The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

6 Easter, May 17, 2009

Gracious and loving God, open our hearts to hear your Word, and then with great joy celebrate in the resurrection of your Son, Jesus, and express in our lives the love we celebrate. We ask this through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.

Have you ever read or heard a story that just riveted you, altered your thinking and perception, in effect, changed your life? This is what happened when Jesus' followers told others His story.

In the reading in Acts that we just heard, Peter told gentiles, Cornelius and his household, the story of Jesus, the events of His life and death and resurrection and the meaning of those events. It absolutely riveted them; it changed their whole way of thinking and perception, as it did many who heard it. And their reaction and gift of the Spirit was amazing to Peter and his companions. It was and remains a powerful story when told by those who really get it, and show it in their lives. It tells of how God sent the message of peace through Jesus. It tells how God showed His mercy and forgiveness through Jesus. The story of Jesus reveals how much God loves us. When we really get it, when it fully penetrates our hearts it removes all fear.It is a story of the deepest truth. "Know the truth and the truth will set you free." We Christians are called to come together to celebrate this truth, this story of God's love. Whenever this story is truly understood in the hearts of people, it brings life and energy and fills God's peoples with incredible joy.

Have you ever had a friend, not just an acquaintance, but a friend you treasured and trusted; someone you could be totally yourself with and tell everything to? What exactly is the truth we are called to joyously celebrate in this Easter season? We celebrate the deep and abiding friendship of Jesus. He told His followers, "I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."

C. S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves, said this about friendship: "To the Ancients, friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison ignores it. Few value it because few experience it. It is essential between individuals; the moment two [people] are friends they have in some degree drawn apart from the herd. Friends [are] side by side ordered in some common interest. It is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. In this, friendship exhibits a glorious nearness by resemblance to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no person can number) increases the fruition which each has of God.

For every soul, seeing God in [her or his] own way, doubtless communicates that vision to all the rest. The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have."? True love always extends. Friendship, Emerson said, asks the question, "Do you love me?" and that question means, "Do you see the same truth? Or at least, do you care about the same truth?" Jesus defined that same truth that His friends would care about and see and practice. "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love."

I really like that word "abide." It suggests to me a personal relationship. When we "abide" with another we are at home in a sense with them. So I looked it up in this great book I have, Word Study Dictionary of the New Testament. Here are some of the meanings of the word, "abide," that are found in the New Testament: To continue throughout; to be constant or persevere; to be present; to stand fast; to continue; to endure; to remain fixed. The meaning of "abide" I liked the best, and which John used the most, was: Of the relation in which one person or thing stands with another; To remain in or with someone; To be or remain united with the other, in heart, mind, and will. "Following Jesus is to enter into a deeply personal relationship. It means abiding in love and loyalty to the one who has loved us more than we can begin to imagine. And the test of our friendship, the test of our love and loyalty, remains the simple, profound, dangerous and difficult command: love one another." ?

As friends of Jesus, do we see that same truth, or at least, do we care about that same truth? We have to admit it is a difficult commandment. We may hear this commandment from Jesus, and we may love our friends and family and some of our fellow church members, but when it comes to all those others in our daily lives who irritate us, or threaten us, or disgust us; what about them? Does the commandment to love the unlovable even remain in our consciousness? Well, I admit, it can very easily go out of mine. Following Jesus' commandment of love is so difficult that it is not possible without His friendship, and without the help and guidance of His Spirit. We must continually open our hearts anew to the story of Jesus and have faith in the message and truth of it. If we can really embrace the significance of what God has given us, His mercy, forgiveness and love, and realize that we need that, then this story has the power to open our hearts with such joy and enthusiasm and hope, and then we become free to receive the gift of His Spirit.

And it is pure gift, the Spirit dwelling with us. We do not choose it; we are chosen. And God's grace and Spirit are greater than any system, religion, or denomination. What is required of us is to want it! And we should never be surprised by who receives it. It is poured out on those who want what it promises. When we want what the Spirit promises, we will be enabled to begin to love the way Jesus commanded us to love, because we will desire to do so. We will be willing to do the work of learning how. It probably won't come automatically; we will have to be in God's process of learning how. To be a disciple of Jesus is to be a learner as well as a friend. If we really believe that Jesus is our friend, and is forgiving and merciful, then we can bring to Him those who irritate us or make us angry.

We can bring Jesus our resentments. We can be gentle with ourselves as we learn to obey Him. When we fail we don't have to be afraid, because we are learning. Our Friend will never desert us; our Friend has our back. But we do have to care about the same truth. That is, we must desire to learn to love the way our Friend commanded us to love.

Jesus commanded us to spread His love throughout the world. One of the Crusillo sayings is, "Make a friend, be a friend, bring a friend to Christ." In order to bring people to Christ we don't have to go about proselytizing, we have to go about loving in all our daily activities.

A meditation book I read every day, Twenty-Four Hours A Day, had this to say: "Wherever there is true fellowship and love between people, God's Spirit is always there as the Divine Third. In all human relationships, the Divine Spirit is what brings them together. When a life is changed through the channel of another person, it is God, the Divine Third, who always makes the change, using the person as a means. The moving power behind all spiritual things, all personal relationships between people is God, the Divine Third, who is always there. No personal relationships can be entirely right without the presence of God's Spirit."

To abide in Jesus is to persevere, to remain steadfast, to be constant in opening our hearts to the truth of His amazing story. When we abide, or remain in Jesus, the Spirit of God fills us, guides us, and teaches us, and then the most common disposition that flows from us is love. Amen.