Pentecost Sunday ----- 20 May 2018

Romans 8:22-27

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought

·       Last Sunday, I spoke of our mission as disciples of Christ and how the Gospel touches and forms everything that we do. I said it was a tough mission. What I might have said is that this mission will take more than us to fulfill.

·       Take a look at//Remember the first reading again. The disciples of Jesus – all of them, not just the apostles – are gathered during the festival of Pentecost. (It seems that Jesus’ mother was included.) They are scared and confused. Jesus is no longer with them and although they went to the Temple to pray quite often (Luke tells us that), they are clinging to each other and trying to hold on, to see what comes next.

·       What comes next is a manifestation of the Spirit… unexpectedly and unlooked for. Jesus promised the sending of the Paraclete, the “Advocate” as our translation puts it, but who knew what that meant? The term Jesus uses – Paraclete – can be translated as Advocate, as Comforter, as Helper, even as defense attorney. It’s one of those words. In Acts, the Spirit looks like tongues of fire. In the Gospels, it’s a dove.

·       What happens next is even more unexpected. All the disciples begin to speak in languages they didn’t know; that would be quite handy! The crowds in Jerusalem, who speak in so many languages (you heard all the many places they’re from), are amazed to hear their own language. Some consider the disciples drunk… at 9:00AM. Peter, known for being impetuous and the first to speak, takes the lead to proclaim the saving Good News of Jesus. He doubted before, but not now. He now tells the crowds what they might not want to hear but what they need to hear. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness…

·       We speak many languages today, some more than others. French? Could be. Spanish? Maybe. {German? Natürlich! Rumanian? Hungarian?} The Anglican hymnal has hymns in Cree. The Lutheran hymnal has hymns in Chinese, Xhosa, and Swahili. The Christian Church is world-wide.

·       The one language we all speak is the language of love and concern. The extended hand or the offered cup of water don’t need words. This isn’t always easy to do, yet the Spirit helps us in our weakness…

·       Some of us here are charged with the privilege of preaching the Gospel. All of us here are charged with the privilege of living out the Gospel. That is not easy. It can be hard to reflect the love of God in what we say and do, especially when we are faced with situations and people that make that very tough. It really can be hard to follow the commandment to love one another as I have loved you.

·       As hard as this might be, this can only be done with the inspiration and the help of the Holy Spirit, who as Paul says helps us in our weakness...

·       We may never get over the weakness that is part and parcel of human life. That isn’t a bad thing, for we depend on nothing less the grace of God and the power of the Spirit which overcomes any weakness of ours.

·       Although in the letter to the Romans, Paul is speaking of the Spirit’s part in the prayers of Christians, what he says applies to every aspect of the life of a Christian. Depending on the grace of God and the inspiration of God’s Spirit, it is possible to act like people who have been redeemed and with that – in both action and word – proclaim the Good News that God loves the world God created and has redeemed all that is in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God’s Son and chosen Messiah.

·       The coming of the Spirit upon the Church at that Pentecost may have been surprising. The Gospel of Jesus Christ continues to be surprising, powerful, amazing, and the truth.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

The Seventh Sunday of Easter ----- 13 May 2018

John 17:6-19

 (Jesus prayed)   ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that^*you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost,^* so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

·       Back when I was in the seminary, back when the earth was young, one of our professors, Sr. Jean Marie, confronted a student on something he said. In answer to a question in a class, he began “When I was in the world…” using an old-style phrase that implied that he was no longer subject to the temptations and obligations that go along with living a human life on Planet Earth. Sr. Jean looked at him strangely and asked “So where do you think you are now?”

·       To some Christians, the “World” is a shorthand term for all that might be considered evil. It includes war, oppression, robbery, prejudice, famine, hatred, and any number of other negative things. The world is “bad” and it and the body are things to be mastered and eventually left behind in an escape to a pure spiritual existence. Now not all Christians think this way but there are some that do.

·       In this same vein, the world is sometimes perceived as something to be avoided since it is thoroughly corrupt and it’s influence can be a corrupting one.

·       What is easily forgotten in all this talk of a corrupt and sinful world is the simple statement from the Gospel of John, a quote that some call the ‘Gospel in Miniature’ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17)

·       If the Creator – who created everything AND found it to be “good” – set up the entirety of creation as a test for the faithful or as a trap for the weak, why would the Son be sent into the world to save it? Something there would not be right. Something there would not make sense from a biblical point of view.

·       Now, there is no sense to kidding ourselves about the nature of the world’s reality; there are problems, even with the natural world. There are floods in New Brunswick. There is a volcano erupting in Hawaii. Weather changes in Madagascar have caused the price of vanilla to sky-rocket, making vanilla ice cream unavailable in some places. All is not right with the world. Creation is broken in any number of ways.

·       And God loves it still.

·       In this discourse that takes place during the Last Supper, before Jesus is arrested and crucified, Jesus asks the Father to protect the disciples while they remain in the world. He does not ask that they be taken out of the world. Still he emphasizes that they are not to “belong” to the world either. They – we – live in the world almost as if we were some sort of aliens; part of what is going on but not absorbed into it.

·       In so many ways, it is a matter of values. No matter where Jesus’ disciples live, no matter what they do for a livelihood, they – we – are called to live out the values of the Gospel in all things. As strange as it might sound, we are to let the Good News of Jesus Christ touch each and every thing we do, what we say, how we treat people, and even – what might be the hardest thing – how we treat ourselves.

·       We have all heard of the the three great temptations: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Well, temptation they may be. Still, God so loved the world that he sent his only Son and that Son, the Word, became flesh and lived among us. As for the devil, no power can match the power of God. While we live this life, we will have to content with these temptations. And while we live we are sent into the world to continue the mission of Jesus. We are sent by Jesus as Jesus was sent. We are to tell the people of the world of the love God has for them and for all that God has created.

·       A tough mission, without a doubt. And next week is Pentecost; that’s when we’ll talk about how this mission is to be fulfilled.

I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter ----- 6 May 2018

John 15:9-17

(Jesus said) 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 is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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. You 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. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

·       We’ve been taught all our lives that commandments are not to be taken lightly. The well-known Ten Commandments found in the Old Testament are not all that there are. The Torah of the Old Testament is said to outline 613 commandments, all of which outline how a person is to live, including what to eat, what to wear, or what behaviour to tolerate in a person’s children. There are rules – commandments- for how, what, and when to make sacrifice in the Temple. There are rules for marriage, for work, for dealing with foreigners, and for dealing with relations and family. Did you know there is a commandment that forbids tattoos? Or wearing clothing of different materials at the same time? Or eating shrimp? Or shaving a man’s beards… under certain conditions?

·       I personally cannot even remember the number of the Laws outlined in the Old Testament, let alone keep them.

·       So we hear of Jesus adding a new commandment: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Sounds like an easy thing, a snap for anybody to do.

·       The real issue is that the love Jesus is speaking of is not the warm and mushy feeling of love that the TV shows and movies portray. That sort of love is not easy to conjure up for each and every person we might meet today, tomorrow, or any day. So does that mean we don’t and can’t love unless we have a warm, squishy feeling in our proverbial hearts?

·       Can this then be a commandment? Are we to manipulate our emotions and feelings to achieve some sort of elevated state of love where we are loving all the time? And if we don’t feel love and feel loving, is it gone?

·       Jesus is not talking about that sort of love – affection or friendship or even romantic love. This sort of love goes much deeper and finds it roots in something more profound than the attraction of the eyes. In the Scripture’s original language, the word Jesus uses for “love” is not an expression of affection and warm, cuddly feelings.

·       What Jesus is telling his disciples of is a love that finds its expression in action, in self-sacrifice for the good of the other. It isn’t even required that this sort of love be returned.

·       Such a love takes more than emotion, more than human will. When we consider the placement of this passage in John’s Gospel, we note that what we heard today follows on the heels of Jesus’ vine-and-branches statements. What he is asking can only be done by those who are living as branches of the True Vine.

·       In that light, we can see that grace is required and is the basis here. Such love cannot be commanded unless the Spirit of God fills the one who is t0 love. As I said a moment ago, such love is only possible and even sensible if that person is a branch living from the true vine, Jesus.

·       Jesus even gives the greatest example of this sort of love in his address to the disciples at the Last Supper, the setting in which this address is placed. He says No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. Our thoughts are immediately drawn to the cross of Jesus Christ as the ultimate expression of this love.

·       Still, there are many ways this can be expressed. Few of us might be asked to lay down our lives for our friends, our family, or our fellow disciples of Christ. Yet it is still possible we might lay down our lives in some smaller way. In the early church, someone who bore the pain of insult and did not return the pain or who did not pay another back for some distress that was caused them, would be said to be laying down his soul for his neighbor. Again, the relationship of the two as disciples is understood.

·       In any event, this “Laying down of one’s life” is the work of grace and we can do nothing outside of the grace of Jesus.

·       So as Jesus said to the disciples: 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. And Jesus’ commandment remains This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. We know this commandment is not easy, for we know ourselves, but with grace, it is ours to fulfill. 

(Jesus said) I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.