Sermons

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Sunday 21st May at 10am

Lesley Ashton
Readings: John 15:9-17

My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you.

The words of Jesus in this morning's gospel. The command to love on another just as we are loved by Christ..

Our knowledge and experience of love can be diverse and complex. There is much done in the name of love that brings joy and comfort, that brings affirmation and a deep sense of self, love that energizes, love that restores, love that heals. I hope that we all in some measure have experienced this sort of love in our lives.

There is also much done in the name of love that is abusive and damaging, that tears apart and breaks down, that causes division and pain. If this sort of twisted love has never touched our lives then we are fortunate indeed.

Then there is the love shown by the Church, Christ's very body here on earth. Often we have shown the love of Christ to each other and to the outside world. We have responded to his love for us by obeying his command to love one another. BUT As an institution and as a church we have often also failed to show Christ's love. We have kept silent when we should have spoken out, we have said too much when it would have been better to have quietly shown our love. We have failed to work towards real unity because it is too costly, we have condemned through misunderstanding and prejudice those whom Christ longs to have as part of his body on earth. We have given little when we could have given more. We have failed to seek reconciliation in case we lose face.

One of the confessions we say together is that we have wounded God's love and marred his image in us. It is a corporate confession, bringing to God not only our own, personal sins but those sins that we are part of because of our shared identity as Christ's body here on earth. Our responsibility goes beyond the personal and extends to those things with which we collude whether that be in the church or within society.

The love Christ showed to us during his time on earth was not a love based on sentimentality but on practical action. It was not a love that excluded but a love that embraced the outcast, the sinner and the unlovable. It was love that was filled with compassion and which brought healing. It was the sort of love that was not afraid to speak out against injustice or hypocrisy, it was the kind of love that challenged the status quo and pointed to a new and living way.

Christ was able to show such love because he had been obedient to his Father and so was able to remain constant in his love. 'I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love'

Christ confirms his love for us and tells us that to remain in his love we should obey his command for us to love one another. Jesus doesn't command us to love him he commands us to be obedient. I think perhaps that our obedience is a sign of our love for Christ, that confirmation that we so love him that we want to do as he wishes.

Obedience is not a particularly popular concept nowadays. We live in a culture where we tend to do our own thing, what we do in private is our own business. A society where boundaries are marked by fences rather than shared understandings. Where some are more concerned with their rights and making sure they are upheld than in taking seriously, their responsibilities towards each other and God's world. Obedience is now almost counter cultural and this is not surprising for obedience demands self discipline, respect for another, a sense of duty and a willingness to submit. There must always be therefore a sense of discernment in relation to what and who we obey.

Jesus said that if we obeyed him, we will remain in his love, we will be his friends, his joy will be in us and our joy will be complete. Notice we are not servants or hired hands. This is not a master/subordinate relationship, this is not a relationship where knowledge is controlled by power but one where everything that Christ has heard from the Father is shared with us. This is a relationship where we can approach the Father through the name of Christ and make our requests known to him.
This is obedience that is given in love, to he who is love, in order that God's love might be shared in the world with others. This is obedience that brings joy and which nurtures the joy of another. This is obedience that causes us to not to be slaves or servants but to be equals, to enjoy friendship, to engage in a relationship of mutuality with the Son of God.

The benefits of obedience to Christ are pretty amazing but those of us who have trod in the steps of Christ's love also know that it is path of costly obedience and you only have to carry on reading this chapter in John to know more of what that cost might be. . The love that Christ offers is radical and involves risktaking, it sometimes causes us to be misunderstood, it demands much.
We often find it is far easier to paddle in the shallow end than to go out of one's depth.; to tetter at the edges, to hesitate at full commitment to God's embracing love. However once we experience the truth of that love which Christ holds for each one of us, it is hard to retreat, because to know his friendship, is also to know the reality of his joy in our lives.

In this morning's service we will be offering the ministry of healing. This is an opportunity to invite Christ's love to enter into those places in your life that are in need of physical healing, reconciliation or renewal. It is an opportunity to ask for Christ's love to be present in those situations in the world or the environment that need his grace and compassion. Healing ministry is one of the ways that we offer our very selves to be touched and transformed, we ask Christ who is our friend, to come alongside us as any friend would do and meet us at our point of need. It is often through this ministry that we begin to understand how deeply we are loved by him.

Love is as I said earlier is also about action, our Christian lives should be love in action. Prayer is the place where we begin to find out where Christ might be leading us to share his love. In some ways perhaps prayer is that first act of obedience, making time to hear what God requires of us, waiting for the voice of love to show us what our particular ministry or action should be.

But we must also remember that we encounter God in and through human relationships, through those who know themselves to be loved by God and who in obedience share his love with others. Love and truth signal the divine presence, inextricably mixed with those human beings who belong to Him. May we be counted in that number and share his friendship, his joy and his love, now and always.

Amen

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay