So, important question before I begin, did Pastor Sprang quote Prince for you during his sermon on Sunday? I didn’t think so, but figured I should check, because judging from some of the preachers I follow, Pastor Sprang and I are just about the only preachers in America who did not quote Prince last week. Don’t worry team; you won’t be left out from the rest of the country, I will quote Prince this morning. The opening line from the opening track of his 1984 classic Purple Rain album, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life.”
I love this line, because isn’t this really what Jesus is doing with his disciples in the section of scripture where our Gospel reading for today comes from. This passage is from what is known as the Farewell Discourse, Jesus’ final teachings to his disciples before his crucifixion. What he’s really doing in these chapters of John is saying to his disciples, dearly beloved, I’ve gathered you here today to help you get through this thing called life.
Jesus and the disciples were gathered together for a meal on the night before the Passover. There was talking and laughing, fellowship and camaraderie, it was the easy banter of friends who have known each other and traveled together for years. And then Jesus stood up, wrapped a towel around his waist, and began to wash their feet. And Peter was like, woah, Lord, I don’t think so, you’re not going to wash my feet, remember that from Maundy Thursday. And then we heard the part from last week, “Little children, I am with you only a little while longer. Where I am going you cannot come. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” After giving the new commandment, Jesus kept talking, about how he was going to prepare a place for them, how God would send the Holy Spirit to be with them, how the disciples would not be left orphaned. And finally Judas, not Judas Iscariot, who had already left by this time to betray Jesus, but the other Judas, asked Jesus, “wait a minute, how is this possible?” “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus replied, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” There’s this temptation to read this as a litmus test for what it means to be a follower of Jesus. If you do what Jesus tells you to do, you are a follower. If you do not, well, you are not. But remember what’s about to happen here. In just a couple of hours Peter will be sitting before a charcoal fire in the courtyard of the High Priest, and he will deny he even knew Jesus. Just a couple of hours from these words right here, that happens. Peter loved Jesus, but he did not keep his words. And yet, who were some of the first people Jesus showed up to after he had risen from the dead? Peter and the other disciples. And Peter especially, at the breakfast by the beach, is singled out by Jesus to be the one to follow Jesus in the care for Jesus people. So I don’t think we can say that Jesus used Peter’s actions as a litmus test of whether Peter was loved by God, and whether God would make God’s home with Peter. I think Jesus is more describing a cause and effect relationship, what Martin Luther referred to as the happy exchange. This was one of the big arguments that Luther got when he started going around and preaching that grace and forgiveness were a free gift from God, and that there was nothing anyone had to do, or could do, to earn God’s forgiveness. Instantly the church was like, wait a minute. There have to be some consequences here. If grace is free, and if you just get it because of Jesus, and your actions don’t matter, then where is the incentive for people to behave correctly. If grace is free, and all you have to do to receive God’s forgiveness is ask for it, then people are just going to run rampage, doing whatever they want, and then asking for forgiveness, and then doing it again. It will be chaos! And Luther’s response was that grace is transformative. Those who get grace, who get forgiveness, who have truly experienced the depth and the breadth of Christ’s love, the only response to that love is to act in ways that reciprocate God’s love. Those who love Jesus, those who have been loved by Jesus, they, we, cannot help but keep Christ’s word. The experience of being loved by Jesus is so all-consuming that there is other response but to live out that love. Those who love Jesus, those who have been loved by Jesus, will keep his words; that’s just the way it works.
But wait, you might be wondering, if that’s true, then what about me? If that’s true, then why am I not loving and giving and caring and wonderful every second of every day? If that’s true then why do we do confession and forgiveness every Sunday? Why is there still sin, why is the world still broken? It’s because we’re human. It’s because a fact of our humanity is that we do not get it right all the time. We are sinful, we are broken human beings. Last week we heard that lesson from Acts about how Peter totally got that the good news of Jesus was for the gentiles too, and he was like leading the charge for spreading the gospel. I have to let you know, that was not the last word on the subject from Peter. If you keep reading in Acts, he will back down from that a bunch more times, and Paul was constantly coming forward and challenging Peter to continue to live into this all-inclusive welcome that Peter himself had proclaimed. It was an on-going struggle for Peter; he’d have moments of total openness, and moments of shutting down, closing out, thinking only of himself. Because there is always a gap between our understanding and God’s grace. There is always a gap between the overwhelming, all-consuming, unconditional love of God and our ability to comprehend that love. And that is where the Holy Spirit comes in. Jesus told the disciples, “I have said these things while I am still with you,” while I am still here to remind you of God’s love, to in my physical presence fill that gap in your understanding for you. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” See in the absence of Jesus, that gap between who we are and who God is, that gap is filled by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes into the broken, empty places in our lives, the mistakes we make, the fears we have, and fills those gaps with the breath of God.
And the Holy Spirit does this in many and various ways. I referenced Paul and Peter, I think their relationship is a great example of the Holy Spirit at work. Paul traveled the known world spreading the gospel of Jesus, Peter stayed in Jerusalem strengthening the headquarters of the church at its birthplace. Paul needed Peter to keep him grounded, to provide anchor, to be the holder of their collective memories. And Peter needed Paul to challenge him, to push him forward, to show him a greater worldview then Peter himself could imagine.
And we too do this for each other. That’s why we gather as community every Sunday morning. We don’t gather because God needs some sort of critical mass in order to feel appropriately worshiped. It is totally true in theory that you can be a Christ follower; you can worship Jesus all by yourself. But in practice, we find it doesn’t work that way. When we are alone, it is too easy to lose sight of where we’re going, to lose track of the path. We gather as a community every Sunday because we need each other to challenge us, to comfort us, to lift us up and to move us forward. Judas asked Jesus how Jesus would reveal himself to them and not the world, Jesus revealed himself to them, because they, because we, reveal him to the world. In this time after Christ’s ascension into heaven, we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, are the ones who reveal the mystery and the majesty, and the wonder of God’s love to the world. We do that. Not because we have to, but because, like we were talking about, we who have been loved by God cannot help but showcase this love to the world. Not perfectly, sure, but we practice.
In fact, we practice it every Sunday. Jesus told the disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” This is not peace like the world thinks of it, right. We think of peace, we think, “I’d just like some peace and quiet,” right. Peace is like calm, stable, complacency, maybe even a little bit boring. But Jesus’ Peace is an active word. Jesus’ peace is a peace that moves us forward. Jesus’ peace is not the absence of struggle, rather Jesus’ peace is the assurance that even in the midst of struggle we do not go alone because God has made God’s home with us. Remember in just a few hours, the disciples will watch Jesus go to the cross. The peace Jesus is giving them does not let them avoid the fear and the pain and the grief of that reality. Rather Jesus’ peace is the promise that this thing that is about to happen, the worst thing that could happen, will not be the last thing that will happen. Jesus’ peace is the promise that, even though they do not understand it yet, resurrection waits on the other side of death.
Do these words of Jesus sound like anything we do every Sunday in our worship? It’s the passing of the peace, right! The passing of the peace is not, as much as it kind of feels like it, some sort of weird liturgical intermission. No, it is a chance for us to greet each other with a sign of Christ’s peace. To say to each other, to remind each other that peace, that Christ’s peace is with you. That whatever you are going through, whatever you are facing, peace, Christ’s peace, goes with you, and you do not face it alone, because the Holy Spirit, in the form of the gathered community, is right here with you. Dearly beloved, God has gathered us together today in order that we might get each other through this thing called life. May the peace of our God be with you. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment