The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 2, 2010

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have revealed to the nations your saving power and filled all ages with the words of a new song. Give us voice to sing your praise throughout this season of joy. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Peter replied to those who challenged him - to those who felt certain that the uncircumcised that he had been with should be excluded from the Good News of the resurrection of Jesus. Peter's reply was, "Who was I that I could hinder God?"

The Wind, the Breath, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, will blow where it will! We desperately want to control it. But we have an uncontrollable God. God will do what God will do!

What God is doing we are told in Scripture is making all things new. And we don't get to determine what that will be like, or what or who is included or excluded - if in fact anything or anyone will be excluded.

In other words, more - a lot more - is to be revealed. Our challenge is to be open. We will probably learn that more will continually be revealed for all eternity. And it will surely surprise us; it may shock us; it may even appall us.

But we are told in the book of Revelation that God, making all things new, is a very good thing. It is something we should definitely desire and be grateful for. We should pray and live and die with this great hope given to us.

God will bring about what God has always wanted and what God created everything for, and that is to be with us in the most intimate and knowable and accessible manner we could possibly imagine. "The home of God is among mortals."

This new creation in which we will dwell with God will be one of amazing love. That is the whole purpose of everything in this life. The purpose of this life is to teach us and to develop in us this reality.

That, at its core, from the beginning to the end, is what we are all truly thirsty for. Even if we remain unaware of it, even if we remain unconscious of this overpowering thirst for love, this is what we need, what we desire, and what we must have for the health and salvation of our souls.

It is this and this alone - this kind of love God wants all creation to be infused with - is what glorifies God. It is a whole new way of being. This new way of being, this new creation, this new kind of person - mortal person - is what Jesus came to demonstrate.

God with us in this new creation will be like the relationship God has with Jesus. And so to that end, Jesus gave us the new commandment, "Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."

This leaves us with a difficult question and a deep struggle. Here in this old, hurt, sinful, and suffering creation, the one in which everything will eventually pass away, we are left with the question of how to do that, and the struggle with answering that question.

But again, that is what this creation that we are living in here and now is all about. Jesus knew that he was leaving us to struggle with his commandment, and to learn how to do it.

"Where I am going you cannot come," he said. Not yet. Not yet, because you must first learn how to obey this commandment. But, Jesus promised he would not leave us orphaned to attempt it on our own.

If we are truly willing to struggle with this commandment Jesus promised we would have the power of the Holy Spirit available to us to guide us and help us learn to do it.

However, in our struggle, one of the things we must recognize about ourselves is that we are very adept at fooling ourselves - of wiggling out of it - of making excuses - of leaving certain "unworthy" ones out of this great commandment to love.

We tell ourselves that our everyday lives and decisions have nothing to do with it, or that it is so impractical in our day-to-day occurrences. It is impossible to make all of our decisions based on Jesus' commandment to love.

Actually, we want to be the ones in control, to determine who gets to receive our love, our care, our compassion. But cannot be left for us to determine and control, not if we are truly intent on trying to obey this commandment.

God has already determined it when He sent Jesus. God means this commandment for everybody and everything. The whole creation is to be made new.

Who are we suppose to love as Jesus loves us? Who is our neighbor? Jesus answered this question when he told the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Remember, in this parable it was the enemy who showed great love and came to the aid of the person who had been robbed and left for dead. I recently saw this parable enacted on the evening news.

A woman was being attacked and no one would come to her aid. Finally it was an immigrant passing by who went to her aid and he was stabbed himself.

He fell into the street in the sight of many who just passed him by and it was hours before anyone would stop to help him. He later died. How timely are the parables of Jesus!

The point of this parable is that no one gets left out of this commandment to love; not people from other religions, be they Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Mormons, people from our own faith who do not agree with us.

No one from other cultures or ethnic backgrounds gets left out; not people from Iran, Iraq, Mexico, no one. Love one another as I have loved you. That is our unequivocal commandment.

How to do that? Well, we surely know it is not easy! But first we have to try! And again, if we are truly willing to try, we are promised the power of the Holy Spirit to guide us, and bring us to success.

But we must stop making excuses why we feel we have the right to leave certain others out of that commandment. At the very least we must admit where we are failing, and then struggle to overcome that failure. We have to try!

To love others as we love ourselves is to seek win/win solutions rather than the easier and knee jerk win/lose solutions we tend to gravitate to. These easier solutions only work to benefit one group of people, leaving vast numbers out of the commandment to love.

Win/win solutions are more difficult, because they require that we have more knowledge about the motivations and needs of our fellow human beings.

That is, we have to put more effort into educating ourselves about their condition, and to hear and understand their plight. We have to care as much about the conditions of their lives as we do our own.

We have to give up fear, greed and selfishness, and cease exploiting others for our own benefit, and cease exploiting our environment for our voracious appetites.

We must realize what Pam said last Sunday; we are all so deeply and completely connected. Even those we may not want to be connected to makes no difference; we are all still deeply connected to them.

What and to whom we deny compassion, care, concern and love will eventually hurt and destroy us. You see, to love one another, all others is ultimately the most pragmatic thing we can do.

"Everybody does better when everybody does better." Those who truly get that concept in their hearts are on the road to obeying Jesus' commandment.

Win/win solutions, though they may take greater education and learning and though they take more creative effort, are ultimately very pragmatic. When we bless others we bless ourselves.

And the reverse is also true; when we deny others our help, though we may think it gives more to us, it ultimately does just the opposite.

Paul said the whole creation is in labor, in growing pains, groaning to give birth to this New Creation. Nothing is to be left out.

So we must labor on allowing the Holy Spirit to bring across our paths who and what we individually and collectively - as a state, as a nation, as the world, must struggle to love.

The lessons come to us daily, minute by minute. The lessons present themselves in the issues we face everyday - in our families, in our schools, in traffic, in our businesses and finances, in our political concerns, persuasions and decisions - Where have we loved? Where have we failed to love?

Where do we refuse to look for win/win solutions? How are we complicit in the pain of our neighbors? What are our excuses? Do we really believe Jesus would accept them?

Indeed to obey Jesus' commandment takes effort and learning; it will require struggle and deep and honest self-reflection.

But the New Creation God is bringing about must be, and will be, a place for people who have gone through the great ordeal of trying to obey this commandment. "Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." Amen.