Tag Archives: love

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples”

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republished from St. Paul’s website

Last week was a tough week. It felt like tragedy was built upon tragedy. The week began with one of our most iconic images in the country, the Boston Marathon, which was rocked by two violent explosions. Then an entirely unrelated explosion at a fertilizer plant in West Texas. These two tragedies are both so separately inconceivable. The murder of people at a moment of sheer joy and an accident with such extreme consequences. And in both tragedies, we had stories to follow into the weekend. It would be very easy to trace between the two the outline of a dangerous world. And many people did. Our mass media certainly seemed eager to draw that picture.

And yet, in the midst of that, were glimpses of real signs of good. There were many public statements of tolerance and hope. Stories of great love and support, not just for the people of Boston and West Texas, the victims of these different explosions, or the families of the dead and injured, but calls for mercy and patience toward those responsible. Despite the constant barrage of reporting from network television (not just cable), many online sources were encouraging the public to slow down and wait. What a stark contrast: the instantaneous medium (internet) preaching slow down!

This is what came to mind today as I thought about this powerful statement from Jesus: that His disciples are known by their love for one another.

If we proclaim that “God is Love” as we do with our beautiful banner, then we do so in everything. In much the way Fr. Trask invited us to see love last Sunday as an outward expression–something we are called to participate in locally, regionally, and globally. That our own efforts to help those in need, through the Food Pantry, Blue Water Habitat for Humanity, and Bridge Builders; through our work in Eagle Butte, the Dominican Republic, and Episcopal Relief and Development; that these efforts are our love. Love given to us by GOD.

And if we take up the challenge given to us by Zack Hunt, we see the character of GOD, which we describe as love, is much more broad and challenging than we think. And, if we are honest, a much more radical concept than we think. That we are called to love the unlovable and rage against injustice. While remembering that GOD’s sense of justice is not the same as our country’s.

This week, with all that was there to drag us down, did not. There was much good. There was much love. Perhaps most fitting that Bruce and Judy could invite us all to share in their joy. For the one thing that broke through, undaunted this week, was love.

 

Love is Love Except When It Isn’t

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In Sunday’s sermon, I preached about Jesus’s third appearance in the Gospel we call John. There were several pieces that fascinated me about the text. Saturday, I focused on the fantastic image of Peter, sitting naked in a boat, dressing, and jumping into the water. The other is the interaction between Jesus and Peter about love.

This interaction, as I wrote previously, deals with two different Greek words for love. Jesus asks Peter if he agape/loves him. Peter responds by saying “you know I phile/love you.” The traditional response to this interaction is to say that these loves aren’t different enough to matter. I certainly disagree.

Jesus is asking Peter if he loves Him in a sacrificial, generous way. Peter says that he loves Jesus in a “I’m drawn to you way.” And the interaction is therefore really subtle. You know that I love you in this way Peter seems to say.

Do you love me this way?

Jesus, you know I love you that way.

kiss baby

It seems that Jesus’s last chat with Peter is one last appeal for Peter to understand what Jesus has been saying the whole time. And particularly on that auspicious Thursday, hours before Jesus would be arrested, tried, and executed on a cross. Love GOD and love one another. Love sacrificially. Generously. Eagerly. Give of yourself to others.

Our problem is that we, like Peter, are obsessed with attraction love. Love that draws us in, pulls us to GOD, and compels us to worship. Love that is dependent on our getting psyched up or emotionally invested in church. Consumer society has made this even worse. Now we need to be “fed” by church or else we’re going somewhere else. We need church to look 100% the way it is in our brains or else we feel justified in getting pissed off and emotionally abusive.

We love Jesus with phile love.

And just a few weeks ago, on Maundy Thursday, we were reminded what kind of love Jesus wants from us.

In other words, Jesus has asked us to love GOD and love one another and we are offering the wrong love.

Naked Love

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a Sermon for Easter 3C
Text: John 21:1-19

Why is Peter naked?

The astute observer will notice that each of the gospels handles the resurrection of Jesus differently. Mark, the earliest gospel has no Jesus appearance; Matthew and Luke each have one appearance; while John has three. This morning we get the last one and it is a doozy.

Perhaps nothing is as striking as what Peter is doing. Remember, this is after he has witnessed the empty tomb and was with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them that night in the upper room, encouraging them to touch Him. He was there when Jesus came back so that Thomas might witness the resurrection, too. He had been following Jesus a long time and knew his rabbi well.

So here he is, sitting naked in a boat with a bunch of other disciples.

And when he recognizes Jesus standing on the shore, he throws on his clothes and jumps into the water.

Let that sink in a second. Never has Peter reminded me of John Cleese or Peter Sellers more than here.

Many have written that it would be normal for Peter to be naked and that he naturally would need to put on clothes to honor Jesus. His jumping in the water was eagerness, wanting to swim to shore, leaving his buddies behind.

Others suggest that Peter isn’t totally naked, but is ashamed, covering himself. Putting back on his work clothes.

But the text doesn’t say anything about shame or eagerness. And it doesn’t say that he swam to shore. All it says is that he was naked. He wrapped his outer garment around himself. He jumped into the water.

If we sit for a moment with the oddity of this, we might actually see it. Don’t try to explain it, just observe. Peter is naked. He wraps the clothes around himself. He jumps into the water.

beach

Jesus’s turn to cook breakfast

The other disciples follow Jesus’s fishing instructions and bring in a huge haul of fish. When they get to shore, they find Jesus preparing them breakfast of fish and bread. He asks them to bring in the fish they had caught, and Peter jumps into the boat and brings the fish out.

So much food: fish and bread. Just a few people. Not even all of the disciples. Like a reverse Feeding of the Five Thousand.

It is starting to feel as if Jesus is wrapping things up. These elements feel familiar…but they are different now.

Which Love is Which?

Jesus takes some time with Peter, asking him three times: “do you love me?” Clearly, this is a sort of dance, as Jesus is asking something of Peter that Peter just isn’t quite getting. We would be excused if we, like Peter, are lulled by its pattern:

Jesus: do you love me?
Peter: of course I do!
Jesus: feed my sheep.

But it doesn’t quite work that way.

In the exchange Jesus and Peter use two different words for love. Jesus asks Peter:

“Simon son of John, do you agape me more than these?”

To which Peter replies:

“Yes, Lord; you know that I phile you.”

Jesus: “Feed my lambs.”

“Simon son of John, do you agape me?”

“Yes, Lord; you know that I phile you.”

Jesus: “Tend my sheep.”

“Simon, son of John, do you phile me?”

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I phile you.”

Jesus: “Feed my sheep.”

It seems that most Biblical scholars are not interested in parsing the difference between these two Greek words for love. That they operate closely as synonyms. But this seems deeply important to me. Agape is a sacrificial love, an intimate love, a relational love. It is the very type of love that Jesus is teaching his disciples to share. Phile is an attractive love, as one is drawn to another: charisma.

So when Jesus asks Peter do you agape love me, He is asking if he has sacrificial and intimate love for Him. Peter’s reply is you know that I have phile/attractive love. Then Jesus asks again about agape love and Peter responds with phile love. Jesus, you know the love I feel.

Then Jesus turns, I imagine with compassion and slight sadness, and asks Peter if he has phile love. Peter is hurt. We usually think because of the repetition. But notice the text says “because he said to him the third time, “Do you phile/love me?” Perhaps Peter doesn’t get the difference between the two loves or because Jesus is asking for something he can’t give. But I’m starting to think he is hurt because Jesus changes that third question to mirror Peter’s. He is hurt because he has failed Jesus again. That he can’t love Jesus the way Jesus asks him to. I doubt that Jesus feels failed.

Being Naked

The images in this story, the nakedness and the tying on of the clothes, the fish and the breakfast, the agape and phile love aren’t tests for the disciples or for us. They may have simple comparisons like the triplicate love to the triplicate denials Peter gave during the Passion. But there is something very deep about them. If Peter believes Jesus knows everything about him, why does he put on clothes? Is he not naked before Jesus already? Is he not an open book to the savior?

Even when we are eager and full of faith and love for Jesus, are we not naked regardless? Clothes, those things we use to protect ourselves from the elements and the weapons of the puritans to shame each other, are of no consequence to Jesus. Peter can’t bring himself to be intimate and vulnerable to Jesus, the very one through whom we are promised safety and comfort. Yet Jesus loves him still.

As we continue on in Easter, we are reminded of the type of love Jesus has invited us into: a love of intimacy and vulnerability. A love of relationship and support. A love of sacrifice and generosity. A love that is not reserved only for Jesus but activated by our love for one another. A love that is not based solely on being drawn to Jesus, but giving of ourselves.

May we love, share, give, and open ourselves to the one who comes into this world to liberate us from our prisons and our comfort alike. May that love be so plain upon us that it cannot be hidden or obscured no matter what we wear. And may we dare to be a people living that love.

 

Love and Sacrifice

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a Homily for Easter 6B
Text: John 15:9-17

Last week’s Gospel pericope ended with verses 7 and 8 which read:

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and be my disciples.

Which flows into this morning (vv. 9-11):

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

This abiding in love and this keeping of commandment is in light of the pruning we heard last week. Which brings up a really significant tension over what we call providence: In describing God as a divine, other-worldly vine grower, then God is shaping us—doing something to us.

Then we get this treatise on abiding and keeping commandment. Suddenly, the focus shifts to us. Our future is made by us.

John Calvin

John Calvin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here we start to dip our toes in the waters of the historic church fights over the nature of God. The position that people have no control over their lives is attributed to the followers of John Calvin, one of the principle reformers. Today, when someone argues that we have no free will, we call him or her a Calvinist.

But this pericope doesn’t really seem to be about free will as we know it. It is about a way of living. In verse 15, Jesus says:

I do not call you servants* any longer, because the servant* does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

The Greek word is more accurately slaves, not servants. “I do not call you slaves any longer.” Speaking to His disciples he says that they were slaves. But not anymore. They are liberated because they know what God is doing.

Do we?

Well, do they? Really? They haven’t said “yes, we get it!” Jesus tells them that they get the mission. He is saying they are ready.

Are we?

We still get a command from Jesus, even though we are no longer slaves and that command is to love each other as Jesus has loved us. That is generous, sacrificial love. This is the simple, radical core of God’s mission that is so hard for us to keep. Loving each other deeply and generously.

As much as these two readings deal with our relationship with God and Jesus, with the pruning and the slavery and the commands, it is also about growing and blooming and bearing fruit. In fact, it is really all about the fruit.

Our pericope ends with Jesus saying “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” His purpose is to bring the love, the sharing of love and that it might be done by His followers.This is how Jesus understands God’s mission: that Jesus might reveal to us our mission, not complete that mission Himself.

Dipping back in the providence pool, briefly; this is Jesus’s response to the classic question about God: why doesn’t God just fix things? Because it is our work. Jesus’s sacrifice doesn’t change that. His coming clarifies it.

So the greatest love, as Jesus describes it, is sacrificial and for the other person. It is not love so that we might receive love, but loves so that they might receive love. So do we understand the mission? O yeah we do!

Love, love, love!

Selfless, generous, and sacrificial. And I’m going to tell you where it can start.

Right here.

4) I sent out worksheets with the Easter letter a month ago. I’ve printed extras if you need another. Pray about it, fill it out, and bring it back in two weeks for Pentecost. It is a worksheet to work through what we’ve done and what we are called to do.

3) Give financially to our ministry together as St. Paul’s. If you aren’t giving, then pray about it and determine what needs to be given. If you are giving, keep up-to-date with your pledge and consider if there is any more that can be done. Our ministry here as we know it depends on this and even greater generosity.

2) Give more time. We are all busy, but carve out an extra hour or two per week for a new ministry. We are starting five new ministries that need all of us: stewardship, prayer & pastoral care, new member, formation, and worship. Please consider which one (or two) you are most called to join. We’ll be getting them off the ground in June.

All of this is about directing our focus to best embody that call to love. How best we love one another, every person that walks in, and every person we meet beyond those doors.

1) Choose to love the people near us more generously and sacrificially.

Love. That is our mission.

Turning Points

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a Sermon for Lent 4B

Text: John 12:20-33

Turning Points

On Wednesday, we talked about this pericope as a turning point. We know turning points as specific moments in time in which things change. Sometimes it is a decision we make or a decision made for us. Or perhaps it is an event in which a new direction is catalyzed and we have no choice but to move. We ascribe great importance to these moments. Like attributing Luther’s nailing of the theses on the door as igniting the Reformation, rather than recognizing the currents of history, all of the stuff that was contributing to it. But these moments truly are sparks of a sort.

This pericope is a turning point because we see Jesus moving in a new direction, or more precisely announcing a new direction. It begins with the arrival of the Greeks and ends with a declaration of what is to happen. A declaration unlike the ones in Mark directed at his disciples, this one is public.

It is also interesting to note that the Greeks come through intermediaries. The Greeks come to a Jew with a Greek name, Philip, and who is from the outskirts. Philip brings them to Andrew, who is consistently the one who brings people to Jesus throughout John’s gospel. There is much that we should take from this idea of being on the outskirts and being accessible.

Defining Moments

This is a turning point, make no mistake. It also brings with it a sense of inevitability. This was Jesus’s real direction. He was to go straight this way, then veer off at this moment. But this is no shortcut, but the arc of his trajectory.

We might ask why he didn’t go straight for this trajectory from the beginning. Afterall, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But we know that isn’t possible, and certainly not what Jesus inteneded to do. He needed to get here before he could start moving to there.

This inevitable path was was also a response to the decision he made. That decision led to certain inevitable conclusions, including his own death. Lia Scholl, in her commentary on this pericope, made this point. She asked us to set aside the Christological question (the nature of Jesus—as in questions of divinity and relationship to GOD).

Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during...

Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during the 1963 March on Washington. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Instead, we should notice the similarity of Jesus to other revolutionaries, particulary Martin Luther King, Jr.

She described King as seeing the future. Not in some magic way, but in a reasonable way. As in a visionary way. King, preached a sermon shortly before his assassination in which he fortold his death, saying that he knew what was coming and the movement would grow after he was gone. We know that to be true. It is also strikingly similar to what we are reading here. King, like Jesus, had real vision, prophetic vision. They knew how some would respond to what they had to say about the Kingdom they preached.

The Revolution Itself

Jesus is a revolutionary. He really was taking his people to Jerusalem to die. Just like a military commander taking his people into battle except completely and totally different. They weren’t being taken to slaughter, but to die to themselves.

He says that they can keep going and doing what they are doing. They can live their lives, content with how things are. That is an option. But that is all they get. Instead, they could give up that stuff, that comfortable life, and gain something way better: real life. Vibrant, beautiful life in the Spirit. He gave them that choice. But it wasn’t just for the insiders, it was for everyone. He brought outsiders and outcasts to the group. He welcomed people that weren’t “fit” to be rewarded and he gave the option to them, too.

Our own revolution is about love. A radical love of strangers. We had a great moment Wednesday in which we all got energized by what Jesus was doing here, didn’t we? It seemed to burst right out of us that we are a people of radical welcome and love. We are generous and hopeful and truly caring. This is our mission.

Embracing a New Direction

In turning points, we get a very specific, catalyzing moment: a hinge. And this comes in the midst of our inevitable decisions and trajectory. We are moving in this way, and yet, we still get a choice. A choice like the choice Jesus offers in this pericope about eternal life.

Jesus demonstrates that kind of choice here. He says:

“And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour’?

This is his opportunity to choose his trajectory: safe or revolutionary. It takes but an instant:

“No”

he says. This is my purpose. This is what I came to do.

After the resurrection, the disciples come to the same conclusion. The Scriptures, the Word, is “opened” to them and they can see. They have vision.

And we get that same chance. To not only embrace our fate, but to make a choice.

To die to ourselves and embrace the calling Jesus has for us: to be a loving community.