28 April 2013

“Glorified ... nice?”
Acts 11:1-18 / Revelation 21:1-6 / John 13:31-35
5 Easter C
28 April 2013


Once again this week, our Gospel text takes us on a trip in the “wayback” machine ... here, in these post-Easter Day, Resurrection of our Lord Sundays, our Word from St. John is from before Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection ...
...however, not before his Passion.
These five short verses are from “the night in which Jesus was betrayed” ... and yes, we just heard these verses on Maundy Thursday, four weeks ago this past Thursday.
So why are we hearing them again, in worship, so soon?
Because just as last Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter is always Good Shepherd Sunday, with the 23rd Psalm and texts about Jesus’ shepherding-leadership ... so this 5th Sunday of Easter is known as “Love” Sunday ... with at least one of the texts focusing on “Jesus’ kind of love.”
Here, this year, we once again hear Jesus’ words of the New Commandment, the mandatum, the mandate from which Maundy Thursday draws its name ... Love One Another.
Now, perhaps you remember, as we’ve discussed this Word every year here in worship, either on Maundy Thursday or after Easter … perhaps you remember that the Greek language has three words for our own English love… and they are eros, filos, and agape.
Maybe you remember that eros means what it sounds like … the very human love between two lovers.
... that filos means fraternal love, the love between friends, the love one can have for their city or state or nation, or their favorite ball club.
And that the third word in Greek for love … agape … stands for “Jesus’ kind of love.” Self-emptying, shepherd-servant-leader love.
It’s the love that Jesus exemplifies throughout the Gospels, but especially, in our texts from the Gospel of John which have been our Gospel texts each Sunday during the season of Easter.
It’s the love that Jesus showed Mary as he called her name, appearing to her that first Easter morning.
It’s the love Jesus gave the apostles as he appeared among them, hidden away in fear, saying Peace is Here and Catch My Spirit, to Share It with Others.
The same love Jesus showed his friends there on that Galilean beach as he cooked them fish, asked them to “feed his sheep” and “follow me.”
That’s Jesus’ kind of love. Deep, self-giving, cross-shaped, strength through suffering, flowing from the heart of God, the God we know as the Lamb who is the Good Shepherd. The One who serves unto the giving of his own life, laying it down, and taking it back up again because God willed that it would be so.
This is love that glorifies God in its giving and sharing.
When Jesus calls his disciples to “follow me,” THIS is how he means and intends for them … for us … to follow.
In this “love one another” love.
Which is a whole lot more than just being “nice.”
Sometimes I think that we hear Jesus’ words in this text as “be nice to one another.” And most of us probably do a pretty good job of this, most of the time.
It’s just that, being nice to one another doesn’t glorify God.
It’s not “glorified nice,” it’s giving glory to God through life-changing, world-changing, self-emptying and being-filled-by-God love for one another.
Now, our other Scripture readings give us fine examples of what this love is like, what it does among those who share and receive it, and what happens – on earth as it is in heaven – as a result of it.
The Word from Acts may not seem like a “big deal” to us gathered here today, but most surely, this is The Word that brings us ... we who are not Jews, we who are called by the Jews ta ethna – the nations ... Gentiles ... this word is The Word which brings us into the fold of the Church.
Peter’s protest to the voice he hears as the Lord is not to be taken lightly.
For what God is working here is nothing less than a setting aside of part of God’s own law for his people.
It’s called the Holiness Code, the verses and chapters surrounding the Ten Commandments ... and in those verses and chapters, are express commands to the Israelites about what they are, and are not, to eat, to remain as God’s own people.
This has been “the way of things” for Peter and his people for ages. It’s all they have ever known.
And yet, here, in a vision, Peter is given another Word from God.
God changes God’s mind, for the sake of including more and more people into the fold, the flock, of the Kingdom of God.
And guess what ... “they” are “us.”
The nations. The Gentiles. The not-Jews.
And so Peter follows God’s call to baptize Cornelius, a soldier of the Roman Empire, a Gentile, but not just one Gentile ... God wants Peter to baptize Cornelius’ whole family.
And the Holy Spirit came upon them, as the Holy Spirit had come upon the apostles in that locked upper room, when Jesus said, catch my Spirit ... it came upon these Gentiles as it had among the disciples on that first Pentecost.
Now, here, in these verses, Peter is explaining to the apostles and other Jewish Christians ... the original Christians, for up to this point following Jesus has been a call to only those who were also practicing, law-keeping, kosher and circumcised Jews ... Peter here is explaining to them what has happened.
Which is ... the same thing that has happened to those Jews, when they heard God’s call to follow Jesus.

What God has made clean, you must not call profane .. common ... outside the circle of faith.

If then God gave them ... the Gentiles ... (that’s US) ... if God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?

Who indeed.
Love ... Jesus’ kind of love ... had opened a door that shall never, ever be shut again.
Then God has given even to the Gentiles ... EVEN UNTO US, YOU AND I ...the repentance that leads to life.
The repentance that leads to life.
And we’re reminded again of those words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, with which I closed the Word last week:

This is (repentance, turning around and turning toward the call of Christ): not in the first place thinking about one’s own needs, problems, sins, and fear, but allowing oneself to be caught up into the way of Jesus Christ. It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. Jesus calls people, not to a new religion, but to life.

This is life. Receiving, living, sharing, Jesus’ kind of love. Waaaaaay more than glorified nice ... this is love that leads to life-change, to church-change, to culture-change, to world-change ... HERE AND NOW, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.
And “on earth as it is in heaven” is exactly where our Revelation passage leads us this morning.
Last week’s reading from this often-misunderstood last book of the New Testament was a heavenly interlude of worship and praise which looked forward to this scene we receive in the Word today.
Now, here, in today’s text, all the conflict, the battles and wars, the injustice and suffering are over, and John of Revelation looks forward to – and sees – a new heaven and new earth, what is coming, through the sheer power and inexorable will of God, to bring agape-love, Jesus’ kind of love, to earth as it is in heaven.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more.
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more.
For the first things have passed away.

This is the end-result of Jesus’ kind of love. When we follow Jesus’ call to “love one another,” this is sooo much more than just being nice. “Loving one another” as Jesus calls us is world changing, life changing love ... it brings a window of God’s future to here and now, to us, here, today ... yes, it will not be completely perfect and well and whole until this time when God makes everything new, but that should not, shall not, WILL NOT STOP US FROM LOVING ONE ANOTHER AS JESUS CALLS US AND WANTS US AND WILLS US TO DO, HERE AND NOW, TODAY, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.
And what gives us that final assurance, that blessed rest and comfort and hope, so we can “love one another?”
It’s right there in the final words of this reading.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

I AM the beginning and the end. These words, the bookends to the Book of Revelation ... words which begin the book in the first chapter ... words that end the book ... I AM, Jesus says, I AM the beginning and the end.
Not bird flu. Not terrorist attack. Not high blood pressure or cancer. Not a break in the Juan de Fuca plate and a 9.0 earthquake. Not Kim Jong Un’s missiles. Not my death, and not yours. No, I AM – Jesus – is the beginning and the end.
And so we have ultimate peace, hope, security ... so we can go forth and live Love One Another into the world ... easy love, loving our friends and family ... and tough love ... loving those with whom we disagree ... or those who worldly wisdom says we should hate and fear ... we can, we will, love them all, because Jesus is the beginning and the end ... our beginning and our end.
Oh, yes, Love One Another does not set aside the rules. Sometimes that love needs to be tough. The commandments of God are still there, to be sure. We still need rules and laws in this life for the protection of the weak and the vulnerable, the suffering and the poor. But Jesus’ word remains ... LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
Way more than glorified nice. This is love which gives glory to God.
I was reminded of this love recently as I marked the one year anniversary of my mom’s death. You may have heard me say that I believe that Americans generally “do death” pretty poorly ... the Conventional Wisdom in our culture is that we should get all the mourning over with as soon as possible, and “move on” ... while Jews, among other cultures (such as Native American, Asian, etc.) recognize that mourning takes longer and comes in waves and cycles. The Jewish periods of mourning go three days, seven days, one month, and one year.
That year of mourning involves the family member of the one who has died, saying a prayer called the “Mourner’s Kaddish” ... at least once a week, perhaps even daily, for that year of mourning.
So on April 4, the year anniversary of mom’s death, I lit a candle, and prayed the words of the Mourner’s Kaddish ... perhaps a strange thing for a Christian to do, but I believe, it was and is a sign of what John was seeing and writing about in Revelation ... that is, that in the midst of death, Jesus’ kind of love pushes us on, to live, fully live, in this life, to fully acknowledge pain and suffering, sorrow and loss ... to comfort others in their sorrow and loss ... to work, fully, bravely, for justice and peace for those who are being crushed under the heavy load of the powerful wheels of an unjust world ... to be, to do, because in Christ we have been given this word of hope which sustains us and leads us forward ... I AM the beginning and end ... I AM ... so, he says, you MUST BE, my signs of my love, into this world.
Jesus’ kind of love. Waaaay more than glorified nice. This is the love that gives glory to God.

Mourner’s Kaddish

MAGNIFIED AND SANCTIFIED
MAY GOD’S GREAT NAME BE
IN THE WORLD THAT GOD CREATED,
AS GOD WILLS,
AND MAY GOD’S KINGDOM COME
IN YOUR LIVES AND IN YOUR DAYS
AND IN THE LIVES OF ALL THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL
SWIFTLY AND SOON,
AND ALL SAY AMEN!

AMEN!
MAY GOD’S GREAT NAME BE BLESSED
ALWAYS AND FOREVER!
BLESSED
AND PRAISED
AND GLORIFIED
AND RAISED
AND EXALTED
AND HONORED
AND UPLIFTED
AND LAUDED
BE THE NAME OF THE HOLY ONE
(GOD IS BLESSED!)
ABOVE ALL BLESSINGS
AND HYMNS AND PRAISES AND CONSOLATIONS
THAT ARE UTTERED IN THE WORLD,
AND SAY ALL AMEN!

MAY A GREAT PEACE FROM HEAVEN –
AND LIFE! –
BE UPON US AND UPON ALL ISRAEL,
AND SAY ALL AMEN!

MAY GOD WHO MAKES PEACE IN GOD’S HIGH PLACES
MAKE PEACE UPON US AND UPON ALL ISRAEL,
AND SAY ALL ...
AMEN!