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| On the way to church Sunday along Beverly Road |
Back to Beverley for the first Sunday in May....
SO finally, it feels like spring...we're now six Sundays into our Easter journey....a journey I am so happy that we began together...a 50 day exploration of what it's like having the risen one, the living Christ, back and present with us once again. As we get closer and closer to how we're going to have to go on without his physical presence with us, Jesus keeps bringing the message closer and closer to the bottom line. And for Jesus, the bottom line is LOVE, that we LOVE one another.
Hear that. It's not about your theology, what doctrine you adhere to, what church you belong to or even what religion you follow. Do you love? That's all Jesus wants to know....
But it's not enough to speak of love...we have to do it....and we have to figure out what that means...I remember when our Presbyterian General Assembly many years ago in Hartford, Connecticut. It's theme was Love So Amazing ( from the old hymn When I survey the wondrous cross...) I remember the representative from the Presbyterian Church in Cuba, Miriam Ofelia Ortega, said No me tengo interes en amor increible, yo prefiero amor eficaz...by which she was saying I prefer love effective...or like that hymn based on a Native American song, in the chorus it says, They'll know we are Christians by our love.
Now that puts a little catch in things...it's kind of like this...if someone came in here this morning, for the first time, unannounced...would they know we were Christians by our love? What would that look like? Feel like?
He wants us to love each other as he has loved us. And at the center of that love is laying down one's life for one's friends, exactly what he did for us. And he tells us we are his friends...Think about that for a second...the usual and expected relationship between a human and a divinity would be that of master and servant...but Jesus wants us as friends...like, you know, What a friend we have in Jesus. We can live without lovers...some of us do that for years. But I can't imagine living without friends...
He chooses us...not the other way around...and it's all to the end that we love one another..
I find it very interesting....and very sad...how we act and treat each other sometimes...some of the meanest,nastiest fights I have seen anywhere have been in churches...I was asked by Presbytery to help resolve some problems in a church. And it's like they want the problems to be unsolvable. I said to them we're watching pictures of Presidents Kim and Moon holding hands and you're telling us this can't be taken care of?
When planning a funeral yesterday, and this happens all the time, I heard of family members who might not come because they hadn't spoken in years. How crazy is it that we can pray for peace between Israel and Palestine and a brother and sister don't speak for years? If there's someone you haven't spoken to for years, speak to them!
Love. It's about love. And it's not a just a warm and fuzzy emotion. It's Gandhi, inspired by Jesus developing satyagraha, soul force. And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., inspired by Gandhi and following Jesus, who brings it back to us again.
I spent a whole day last week in a training session for non-violent direct action as part of the Poor Peoples Campaign. It's named for the campaign Dr. King was planning when he was taken from us. Organized by Dr. William Barber from North Carolina, the Moral Mondays Campaign. I believe that the only kind of mass based movement that has any possibility of succeeding has to be one motivated by love and carried out with non-violent means.
Abraham Joshua Heschel taught us that a prophet must come from a people and speak to that people and must be motivated by love. That was the beauty and power of Dr.King's work...he acted as if our country were capable of better, could be better, was not hopelessly evil by nature. Dr. King believed in us. Just as Jesus believes in us and expects us to do better.
That is the love he calls us to and wants us to abide in. And here's the truly amazing thing...so that our joy can be complete...I have learned that the two most important spiritual qualities , the two most radical qualities, are hope and joy. And man, joy seems hard to come by some times. If you want to know what joy looks like, remember the joy of Archbishop Desmond Tutu...in the face of the most outrageous oppression of apartheid, he smiled with joy because he knew whose he was and in whose hands lay the future. He knew he had already won. I am convinced that it was that power that finally defeated apartheid.
(“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.” ― Ernesto Che Guevara · )
Loving one another is both the easiest and hardest of commandments.
Couldn't Jesus just ask us to believe three unbelievable things?
Or say so many hail mary's or our fathers?
Or fast for 40 days?
Or stand on our head or...
NO. Just love one another. Even as he has loved you. And abide in that love.
As always we shared our prayers with each other, This week including a disappeared child. We shared communion. We greeted a man in the Navy whose mother lives nearby and who drops in when he's in town. There were grandchildren. It was another Sunday in the season of Easter.
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| Beverly Road |
First Reading Acts 10:44-48
44While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.
Gospel John 15:9-17
9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I 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. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”
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