Easter 5A – George Yandell
Only fruity Christians really live the love of Jesus. Or to put it better, the fruit of Christian living is love. The song, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” puts it well. Love = agape. Love is easy to talk about, easy to agree with. But for you and me, is love only a philosophical abstraction? Is it only about intimate caring with family and friends? Is love only for bleeding hearts? The love Jesus offers demands a closer look, else loving itself becomes only sentimental and private.
Jesus laid out a covenant to his friends, “I am the way, the truth and the life. If you know me, you know my Father also.” If the disciples understood nothing else from him, Jesus wanted to MAKE SURE they understood love. He washed their feet as a common servant in the passage just prior to this one, which we read on Maundy Thursday. He spoke of love as the greatest command he would give them. “Love one another as I have loved you.”
How did Jesus come to be such a great lover? Was it born in him, or did he develop great love? He said, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” I’d call that a chain of love- or as scholars have put it, interpenetration/ interpenetration of loving.
Jesus learned loving from God- the kind of loving the prophets described. The love God intended for the whole world means acting for justice. As Paul Tillich put it in his landmark book Love, Power and Justice: “Either love is something other than emotion or the Great Commandment is meaningless.”
The clearest knowing of God’s love comes through working for God’s justice in God’s world- and it comes in God’s empowering Spirit, as Jesus promised.
For Jesus, loving was an event- not a philosophical abstraction. Jesus meant love acted out. The event of love was sharing it. When Jesus called his disciples friends, just before he was executed, he used an Aramaic word the gospel translates into Greek- filia means more than our English word “friend.” It means “beloved”- ones who share love. Our word “friend” comes from a lost Anglo-Saxon word “fre’on”, which meant “loved one.” Jesus in effect offered “love-ship” to his friends together. He promised and created what one might call a “society of love.”
I believe we all deep down know love profoundly. In fact, we yearn to love and be loved. That’s what the followers of Jesus have bequeathed to us- a chain of unending loving, linking us to Jesus and all who have been his friends before us. But until we ACT, love remains unfulfilled in our communities. Love demands we not only know but ACT FOR those around us. We must choose to love as a society of those Jesus loves.
In the chapter from Acts leading up to today’s passage, it tells of how Stephen had been selected with 6 others by the 12 apostles to help serve the daily distribution of food to the poor and widows in Jerusalem. The setting is about 5 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. He was noted as being “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit.” Stephen is reported as “full of grace and power, doing great wonders and signs among the people.” Many in a synagogue argued with him but could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke. He then was brought before the council in the temple. He lectured the high priest and all the other leaders of the temple about God’s history of salvation from Abraham, through Moses telling the rulers they were forever opposing the Holy Spirit as their ancestors had done. As their ancestors had opposed the prophets, they too had contested against God and killed the Righteous One, Jesus. Deacon Stephen’s bold testimony caused the rulers to drag him out of the city and stone him to death.
You heard his dying words- “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Do not hold this sin against them.”
Scott Peck, in his classic The Road Less Traveled, says, “Love is disciplined.” Love is “the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”// Peck says any genuinely loving relationship is a disciplined relationship. That is, love doesn’t just happen; love is not just a feeling; loving requires a decision, followed by acting for oneself or another. This was the love Jesus instilled into his disciples, his friends. It’s the love Jesus and his friends bequeath to you and me. It’s the love Stephen practiced in his ministry and in his death.
In this parish over the years, loving as Jesus loves has driven us out into the community, seeking to feed, nourish and heal, imitating Jesus. Loving as Jesus loves has bound us to one another, living with our fellows thru’ their pains and joys. Loving as Jesus loves has drawn us to pool our talents and our resources to purchase and develop these 38.5 acres and this beautiful worship space. Loving as Jesus loves has propelled us to look forward with the vision and mission to craft and amend the multi-component long range plan, so we’ll be disciplined and hold each other accountable in channeling our energies. This Society of Friends stands for loving. We’re known to be somewhat fruity in the wider communities where we live. So be it- that’s a good thing. Jesus is alive, in us.