeping Jesus’ commandment. What was Jesus’ commandment? To love one another as he loves us. [puzzled look] Okay, I know. This is as though we are walking through an M.C. Escher painting in which we reach the top of the stairs only to realize we are back at the bottom. Jesus’ words are a bit circuital. He essentially says: “Love one another as I have loved you. Do this by abiding in my love. You will know that you are dwelling in my love if you follow my commandments. What are my commandments? Oh wait, there’s just one and it is to love one another.” Oh, Jesus!

 

This snake eating its tail sort of logic is frustrating; however, digging deeper into what Jesus meant by this love may leave us even more frustrated, or at least more challenged! After Jesus told his disciples that his commandment was to love one another he gave them a real-world example of this: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” We sometimes bypass these words too quickly, so let me read them again, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus not twenty-four hours later lived these words out—or perhaps better said, he laid his life down to prove these words perfectly true. 

 

How do we even attempt to live into this sort of love? That same friend I mentioned earlier also pointed out that there are two surprises within these challenging words.[2] The first is right in front of us: Laying down one’s life for another is not simply an act of ending one’s mortal life. 

 

Another sort of “martyrdom” exists. We celebrate this example in the Church Calendar when we put up white liturgical hangings for Saints’ feast days. These Saints did not die because of their faith, instead they lived for it. In the musical Hamilton the character of George Washington put it more simply, “Dying is easy, living is harder.” John in a passage from his First Letter that we read a few weeks ago expanded this concept even further. When we sacrifice resources, we would otherwise use and give to God’s work in this world here too we are laying down our lives. So, this is the first surprise—the agape love of giving up ourselves is not just about death, it happens any time we sacrifice for God’s work in this world.

 

The second surprise is undetectable in our English translation. The sentence “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” is much more interesting in the original language. The word for friends is philos and there is a specific type of friendly or brotherly love in the Greek, it’s philia (see: Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love). So, is that what Jesus said? NOPE! Jesus used another word for love, and it is—you guessed it—agape! 

 

Why is this important? It would have put those listening to this Gospel on notice. To truly follow Jesus’ commandment, to abide in him, to be his friend is not about brotherly love—love that is complementary or a mirror response to how someone else treats us. Instead, it is about agape—that non-reacting, everlasting love. Alright, again this all sounds nice, but what’s this look like, laying down our life for someone else? For example, how do we live in love when we have conflict with someone else? Well, how did Jesus live or as the famous bracelet asks, “What would Jesus do?”

 

Jesus was not a doormat. He was not a pushover. He pushed over tables in the Temple. He told people no. He even said to his own family, you are not my family—those who do my Father’s will are. He stopped healing people in one town, so that he could share his message elsewhere. He paused for prayer. He loved his enemies, but by challenging them. And in these and many other ways, he showed us an example of being “boundaried” in our approach to dwelling in God’s love and sharing it with others. Jesus set limits even as he expressed God’s limitless love. 

 

So, maybe living in agape is not so much about being pushovers, running ourselves ragged, and completely exhausting ourselves, but instead it is about finding times and places to fill our cup with God’s love, like Jesus did in prayer. So that then, that love overflows from us to others, like Jesus did in truly seeing and healing others. And yes, God calls us to give sacrificially of ourselves, but in ways that enrich our lives and others—not just for the sake of suffering. Jesus did not die just to die, he died so that we may live in love. 

 

Remember you are a beloved creature of this love, and not a robot that can work without rest and restoration. God’s love is not an invitation for others to take advantage of us or hurt themselves. God’s love is not a mythical “perfect love” that does not exist in real life.

 

God is always more ready to give us this gift than we are to receive it. Some moments we will dwell in this love and it will emanate from us to others. Other times we will be broken vessels that leak the little bit of agape we feel like we have inside. In all these moments may we not shame ourselves or tear each other down for that only prevents us from seeing God’s way of love.

 

In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, we see this way: 

-the transfiguration of human weakness by God’s strength 

-non-reacting, everlasting love as a response to violence

-the trappings of death gone and the tomb empty

 

In this way, may we sing with Donna Summer and the youth of our diocese:

Give me, your unconditional love.

The kind of love I deserve

The kind I want to return.

 

And when it feels hard to return that love to those with whom we disagree or have conflict, may we rely upon God to sustain us, as we set good boundaries, trusting that in the end God’s resurrecting love will make us all one! Amen. 

---

[1] Evan D. Garner, “To Love As We Are Loved,” [http://evandgarner.blogspot.com/2018/05/to-love-as-we-are-loved.html, posted: May 6, 2018, accessed: May 5, 2021].

[2] Garner, “To Love As We Are Loved,” [http://evandgarner.blogspot.com/2018/05/to-love-as-we-are-loved.html, posted: May 6, 2018, accessed: May 5, 2021].

Give Me Your Unconditional Love

 

What does unconditional love really mean?

 

May 9, 2021—Easter 6B 

Acts 10:44-48  Psalm 98 1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17

The title track off of Donna Summer’s 1983 album She Works Hard For The Money was a huge hit. It topped the Billboard R&B chart for three weeks and reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. It remains one of Summer’s most well-known tracks, played around the world and streamed tens of millions of times.

The second single off that same album was a commercial disappointment, only reaching #43 on Billboard’s pop list. I am sure Summers and Mercury Records were upset by the lukewarm reception of this track. However, the late Donna Summers would be happy to know that the youth of our diocese love this song, which is entitled, “Unconditional Love.” If you were in church last week, you heard it:

Don't take too long to find/True love transcends all time/That non-reacting, everlasting love

Give me, your unconditional love./The kind of love I deserve/The kind I want to return.

Until Youth Sunday, seven days ago, when Charles Youngson, on his way out the door for his sabbatical, said something about this song, I had no idea of the genesis of this classic camp hit. When Charles revealed the original singer of this song, and I was so confused. “’Unconditional Love’ was sung by Donna Summers? Like, ‘Bad Girls’ Donna Summers? ‘Last Dance’ Donna Summers?” After googling and going on Spotify to make sure Charles had not prematurely left on his sabbatical with that statement, I explored a little more. 

Discovering that this song had a less than stellar reception amongst critics and radio listeners alike actually did not surprise me. We prefer to put our energies into working hard (for the money) instead of receiving and giving unconditional love. This is true not just about Donna Summers’ songs, it is true throughout life. Of course, we in the Church love love.

We love talking about love. We love putting love in our mission statements—"revealing God’s transforming love in the world”—but what do we really mean by unconditional love, transforming love, or in the Greek agape? Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson gives us some clues as to the immensity and the difficulty of participating in God’s love.

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love,” Jesus told this to his disciples on the night before he died. Sometimes we believe that God loves us because God is Our Heavenly Father (or Mother or Parent depending on your piety). However, that is getting things backwards. As a fellow priest and friend once preached, “God doesn’t love us because God is our heavenly parent. [God] loves us because that’s who God is, and it is the love that God has for us that makes us God’s children—not the other way around.”[1]

Think about it this way, most of us probably believe deeply that we love our grandparents and parents, our children and grandchildren no matter what. We may even strive to practice unconditional love with them, so that when they hurt us profoundly, we still come back with the same unabashed affection. This is wonderful, but it is actually another form of love, sometimes referred to as storgē, which is the Greek word for familial love. Jesus was calling his disciples (and us) to abide in this other form of love, agape. This sounds great, but what does this love look like?

Agape is revealed in keeping Jesus’ commandment. What was Jesus’ commandment? To love one another as he loves us. [puzzled look] Okay, I know. This is as though we are walking through an M.C. Escher painting in which we reach the top of the stairs only to realize we are back at the bottom. Jesus’ words are a bit circuital. He essentially says: “Love one another as I have loved you. Do this by abiding in my love. You will know that you are dwelling in my love if you follow my commandments. What are my commandments? Oh wait, there’s just one and it is to love one another.” Oh, Jesus!

This snake eating its tail sort of logic is frustrating; however, digging deeper into what Jesus meant by this love may leave us even more frustrated, or at least more challenged! After Jesus told his disciples that his commandment was to love one another he gave them a real-world example of this: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” We sometimes bypass these words too quickly, so let me read them again, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus not twenty-four hours later lived these words out—or perhaps better said, he laid his life down to prove these words perfectly true.

How do we even attempt to live into this sort of love? That same priest I mentioned earlier also pointed out that there are two surprises within these challenging words.[2] The first is right in front of us: Laying down one’s life for another is not simply an act of ending one’s mortal life.
 

Another sort of “martyrdom” exists. We celebrate this example in the Church Calendar when we put up white liturgical hangings for Saints’ feast days. These Saints did not die because of their faith, instead they lived for it. In the musical Hamilton the character of George Washington put it more simply, “Dying is easy, living is harder.” John in a passage from his First Letter that we read a few weeks ago expanded this concept even further. When we sacrifice resources, we would otherwise use and give to God’s work in this world here too we are laying down our lives. So, this is the first surprise—the agape love of giving up ourselves is not just about death, it happens any time we sacrifice for God’s work in this world.

The second surprise is undetectable in our English translation. The sentence “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” is much more interesting in the original language. The word for friends is philos and there is a specific type of friendly or brotherly love in the Greek, it’s philia (see: Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love). So, is that what Jesus said? NOPE! Jesus used another word for love, and it is—you guessed it—agape!

Why is this important? It would have put those listening to this Gospel on notice. To truly follow Jesus’ commandment, to abide in him, to be his friend is not about brotherly love—love that is complementary or a mirror response to how someone else treats us. Instead, it is about agape—that non-reacting, everlasting love. Alright, again this all sounds nice, but what’s this look like, laying down our life for someone else?

In the middle of last week at the Men’s Bible Study (on Wednesday mornings at 7:00 AM both in person and on Zoom… contact me if you are interested!), and someone asked a wonderful question along these same lines. We were talking about love in action, where the rubber meets the road, and wondered, “How do we live in love when we have conflict with someone else?” I have been pondering this question off and on since I heard it.

Agape is a gift of God—we never have to work hard for it—but when we do not have it, how do we cultivate it? Do we become doormats or pushovers for others? Do we give of ourselves completely such that we become empty vessels—dry and parched? Do we follow the example of Saints who lived for Christ by giving away everything and surviving on the charity of others? Maybe. However, Jesus’ example paints a different picture of agape.

Jesus was not a doormat. He was not a pushover. He pushed over tables in the Temple. He told people no. He even said to his own family, you are not my family—those who do my Father’s will are my brothers and sisters and mother. He stopped healing people in one town, so that he could share his message elsewhere. He paused for prayer. He loved his enemies, but by challenging them. And in these and many other ways, he showed us an example of being “boundaried” in our approach to dwelling in God’s love and sharing it with others. The fully divine and fully human Jesus had good boundaries—he set limits even as he expressed God’s limitless love.

So, maybe living in agape is not so much about being pushovers, running ourselves ragged, and giving everything away, but instead it is about finding times and places to fill our cup with God’s love, like Jesus did in prayer. So that then, that love overflows from us to others, like Jesus did in truly seeing and healing others. And yes, God calls us to give sacrificially of ourselves, but in ways that enrich our lives and others—not just for the sake of suffering. Jesus did not just die to die, he died so that we may live in love.

Remember you are a beloved creature of this love, and not a robot that can work without rest and restoration. God’s love is not an invitation for others to take advantage of us or hurt themselves. God’s love is not a mythical “perfect love” that does not exist in real life. Agape does exist in reality.

God is always more ready to give us this gift than we are to receive it. Some moments we will dwell in this love and it will emanate from us to others. Other times we will be broken vessels that leak the little bit of agape we feel like we have inside. In all these moments may we not shame ourselves or tear each other down for that only prevents us from seeing God’s way of love.

In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, we see this way: the transfiguration of human weakness by God’s strength, non-reacting, everlasting love as a response to violence, the trappings of death gone and the tomb empty.

In this way, may we sing with Donna Summers and the youth of our diocese:

Give me, your unconditional love./The kind of love I deserve/The kind I want to return.

And when it feels hard to return that love to those with whom we disagree or have conflict, may we rely upon God to sustain us, as we set good boundaries, trusting that in the end God’s resurrecting love always wins! Amen.

---

[1] Evan D. Garner, “To Love As We Are Loved,” [http://evandgarner.blogspot.com/2018/05/to-love-as-we-are-loved.html, posted: May 6, 2018, accessed: May 5, 2021].

[2] Garner, “To Love As We Are Loved,” [http://evandgarner.blogspot.com/2018/05/to-love-as-we-are-loved.html, posted: May 6, 2018, accessed: May 5, 2021].

In-Between Sunday

This Sunday we are in-between Ascension and Pentecost

Many churches at this time of year celebrate a Children and Youth Sunday. St. John’s has this practice as well. Often this means we give our children and youth roles in the service. Sometimes this even means we have a youth preacher. This year I have had more opportunity to work with our youth preacher, and I have been the better for it.

Evan, Tim Callahan (our youth minister), and I sat down to talk with Sanders White (our youth preacher) several weeks back. We began with prayer, and then read through the lessons for Children and Youth Sunday. This was to help prepare our youth preacher and to give him some insights to build upon. Fortunately for me, I am also preaching this Sunday at the early service. One kernel of wisdom revealed that day has been ringing in my mind at various points since then.

This Sunday is strange. It is a Sunday when we remember the time between Jesus’ Ascension into heaven (40 days after Easter) and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (50 days after Easter). This Sunday doesn’t have an official name—other than the Sixth Sunday of Easter. But, maybe it ought to be called “In-between Sunday.” And, actually in more ways than one that name fits.

Sure, this is the time between Jesus leaving his disciples and the gift of the Holy Spirit coming to inspire their ministry, but there’s more. As this is Children and Youth Sunday, it is a time when we call to mind transitions. Our children, teenagers, parents, and teachers are about to finish the academic year. They will soon be in that space between one school year and the next. This liminal time is important. But, how do we recognize it, utilize it, and celebrate it?

Often these sorts of transitions sneak up on us. They frustrate us. Moving from one thing to the next never is as easy as we want it to be. So, having a time when we think of the in-between might actually do us a lot of good. Especially, if we allow the lessons from Sunday to inspire us.

In the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus has departed for heaven. His Ascension left the disciples wondering what to do next. They had not yet received the Holy Spirit, but that did not stop them from doing good work. One spot left open by Judas' betrayal remained open among the apostles. They needed to fill it. But, how?

First, they found those who had been faithful all along. Next, they drew straws to figure out who would serve as Judas’ replacement. It might seem a little risky to pick a disciple like this. Would the disciples have done something different if Jesus were still there? Would they have done something different if the Holy Spirit were already present? We will never know. But, in that time of transition what they thought important was doing the good work of completion. They wanted fulfillment. Fulfillment appears to be a theme among the other readings as well.

In John’s letter, those without the Son, without Christ in them, do not have true life. If we think of reading this statement in a time of transition we are anchored in the truth that God remains with us. Even if Jesus has ascended into heaven, even if he is no longer bodily here that does not mean we are without the Son.

In John’s Gospel lesson we discover fulfillment through the same type of belonging to Christ. We do not belong to this world, a world that is ever-changing. We belong instead to Christ. Through Christ we belong to God. This means that we belong to the changeless one. This gives us reassurance as everything in this world shifts and moves, and as we see our children, our adolescents, and ourselves changing. We are reassured that God will always be with us even through the shifts, the storms, and the struggles of this life.

But, still there is more about this “In-between Sunday.” As Evan wrote about this morning in his blog, we must not skip over this time. Waiting is important. We waited for the Resurrection outside the tomb on Holy Saturday. We must also wait for the Holy Spirit to come among us. If we are not able to abide in this liminal space we may completely miss what God is doing in us, through us, and among us.

It is always hard to be in between where we are and where we are going. However, this journey that is life is chalked full of in-the-middle moments. If we do not abide in these times we will miss the richness of God meeting us in the everyday. We will overlook the gift that is right now. We will not see how God is gifting us even as we wait for something more. May we celebrate “In-between Sunday” by living in the liminal space where God meets us, inviting us to be ready for something even more transformative!

You Cannot Earn What You Already Have

Why do we expect our relationship with God to grow like a retirement portfolio?

Every Monday morning from 10 to 11 A.M. for almost three years of my life I sat in a gorgeous office. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with volumes on Theology, Contemplative Prayer, Holy Scripture, Fishing, and Canoe Building. Gigantic peach, tan, and cream sandstone blocks lined the exterior of the office. And, several picture windows provided views of students walking to class. Additionally from where I sat I could catch a glimpse of the dogwood and Japanese maple trees that sat outside—ever changing with the seasons. Inside the office, something else was changing too.

The 10 o’clock Monday morning meetings were with my mentor—Sewanee’s University Chaplain the Rev. Tom Macfie. There we talked about our shared work, and he guided me through conversations about discernment. While God had called me in many other times and places, it was in that office that I felt God confirming my call to ordained ministry through the support of a guiding presence. Of course, this sort of careful listening can also reveal truths that require one to change one’s ways.

Many Monday mornings, Tom and I talked about our prayer practice. A trend emerged after about a year of working together. Every few weeks one of us mentioned that our daily prayer practices were going. It was not necessarily a boast, but it was not always humble either. Almost always the next week that person would have to admit that the same prayer practices had faltered. At first, neither Tom nor I thought much about it, but overtime an insight emerged.

When we discovered this theme—solid prayer time, then mentioning how well our relationship with God was going, and a resulting setback—we noticed in this theme God inviting us deeper. Jesus tells us that every branch that bears fruit the Father prunes to make it bear more fruit. Our life with God, our prayer practices, and our walk of Faith possesses both growth and pruning, so that we may bear more fruit. But what that time with Tom helped me to realize was that through ups and downs what matters most is abiding with God, being with God as God is with us.
This is hard for us. We like to think about our lives in terms of growth. Think for a moment about your work experience, your wisdom as a human being, or your ideal retirement portfolio over the course of time. What does that look like if we put it into line graph form? A line with an arrow pointing up into the future, right? Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this growth. However, we cannot apply this linear growth concept to our prayer life. It just does not compute. Why is that?

For one thing, God abides with us more intimately than we will ever perceive, feel, or know. How can one graph growing closer to the One who is closer to us than ourselves? At the same time, God exists more transcendently beyond us than we can imagine. Having a relationship with God who dwells in and beyond us will leave us baffled. This means that our relationship with the Divine does not track easily, like a linear graph. Why would we expect that relationship to grow exponentially?

Also, in times when we think we are responsible for how close we are to God we often fail. As I learned during those meetings with Tom, tracking growth in my spiritual life looks more like a sine wave or an ever-changing spiral than an upward trending line. When we come to church, take time to pray, give to God’s work in the world, and serve our neighbors, then we may think we get a gold star, like we received for attending Sunday School as a child. The temptation is to think we are the reason our spiritual life is trending upward. The Book of Proverbs reminds us that pride goes before destruction. Even here though, there is good news: not in the pride, but in the pruning.

New fruit comes from God’s pruning. In the difficult moments when we live in the love of Christ, God stimulates growth. Our spiritual lives, our life in Christ, will not emulate a line graph, but rather the messiness of garden. There will be dirt. There will be sunny days. There will be downpours. There will be heat. There will be growth. There will be shearing. And all the while we will be tempted to figure out exactly where we are, like I tried to do during those sessions with Tom, but that is not what God calls us to do.

What God calls us into is abiding. In each of the readings for today we discover this true task of our lives. It is not for us to quantify or score how well we are relating to God. Rather in each of these readings we hear the call to abide in God and God’s love, as God and God’s love abides in us.

The Ethiopian eunuch whom Philip baptized in the Acts of the Apostles did not simply read Holy Scripture. He felt the Holy Spirit drawing him to abide in God more deeply. When he saw water he yearned to be more deeply dwelling in the life of Christ, so Philip baptized him.

In this Psalm of praise, the author yearned to praise God in the great assembly. All are called to dwell in God. All are called to remember the Lord. Even those asleep in the earth shall bow down in worship. For all of our souls, like the author’s, shall live for God, as we abide in him.

The Letter from John, one which we often read at the Blessing and Celebration of a Marriage, reminds us that God is love and we are God’s beloved. Our lives are to be solely focused on living out of this beloved and loving state. However, because of the association with marriage we may only focus on the emotion of love. John though tells us this love encompasses something even more tremendous than the feeling of love. God loved us first. God loves us fully. God will love us eternally. When we abide in this love, throughout life and especially during difficult times, we will emanate this same love to others.

John’s Gospel account seals this life-long call to live in the love of Christ with an analogy. We are the branches. Christ is the vine. We bear fruit not on our own, nor by our merit, nor by working harder, but by living in Christ. While other bits of John’s Gospel account grab more attention, this challenge to abide in God resonates so powerfully to the Church of today. 63 times throughout his letters and his Gospel account this word abide appears. The Church of right now would do well to proclaim this often. Why?

We are surrounded by a world that believes what I did during those Monday morning meetings. Namely, that is up to me to have a good spiritual life. It’s up to me to earn my way into God’s grace, God’s love, and God’s heavenly kingdom. So, we hear things like you must go to church, pray every day, avoid sin, etc. Being a follower of Christ Jesus was not, is not, nor will it ever be about doing something to earn the love of God. God already loves us. God abides in us no matter what. We cannot hit a higher mark on this line graph. Instead, we are called to recognize what is already present.

God loved us first. Through the love of Christ Jesus, in his life, death, and resurrection—and particularly in his sacrifice—we see the depth of God’s love. That is why we are beloved. And, as we exist as God’s beloveds we are called to share this same life-giving love with others.

Let our lives then be a reflection of God’s love for us. May we always remember that we are God’s beloveds. Then, may we live our lives not to earn more of what we already have in abundance. No, instead may we live though sacrificial love as a joyous response to God’s infinite love for us and for all. 

Beware the Home Run Sermon

When we abide as branches on the vine we bear good fruit.

Every once in a while when I open up www.lectionarypage.net to look at the coming Sunday’s lessons, I find myself instinctively doing a quiet fist pump at my computer. On those days when I am so excited by the upcoming texts it is usually disaster waiting to happen. My colleague Evan D. Garner and I sometimes discuss this hubris of the preacher. If the one in the pulpit is so sure of herself or himself, then she or he presumably has relied too much on her or his strength and not on the Lord’s. So, as I get excited about the bounty that is this Sunday’s lessons, I pray that I may allow the Spirit to work through me for God’s glory—instead of misguidedly believing I will march into the pulpit with a home run sermon.

There is of course some good reason to be excited about the readings for the 5th Sunday of Easter. We begin with Philip’s encounter with Candace’s eunuch from Ethiopia. A chariot ride bible study ended with Philip baptizing the eunuch through the power of the Spirit. Then, Philip vanished by the abilities of that same Spirit. God’s Holy Word, Holy Baptism, and the Holy Spirit—what’s not to love about that story?

Sometimes preachers like me completely overlook the wisdom and beauty of the Psalm appointed for Sunday morning. The portion of the Psalter (Psalm 22:24-30) we will read points to the transformative power of God’s resurrecting love that Jesus made known. However, that power always exists. And, it always existed. Those who sleep in the earth bow to the earth, even those in the dust know of God’s power—even before they are resurrected at the eschaton—the end of days. This part of the Psalter touches on what the reading from John’s First Letter gives to us also.

In Sunday’s reading from 1 John we discover one of the most beautiful portions of the New Testament—God is love. Having just celebrated at a friend’s wedding, I have that context for this reading stuck in my mind. Still, this truth that we are God’s beloved does not simply apply to those making life-long vows. No, in truth God’s seeing us as beloved applies to all of God’s children. Like the Psalmist, John trusted that we belong and abide in God. John amplified that belief through the perfecting of love that Jesus exemplified for us. In other words, Jesus showed us what perfect—as in fulfilling—love looks like.

Finally, the reading from the Good News of Christ Jesus according to John provides a capstone for this theme of abiding in God through God’s fruitful love. The analogy of a vine extending to branches gives to us an image of what that love will do in our lives. Jesus is our vine and we are his branches. When we abide in God’s life-giving love our lives will overrun with a tangible, tasty, sweet, healthy, and fragrant fruit.

As this week continues, instead of relying upon ourselves to bear fruit, I pray that we—especially preachers—may allow the vine to manifest in our hearts, our lives, our actions, our thoughts, and our words. May we abide in God’s love. May we know that God’s fulfilling love sustains all things. May we be God’s beloved branches bearing God’s fruit in this world.

The Good News Is A Party

Tuesdays at Seminary of the Southwest meant two very important things. One, it was soup day in the dining hall—a huge plus! And two, right before we had lunch together we shared in the Lord’s Supper together in the Chapel using a Spanish language service. For all its gifts, the Episcopal Church has not provided a very good Spanish language Prayer Book. But, there is one line that always stood out as authentic and profound when we said the Eucharist together.

After the priest says the Eucharistic Prayer and breaks the bread at what is called the Fraction, often some words follow the moment of silence. In English the celebrant will sometimes say:
“Alleluia! Christ our Passover, has been sacrificed for us.”
The people reply, “Therefore let us keep the feast. Alleluia!” To me these words sound particularly formal in English, like we are attending a frigid banquet for a king or queen; however the bit that I most clearly recall from the Spanish-speaking Eucharist indicates something quite different.

Celebrant: [¡Aleluya!] Cristo, nuestra Pascua, se ha sacrificado por
nosotros.
People: ¡Celebremos la fiesta! [¡Aleluya!]

These words carry a more festive feel, as though they are saying: “Let’s get this party going!” God has given us a great gift through Jesus showing us that life conquers death, why wouldn’t we celebrate? Of all the Gospel accounts, John’s words most clearly take on this same belief: in the coming of Christ the world—all of Creation celebrates!

Right off the bat in John’s telling of the Good News, Jesus partakes in celebrating. His first sign—pointing to God’s glory—came at a wedding party in Cana. While the story always makes me laugh because his mother has to coax him into acting, Jesus eventually turns a lot of water into a lot of wine—like way more wine than could be consumed at even a huge wedding. This indicates to us that God’s reign, as expressed in Christ coming to earth, is not just an everyday affair. God coming to dwell with us deserves a party of abundance that is a fete, a fiesta, a raging party for the ages!

John does not stop here. Throughout the entire Gospel there are stories of abundance: Jesus healing a royal official in Cana, curing a paralyzed person at Bethsaida, feeding the five thousand in the wilderness, and raising Lazarus from the dead at Bethany are just a few examples of the abundant, joyful celebration that is life in Christ. While other Gospel accounts tell of the Last Supper being a Passover meal, John instead tells this story from the perspective that Jesus himself is the bread on which the world will feast. He is the one who provides the sustenance, the fuel for the party to continue.

Often Episcopal clergy people will lament one aspect of the way John tells this festive tale of Jesus coming to set God’s people free. Throughout the summer months for five straight weeks we are stuck in Jesus’ Bread of Life description. He has come as the bread on which the world will feast and be freed, and yet for several weeks in a row clergy people must rehash this same theme over and over again. What I can happily say now—even though we will get those text in just a few short months—is that this overly descriptive part of John’s Gospel account gives us a glimpse into even the overabundance in describing how Jesus feeds us through his loving presence in this world.

Life in Christ is not a frigid affair. In this season of Nativity when we recall the light of Christ coming into the darkness and drear of this time of year, may we be enlivened by John’s sharing of the Good News. We celebrate the apostle and evangelist today—as part of our Christmas festivities. May the exciting, uplifting, and festive way that John shared the Good News dwell in our hearts at this time of year and always. May we celebrate life in Christ as a party of unequaled proportions!

A New Intention: Stop Sin, Be Beloved

Something remarkable happens at this time each year. Millions of people spend billions of dollars on new diet plans, workout equipment, organizational materials, and whatever else gets marketed as a new year, new you product! What is your New Year’s Resolution? Have you kept it thus far? How is the new diet, workout routine, or prayer practice going?

While on one level taking on new routines this year could be seen as commendable, however the overarching concept of making yourself better stands in opposition with the message of Christ. As strange as it sounds, God did not send Jesus to us so that we might lose a few pounds or organize the garage in the New Year. In the First Letter of John we are reminded of our true nature, which requires no resolving to be “better” this year. John wrote, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Living a healthy life for your sake or for your family’s is great! Being more prepared is fantastic! Exploring nature through exercise makes my heart sing. And yet, we are God’s children NOW!

The trouble with resolutions comes in a fundamental misunderstanding. We do not make ourselves good, instead God has made us good in our Creation and in our restoration. It is through Christ’s Incarnation in Jesus his life, death, and Resurrection that we see and experience ultimate goodness! John’s letter goes on to show us that as God’s beloveds our entire existence will take the shape of Christ’s own life! He wrote, “What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” This stands out as AWESOMELY good news!

No resolution is needed for us to be made into God’s beloved. We are already these loved ones! And, as we see Christ in our lives and in the world around us life will take the shape of Christ: living, dying, and resurrecting. During Advent as my Sunday School class discussed the shape of the Church Calendar we found that in Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Morning, what is known as the Triduum, most of or maybe even all our experiences exist. Fellowship, service, betrayal, denial, torture, greed, rage, self-emptying, love, isolation, forgiveness, solitude, death, and resurrection are all on display here. In the person of Jesus, Christ models for us all of human experience such that resolutions no longer make any sense. We are already beloved by God, how can we become better, how could we possibly achieve something greater? However, what may be beneficial to us in this New Year is an intention to remember that we are God’s beloveds through a practice or observation.

John the Baptizer shows us a helpful practice for now and into the future. In today’s Gospel lesson the forerunner of God knew that Jesus was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. Notice that this text says sin and not sins. According to Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and monk at the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico, this is no mistake. There is but one sin that John the Baptizer observed. Rohr states as this, “Ignorant hating, excluding, and killing is the universal sin of the world to this day.”[1] It dates back to Cain and Abel, was seen in the death of Jesus and the first martyr Stephen, and it is still seen in modern martyrdoms here and abroad. So what do we do?

May our intention be to stop the cycle of hating, excluding, and killing this year! May we practice the self-emptying love of Christ! May we be willing to give up our way, so that God’s way may be walked together, hand-in-hand with all the people of this world! These huge objectives of stopping hatred, bringing about peace, and uniting all people in love seem impossible; however, the reign of Christ has already begun and we can co-create with God through even the tiniest of steps. When we stop judging, manipulating, or reprimanding others we are then able to live into our belovedness, as instead of trying to change how others are we may take on their pain, empathize with others, and together be transformed by the resurrecting power of God’s love! THAT IS WHAT THE GOSPEL IS ALL ABOUT!

We are already God’s beloved. Now we are called into a new intention. As the Body of Christ we must be part of taking way the sin of the world (hating, excluding, and killing), so that we may instead remember that all are God’s beloved, as we are all healed by the Lamb of God!

---

[1] Rohr, Richard. Changing the Game. December 26, 2016. https://cac.org/changing-the-game-2016-12-26/ (accessed January 3, 2017).