Sermon - May 2, 2010

Year C - The Year of Luke - Easter 5

First Lesson: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Second Lesson: Revelation 21:1-6; Gospel: John 13:31-35

A year ago, I was in Israel. I mentioned last week that the first place my guide took me was to Joppa, the home of Simon the Tanner. That is the same Simon mentioned in today's first lesson. I also mentioned last week that it was in Joppa that Christianity changed forever, and it was because of what we read today. What this reading in Acts is telling Peter, and thus the world, is that Christianity is moving from a Jewish religion to a universal faith. Christianity will not have national boundaries, nor will it be confined by race, lineage, or geography. Christianity will fulfill the original blessing given to Abraham that through the lineage of Abraham and Sarah, the world will be blessed. Abraham would be the father of many nations.

By breaking down the dietary laws, the Christian faith opened to Jew and Gentile alike. Otherwise, Christianity would have remained a tiny sect confined to the shadows of neighborhoods in cities like Joppa.

Upon entering the city of Joppa, I saw a statue of a huge fish. This is because Joppa is the city where the fish spit up Jonah onto the shore. I found the connection interesting for at the heart of the story of Jonah is a message that God is for all people including the people of Nineveh who had been enemies of Israel. Joppa, this somewhat forgotten port city is actually a place where the message of the universality of God is announced, revealed, and given expression. Now, let us look for a moment at today's Gospel.

The guide I had in Israel was also trained in archeology. One of the surprising things I learned was that even in Jesus' lifetime, and certainly shortly after his death, little shrines and even small synagogues began to be constructed in the places where various miracles took place. People felt this need to be in the spot where the loaves and fishes were multiplied or where Jesus turned water to wine. The Christian faith had momentum; and it could not be stopped.

However, today's Gospel reading is not about a miracle. This reading takes place during the Last Supper just after Judas left the room. The thing Jesus says in these lines shapes Christianity more than any miracle of loaves and fishes. These words shaped the character of Christianity. It gives an ideal against which we can never succeed, but which gives us an ideal for which we are to strive.

Think in this way about what Jesus said; when filling up a cup with water, you can fill it only so far. Once it has been filled to the brim, what happens when you try to add more water to it? It overflows.

God’s love is like that. Picture God’s love overflowing from Christ to the disciples and then to us. In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus saying to his followers, “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” The love that our Lord called them to display has a special definition: Christ-like love.

For those who knew him best, his love produced their love for others. It was like water overflowing from the filled-up glass. Jesus’ love filled them up, and yet he kept on loving them, pouring move love into them, so Jesus’ love could overflow onto others.

In the same way, Jesus’ love fills us up so we can let the continuing love that God sends to us overflow onto others. Thereby we can try to fulfill his commandment: “Love one another – just as I have loved you.”

Jesus’ love is God’s love – gracefully and freely given, with no strings attached. Sometimes we think of this love as “the peace of God that passes all human understanding.” However, in today’s Gospel, Jesus shows us that in Christ the Father was showing us what divine love looks like in human form.

What this Gospel gives us is not concrete like loaves and fishes. We can imagine seeing, tasting, and eating the loaves and fishes. The image of the feeding of the five-thousand captures our imagination. We can visualize loaves and fishes.

However, what Jesus gives us in this Gospel is much more subtle. It is about living a life of self-sacrificing love. That is an ideal that is hard to live up to, but which is necessary for the Christian faith to be an expression of Christ in this world.

This love pushed Christianity out and into the world. This kind of love opened the door to Greek and Jew. This love made Christianity a universal faith not confined by region or nation. This love has so much power that the world often fears it. That is why Christianity is often mocked and ridiculed. Christianity holds the power to topple the kingdoms people build including those of their own vanity.

On the roof of the home of Simon the tanner, Peter had a strange vision. The vision changed his life and the course of Christianity forever. Just as the tomb could not contain Christ, so the world, customs, and even the will of nations could not contain the spread of the Christian faith. The commandment Christ gave to us is a simple one and yet it is the most difficult one to keep. “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

It is love that fills us and overflows from us. It is the sacrificing love of the cross, the exemplary love of the Good Samaritan, the care-giving love of the Good Shepherd, the inclusive love that reaches forward to outcasts and the under-served, the difficult love that embraces our enemies, the forgiving love of the prodigal son’s father.

From that port city of Joppa, my guide and I went on to see the places where Christ lived and where his miracles occurred. Days later, we ended the tour in the place where Jesus died and rose for all mankind. Now, it is for us to live as the body of Christ. Now, we are to live his command to love one another. However, we do this not by our own power, but by the love, which overflows, from Christ to us. God has given us the repentance that leads to eternal life. By that life and repentance, we have faith to live and share, from God who gave his only Son that we might live. Amen.