I’ll be honest with you. I struggled with today’s texts. Struggled to the point of thinking that I had nothing to say… Knowing that God honors my honesty, I allowed myself to return to what God was trying to say to me in this emptiness. I thought about our journey throughout Lent and Easter—we’ve talked about covenant and disclosure, miracle and grief—great joy and great loss. What is it that God still had to say to me and to us in these words Jesus spoke in the last days before the crucifixion. Unlike the disciples, we hear these words in the context of the resurrection—and in words made clear in the glory of the reality of the resurrection, we find the single commandment that He gave us and the disciples—the only commandment that mattered—Love one another. Why is it that the simplest things seem so hard—even to those of us who know how the story ended—perhaps we try to make too much of it instead of looking for the core of truth around which everything else spins and rotates and makes up the complicated set of paradigm and praxis that we call “Christianity”. And then I looked again at the uncomplicated ways the texts from today fit.
We have not yet actually heard the Psalm for today. I want to read it for you. It’s about music, praise and inclusivity—a psalm seemingly written just for me.
Psalm 98 says in part:
Sing to God a new song, God has done marvelous things.Yahweh has made salvation known and revealed righteousness to the nations.All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Shout for joy to God, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music;make music to God with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing,with trumpets, and the blast of the ram's horn— shout for joy before God, the Almighty.
Let the sea resound, and all that is in it, the world, and all who live in it.Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy;let them sing before God, who comes to judge the earth.God will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity. (NIV--adopted)
Think of the amazing truth of this ancient psalm. Written at a time of great nationalism on the part of Israel, yet it proclaims, “All the ends of the earth”. ALL the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. “Shout for joy ALL the earth”. And finally, the psalmist tells us that God will judge all the same—with a righteousness that covers everyone in every country, in every place.
See how the psalmist invites us into joy—a word we often use. Here at this church called Joy we call ourselves people of Joy, a church of Joy, but I wonder how often we fully contemplate the joy that the psalmist invites us to or the joy that Jesus points to when He tells us that He tells us that He is giving us the commandment to love one another so that His joy may be our joy. According to Dr. Daniel Clendenin,
“Psalm 98's invitation to joy is based upon what God has done and will do.” In Clendenin’s words, God “has done marvelous things. He has remembered his love. He has extended salvation far beyond Israel to "the ends of the earth." And in the future, says the psalmist, God "will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity. " Many people cringe when they hear God described as the "judge of the earth" (98:9). But for the psalmist, and I can well imagine for the people in Darfur or the Congo or Iraq, the promise that the global God will right all wrongs is a cause for confidence and joy.”
I would suggest then, that Jesus invites us to rest in this same just and righteous joy, His joy, and to be complete in that joy. And the requirement (commandment) that precedes this entry into joy is simple: Love one another as I have loved you.” Our Psalm and Gospel, then, fit together perfectly—God will judge with equity…we are to love one another with Christ’s love—the great equalizer. Why is this so hard? Let’s look again at our passage from Acts. I admit it’s a little out of whack chronologically in our post-Easter journey because the event actually takes place after Pentecost—a happening we will celebrate in two weeks, but the relationship is clear.
Peter has been visiting with Cornelius, a Gentile. That, in itself, is unusual, but then the unthinkable happens. God gives the Holy Spirit to these Gentiles—the Jewish followers of Jesus are amazed, but they cannot deny that the Gentiles have the very same gifts of the Spirit that were manifested at Pentecost. They were speaking in tongues and glorifying God just as the multitudes at Pentecost had done. Peter, with wisdom and courage, greater than most, says, “What can stop these people who have received the Holy Spirit, even as we have, from being baptized with water?” EVEN AS WE HAVE—Jesus says in the Gospel reading: As my Abba has loved me, so have I loved you. Live on in my love.” It is the same God, the same Jesus, the same Spirit given to all in the same manner. Peter asks the obvious question, What can stop these people? The answer is clear—nothing can stop them because they are us. And we have been baptized in faith and received the Holy Spirit. This is the same universal God as the God our psalmist praised. This same God sent Jesus to the earth and when He said “Love one another”, there are no exceptions, no buts, no one left out.
So the path becomes clearer—The psalmist leads us to singing a new song, because God has done marvelous things and will come to earth to judge everyone fairly and justly. Jesus invites us to a deeper joy by calling us to love one another. Peter challenges the traditional understanding of Jesus’s words by proclaiming that we are all the same and opening baptism in Jesus’ name to all who receive the Spirit. And what is the refrain that permeates all these passages? My initial eyes, focused on the words in Jesus’ commandment and led me to think that such a refrain might be love, but I took a closer look. It’s JOY. What a concept! Jesus calls us to love one another—all the one anothers—so that our joy may be complete and fully in line with His joy.
David Clendenin continues his discussion of this seemingly unattainable joy by noting: “Joy can be an ambiguous term. Many people link it with happiness, health, success, fame, wealth, pleasure, fun, or good fortune. In that sense of the word joy is derivative, it's attached to and dependent upon some external source.
(He continues) Genuine joy is more elusive, more subtle and more nuanced than happiness, pleasure or good fortune. Whereas we can manipulate circumstances to our own advantage to obtain what we think will bring happiness, or expend great efforts in pleasure-seeking, joy is entirely gratuitous. You cannot earn it, buy it, or deserve it. It is a divine gift to receive rather than a selfish goal to pursue. The opposite of joy is not sadness or sorrow but anxiety. We’ve already heard Jesus say that we rest in his love "so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11).
Jesus tells us that it is really quite simple to follow the chain of love that ultimately leads to joy--from God, to Jesus, to one another. Jesus shows his own reliance on the fact that His Abba, usually, though not imperatively, translated “father”, loves Him. It is by way of that love that He is able to love us. And it is by way of His love for us that we are to love one another. Almost as an afterthought, Jesus adds, “it was not you who chose me; it was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit. Your fruit must endure so that whatever you ask of Abba god in my name, God will give you.” And He finishes this admonition by repeating the commandment to “love one another”.
This, then, is the source of our joy, our resting in His joy. We are not in control of this source—it is Jesus who chose us, not we who chose Him. That no matter who we are, what we are, who we know, how much we make, how much education we have, how young or old, attractive or unattractive, capable or limited we are—Jesus chose us and continues to choose us. And in that choosing comes the call to love one another. And so we have come full circle in today’s readings from the joy inspired by God’s wonderful works and coming equitable judgment of the whole earth, through the inclusion of all believers (also chosen by God and signified as such by the gift of the Holy Spirit) to Jesus’ commandment that we love one another so that our JOY may be complete.
Finally, we look at the purpose for which Jesus chose us—to bear fruit. We must remember this passage in the context of last week’s lesson where we spoke of the pruning of unproductive vines and the vine and branches intertwining to illustrate the love that Jesus has for us as friends and disciples. Jesus tells us that it is so important that our fruit (which is really a gift from Him) must endure that whatever we ask in His name from God, God will give us. This is not the only place that Jesus points us to the power of asking in His name and it has always concerned me as to the way we disciples may have perverted the purpose and intent of Jesus’ statement. We may all know of times when we have heard well-meaning followers use calling on Jesus’ name as little more than “putting a whammy” on whatever their desires happened to be. Don’t get me wrong, you will almost always hear me end my prayers by calling on the name of Jesus. But, taken in the context of this passage, we must focus on the purpose of calling on the name of Jesus when we have requests of God. However, Jesus makes it is clear—it is all connected to loving one another. In other words, this great gift is given so that, and only so that, we may bear fruit , which is defined in our love for one another.
So, what’s the big deal—why do we so often stumble in our attempts to love one another—and why has most of the Church (with a capital C) failed so miserably to live out this commandment? I think the explanation may be simple. Most of us have not made the connection between joy and love. If and when I am living, resting in the joy from God, there are no barriers to my loving “another”. If I am anxious, worried about the present or future, anquishing over the past, struggling to find my place in this world, I will be unable to truly love another. Listen to our sister, Carter Heyward, as she describes this “love”: “Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward." Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one's friends and enemies. Love creates righteousness, or justice, here on earth. To make love is to make justice. As advocates and activists for justice know, loving involves struggle, resistance, risk.” Is this not the ultimate connection between our Gospel reading and the Psalm already celebrated?
Henri Nouwen contributes to this discussion of love and covenant when he makes the following distinction: “ When God makes a covenant with us, God says: “I will love you with an everlasting love. I will be faithful to you, even when you run away from me, reject me, or betray me.” In our society we don’t speak much about covenants; we speak about contracts. When we make a contract with a person, we say: “I will fulfill my part as long as you fulfill yours. When you don’t live up to your promises, I no longer have to live up to mine.” Contracts are often broken because the partners are unwilling or unable to be faithful to their terms. But God didn’t make a contract with us; God made a covenant with us, and God wants our relationships with one another to reflect that covenant.”
So, then, it is in this covenantal relationship—this no matter what we do—relationship that joy is generated in such abundance that we are able to truly love another as Christ commanded us. What will that mean for us here at a church named Joy—to truly understand our relationships with God and each other as covenantal—as no matter what—relationships? What can stop us as God’s people as we live into the gifts, the fruits of that covenantal relationship? We, most of us, have been the Gentiles of the world—the outsiders, wondering if God would pour out the gifts of the Holy Spirit on us. But God has already done that and Jesus calls us to live into that covenantal journey in joy and love. And so we move boldly to “love one another” in the face of challenges—political, financial, and unknown. We at Joy have a vision of what we must do to take this gospel of love and joy to those still considered Gentiles—and we must not let our worldly fear keep us from living fully into that vision. Audre Lourde, a poet for all time, gives us this challenge: “When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” And to that I would add, that the fullness of joy eradicates fear as there is only room for love and covenantal relationship in a joy-filled heart. O, to be a people of whom it can be said—“what can stop these people…they are living into the fullness of joy and love by keeping Christ’s commandment to love one another!”
Sing to God a new song, God has done marvelous things.All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Shout, shout for joy!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment