A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.
The lectionary readings for the seventh Sunday of Easter are here.
Today is the last Sunday of the season of Easter and yet our gospel reading backs up in the story to the night of Jesus’ arrest. The season of Easter is the time in our church calendar between our celebration of the resurrection and Pentecost, the time in which Jesus was again with his disciples, before he returns to the Father, guiding them to continue the work he had begun in and with them for the good of the whole world.
Jesus spent his earthly ministry standing up for justice, lifting up those on the margins, healing the sick, welcoming the stranger and those whom the government had chosen to ignore or actively oppress, restoring relationships, and building a loving community who would participate with him and continue the work to bring about God’s Kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven. And then as he knew his death was near, he prayed, not for himself but for others. He prayed for his disciples and he prayed for us, those who have come to believe that the love of God is the true power in this world through the words of Jesus and his disciples.
Jesus prays not that the disciples would be miraculously removed from this world but that they would be protected from the evil one and that God would make them holy, to be equipped for God’s purposes by the truth of God’s word. And then Jesus shifts his prayer to us and he prays that we would all be one with God so that the world may come to believe in the power of God’s redemptive love.
Being one with God doesn’t mean we all become identical robots. If that had been God’s intent he could have just made us that way from the very beginning. Instead, God made each of us unique, to be our own particular part of the Body of Christ in this world. Being one in the name of Jesus doesn’t mean that we conform to one mold or that we think alike or always agree or even that we always get along well with each other. Being one as Jesus and God are one means that we know who and whose we are: beloved children of God. Being one means we have one purpose even as we each have our own unique way of working toward that purpose. It is God’s love that makes us one.
Brian Zahnd, a pastor and author of the book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God writes, “Most of us are scripted to think that life is a game and the purpose of life is to win. But the divine truth is that life is a gift and the purpose of life is to learn to love well.”
And we learn to love well by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus says that “the world does not know” God he’s talking of the same world which John writes “God so loved the world that he gave his only son”. God loves the world. Everyone. All. And our choice to receive God’s love or not doesn’t stop God from loving. It isn’t transactional. God loves.
When Jesus calls us to follow him it isn’t to learn who to condemn and who to accept. It’s to learn to love well. It does’t mean we have to be best friends with everyone or as we talked about last week to accept bad behavior. To love well means to want the best for everyone and for everyone to be their best. To love well means we know we can only fix or control our own behaviors and thoughts and so we open our selves up to the growth and correction that enables us to love as Jesus loves better and better through the whole journey of our lives. To love well means being willing to set aside our own ego for the greater good of all because we know that when we help others thrive we thrive, too.
God loves every human being ever, scripture is plain about this. We don’t get to choose for God who’s ‘lovable’ and who isn’t. We do get to choose if we are all in with this ‘on-earth-as-in-heaven’ thing or not. Knowing God and following Jesus means that we accept the invitation to live here and now as Jesus teaches us how to live, as Jesus teaches us how to love.
And when Jesus says we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, he didn’t mean that we should only love our neighbor if they are like us. Jesus knows that our neighbors don’t look, act, or believe like we do and he said to love them as ourselves, meaning we are to want for our neighbors what we want for ourselves.
We can’t take our own hurt and hate, throw it at others and say it’s God’s will. Using God’s name to promote hate is using God’s name in vain. To be one with God and Jesus and each other, we have to stand with Jesus and refuse to let hate be acceptable, refuse to let lying be the norm, refuse to allow bigotry of any form go unchecked, refuse to be silent in the face of injustice. Following Jesus means to choose one-ness instead of division, to love more loudly than the hate in this world because God so loved the world that God was willing to give his life to show us what love looks like in flesh and blood.
This Jesus shaped love is our salvation from hate and fear and anger. God shaped love is what sets us free to live on earth as in heaven. God’s kingdom can’t be coerced or manipulated or built with monetary wealth. God’s kingdom is constructed by loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Jesus teaches us the power of Love and the power of prayer. This prayer of Jesus, prayed over 2000 years ago has been resounding through time to everyone who has chosen to follow him. How amazing is that? This prayer asks that we become part of God’s redemptive story in our here and now. How amazing is THAT?
Some day the City of God will come to earth in the New Creation and all will be redeemed and restored to God’s intent. This will be the work of God alone. There is no human power or effort that can bring it about. So, for us, for now, in our now and not yet time, we are invited to participate with God through the Power of the Spirit to live as Jesus teaches. This is what our belief in God is for, this is the purpose of our lives – to live redemptively, to participate with God in redeeming the broken parts of God’s good creation. To redeem injustice with justice, to redeem hate with compassion, to redeem rejection with community, to redeem selfishness with love.
This coming week, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost next Sunday, I encourage you to read the entirety of Jesus’ prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John’s good news story. Listen with your heart and soul to the words of Jesus praying for us. Ask God to show you how you can participate in the redemptive story of God. Open your heart and mind to the transformative power of the Holy Spirit as together we live into the purpose of God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven. Amen.
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