A sermon based on John 13. 31-35. The words we heard in our Gospel reading are traditionally read, with some wider context around them, on Maundy Thursday. It’s from this new commandment, or mandatum, that we get the word maundy, it’s commandment Thursday, that new commandment to love one another. So what are we doing reading it over halfway through Eastertide. Probably because Jesus says he is with them only a little while longer, he’s perhaps referring to his imminent death, but perhaps and particularly reading it now post Easter, he may be referring to his Ascension, after all he only stays another 40 days after his resurrection before being taken up into heaven. Regardless of the reasoning, that commandment, to love one another, to love one another just as Jesus loves us, is worthy of reflection at any point in the year Less than two months after this conversation on the eve of his crucifixion, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the disciples at Pentecost, which we’ll be celebrating in just a few weeks, and the church explodes in number. And it continues to do so, wherever the apostles go, wherever the church goes, the church grows and grows. Why? Is it the work of the Spirit through the church? Absolutely, it’s the spirit who empowers, who convicts, who ignites the gift of faith in us. Absolutely it’s the Spirit, but also something more. Is it the radical nature of the Gospel? In cultures where the gods came to pillage and rape their way across the world, where power was found in strength and domination, a Gospel that found power in weakness, in a God who loves and gives himself for us is world changing. So absolutely, it was to do with the nature of the message of the Gospel. It flipped the world on its head and people were either captured by its message or offended and driven away. But it’s more than that. It's the fact that the church took to heart that new commandment, to love one another. That’s what made the church, and it’s faith, so appealing, the world looking on saw a community in which the rich gave up some of their wealth to support poorer Christians, where no-one was demanding their own way, where they lived and ate and worshipped together, rich and poor, high born and low born, side by side. A community where they shared what they had with each other, sought to sacrifice for the good of the other. A community that broke down barriers between groups, as we heard about in that Acts reading, how the Gentiles, those heinous outsiders were brought into the fold by God and the church rejoiced to welcome them in, to love them as brothers and sisters in the Lord too. Were they perfect at it? By no means, most of the New Testament is made up of letters from various church leaders, mainly Paul, calling the various churches back to the standard, rebuking them where they’re looking more like the world than the church they are called to be. In a world filled with disconnection, division, groups attacking each other, even hatred, the church looked radically different. Here was a community who loved one another, deeply, sacrificially, who sought to draw others in rather than warring against outsiders. It looked more like how things look when God is in charge, a preview of the perfect Kingdom to which all things move, which we heard of in our second reading. That’s what set the world on fire, that’s what drew so many people to Jesus, not that they had great church services, not that they had all their doctrine on point and could answer any question perfectly, not that they were young and hip or old and wise. It’s that they loved one another. It's radically simple isn’t it. Want to set the world on fire? Want people to come to know Jesus? Love one another. Even a toddler can grasp that. But it’s also an incredibly high calling, an incredibly difficult calling that even the heroes of the faith struggled to uphold. Because we’re not just called to love one another, we’re called to love each other as Christ loves us. And you know how Jesus loves us right? He loves us even when we’re incredibly annoying, he loves us when we fail to do the things we said we’d do, he loves us when we’re hurtful and offensive, he loves us when we’re in the depths of sin, he loves us even when we’re not doing a good job of loving him. And that’s what we’re meant to do for each other. That’s a ridiculously high task. How will we find the energy, the strength to do that? It’s in precisely that knowledge, in knowing how messed up we are, how broken, sinful, wicked we are, in knowing that, and the wonderful truth that Jesus loves us through it all, doesn’t just put up with us but loves us deeply, deeply enough to die for us. In knowing the depths of our sin, and the oceans of his love, we find strength to love one another. If Jesus knows every last terrible thing about us and loves us, we can love one another through the tip of the iceberg that we know of their faults and sinfulness. And perhaps that knowledge will allow us to truly love one another, not on a superficial level, but to truly and deeply love one another. We’ll find ourselves actually feeling loved enough to open up about our failings, our sinfulness, knowing that we’ll be loved through it. We’ll discover that in loving one another we can be honest about our weaknesses, our struggles and pains, knowing that it will be swept up in love and care and understanding. Our brothers and sisters bearing that load with us. We need to learn what it is to love one another, deeply and truly love one another. It’s not an optional extra, as Jesus himself points that out this morning, ‘this is how everyone will know you’re my disciples, if you have love for one another’. That’s how they recognise us, not because we come here every Sunday morning, not because we know our Bibles, not because we wear a cross, or in my case a collar. They recognise us through our love for one another, because that love is the echo of the love we receive from Jesus. Because for most of the world, we’re the only Bible they’ll ever read, the encounter with Jesus they don’t know they need. We need to learn to love one another, in the Spirit’s power, so that when people encounter us in the street, or walk in here just because, they’ll see how much we love one another, they’ll walk in and see something different happening, a preview of the world to come. And in that moment they’ll be transported out of the world with its divisions, its warring factions, its disconnection and hatred, and find here a piece of heaven, an echo of Eden and a foretaste of eternity. For these people truly love one another, they’ll say, even through their faults, even in their sinfulness, they love one another, even sacrificially, laying down their lives for one another. And in encountering that, they’ll find themselves swept up in the love of Christ, the love at the heart of creation. As we love one another, they’ll discover themselves to be loved by the eternal God, who lays down his life for them. Will we be perfect at it? Will we get it right all the time? Absolutely not, if the church which formed in those first years after Jesus, filled with people who walked and talked with Jesus can’t get it right all the time, we can’t either. But if we set this as our goal, empowered by the Spirit we will see this place change, ourselves changed, as we become an echo of Eden, and a foretaste of eternity. ‘I give you a new commandment’, says Jesus, ‘that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ May we set love as our goal, as we discover daily the hidden depths of our sinfulness and wickedness, and discover too the boundless oceans of love and grace which pour down from the cross, may we set love as our goal, to love one another in the same way as we are loved. And as love reshapes us, may others come to know that love for themselves, that just as the world recognises us as Jesus’ disciples, they too may join us in following him. Amen.
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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