Sharing Our Love of God

May the spirit of God infuse my words and carry them forth with God’s purpose.  Amen.

“O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.”

Last week we I asked you to name some things that are important to you about this church; some things that you love.  Here is what you came up with.

This church is intimate.  Everyone knows everyone else.

This church is a focal point in the community.  With all of the baptisms, weddings and funerals that have taken place here over the years, almost everyone in this community is connected in some way to this church.

This church is a peaceful place.  If you come inside and just sit for a bit, you can feel God’s presence.

I’m sure that over the past week, some of you have thought of some other things that you love about this church.  I would love to add them to the list.

 

“Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.  There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed for to sport in it.  These all look to you to give them food in due season: when you give it to them, they gather it up: when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.”

What I love about this church is that I am spiritually fed by what we do here each Sunday.  When we worship together, when we break the bread and share in the eucharist, I feel the peace that comes from listening to God’s call.

 

“When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.”

These things that we have listed, these things that we love about this church, the reason that we love them is that they are God’s face revealed to us.  Fellowship, community, peace, worship … these are all things that God calls us to share.  They are important things.  In this place, God’s face is not hidden.  Halleluia!

But what about the rest of the time?  When we go out from here and lock the door after us?  Where is God’s face then?

“When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.” 

Today is Pentecost.  Today is the day that God sent out his spirit upon the earth in such abundance that people began to speak in tongues.  Today is a special day for celebrating the individual gifts that we have each been given.  We have all been abundantly blessed with gifts of the spirit.

“May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works – who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.”

God’s gifts have been given to us with a purpose.  We are all here because we hear God’s call.  We are all here because we know that God has a purpose for us and for our gifts. 

But what is our purpose?

“I will sing to the lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.”

We are called to be intimate with one another and with those around us.

We are called to be a unifying force in our community.

We are called to share the peace of God with all that we meet, whether here in this place or outside in the rest of creation.

We are called to break bread together and to praise God for the wonderful things that God has done.

These are all things that we know how to do.  We do them very well here in this place.  Now we just need to figure out how to do them better out there.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, Praise the Lord!

A Mother's Love

I speak to you in the name of the Mother of all creation; the One, True and Living God.  Amen.

“As my Father has loved me, so I love you.  Abide in my love.”

Sounds good, but what does it mean?

How did God show his love for his son, Jesus?  Did God keep Jesus safe?  No.  Did God make sure that Jesus’ life would be easy and productive?  Definitely not.  Did God clear the path for Jesus so that he could reach his goals more easily?  Again … no.

God sent Jesus out into the world to proclaim the good news.  God let Jesus struggle with Satan in the wilderness.  God let Jesus get tired enough that he sought rest in Syrophoenicia.  God did not let him rest there.  God let Jesus trudge from one village to another, often with the authorities mad at him by the time he left.  God let Jesus feel despair on the cross at Calvary.

“As my Father has loved me, so I love you.”

That’s some tough love and that’s what Jesus promised us.  So how is this good news?

Some people believe that God directs every moment of our lives; that we live exactly according to God’s plan.  I don’t believe this.  To me, a god that would do this does not love.  This idea of God makes God into a dictator, not a parent.

I believe that God is much more like a good mother.  God calls to us.  God tries to let us know the best path that we can take.  God does not force us to take that path.  We are free to ignore God’s call.  We are free to turn the wrong way.  When our choices bring us to pain, God does not take them away from us, but God does stay with us while we suffer.  When our choices lead us into danger, God worries about our safety and tries to call us back from the danger.

This is how I understand God’s love.

 

Everyone here who has been a parent knows about this feeling.  We want so much to protect our children, to keep them from all harm.  I would feel much safer seeing Paul and Rosa go to school in the morning wearing elbow and knee pads and hockey helmets.  It would be great if I could keep them away from knives and stoves forever.  But this wouldn’t be good parenting.  This would be putting them in a kind of a prison.  A good parent is a guide, not a ruler.

Just as we have to allow our children to make their own mistakes, God lets us choose our own path.  Just as we cringe when we watch our children trying to cook for the first time, God watches over us as we make our journey through life.  Just as we cry our own tears when our children get hurt, so God feels the pain of our suffering.

This is the love of a mother or a father for their child.  This is God’s love for us.  Whether we have children or not, most of us can understand this love by thinking about our own parents.

“As my Father has loved me, so I love you.  Abide in my love.”

Do you remember what a comfort it is to feel that love?  When you made a bad choice and your mother or father was there waiting for you to come home?  How they told you it was okay, you would know better next time?

Do you remember the smile you got as your parents tried to eat that meal that even you couldn’t choke down?

Do you remember being held as you cried after something went terribly wrong?

This is God’s love for each of us, every day.  This is the love that Jesus told us to abide in.  This is the love that Jesus promises is there for all who look for it.

By the grace of God this love is ours.

Jesus tells us that we have our own part to play in this love.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

It is our calling as Christians to extend this love to each other.  It is our calling as Christians to try to guide and help each other as we struggle to follow God’s call.  It is our calling as Christians to love one another as we make our mistakes, as we wander into danger, as we cause ourselves and others pain.

It is our calling as Christians to love each person just as if they were our own son or daughter.  No matter what mistakes they make, we are to love them.  No matter how difficult they are to like, we are to love them.  No matter how much pain they cause to themselves or to others, we are to love them.

This does not mean that we have to like what people do.  We all know that some people do awful things.  We have all done awful things ourselves.  But when people accept that what they have done is wrong, we need to be able to accept them back, not as a repentant sinner, but as someone we love.

 

This is a very difficult calling.  To share the same unconditional love that we feel for our children with everyone.  But this is what Jesus is asking for us to do.

I can’t do it.  I try and some days I do better than others, but I’m not there yet.  I think that when we finally get to the point that everyone on earth can feel this love for everyone else, we will finally reached the Kingdom of God.

 

In the meantime, we abide in God’s love.  We can rest assured that at the very least, God, our heavenly mother, loves us this way.  And we can give thanks for the love of our own parents, particularly today for the love we have received from our mothers.

Thanks be to God.

I Am the Vine, You Are the Branches

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

“I am the vine, you are the branches.”

Jesus likes to teach us using pictures.  Some pictures are easier to understand than others.  Almost all of them have a surface meaning which is important and a much deeper meaning which is the heart of his teaching.

Today’s Gospel lesson is one of these picture stories.  Our surface story is about how God cares for us.  We are all part of God’s vineyard.  Jesus is the central vine and we are all of his offshoots.  Our nutrients all come through Jesus and God makes sure that the vine is growing properly so that we all get fed.

Another way to look at this picture would be as a tree.  As long as the branches are attached to the tree they continue to grow and bear fruit.  If they get cut off from the tree they wither and die.

It is the same with our lives.  God loves us and cares for us in his garden.  As long as we remain connected to God through our devotion to Jesus, we are nourished by God’s food and we bear fruit.  When we get separated from Jesus, we also become separated from God.  What happens then?  Our lives become dull and fruitless.  We cut ourselves off of the tree.

Is it possible to come back to the tree once we’ve cut ourselves off?  Yes.  Just as a living branch can be grafted onto a tree, we can be joined back into Christ’s body as long as there is some life in us.

So the surface meaning of our Gospel is that as long as we truly live as Jesus teaches us to live, our lives will be fruitful.  And when we stray, as long as we feel that spark calling us back, we can be joined back in to the body of Christ.  This is an important message.  A message that needs to be heard and lived by, but it is a message that Jesus has told us over and over again in many stories.

So what makes this story special?  What makes it different from all the rest?

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Let every one who loves me, love one another.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

This is the chorus from a hymn in our hymnbook.  “Apart from me, you can do nothing?”  It seems to me that lots of people who do not believe in God get lots of stuff done.  But this line comes directly from our Gospel.  “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”  So if our Gospel is truth, if it is good news for us, there must be some deeper meaning. 

I think Jesus is trying to teach us what it means to bear fruit in his name.  It seems obvious to me that this is not about money.  Do you remember what Jesus said about being rich?  “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”  So Jesus message is not supposed to bring us financial wealth.  So let’s look at the word “fruit.”

Matthew and Luke talk about bearing good fruit and bad fruit.  They talk about a tree being known by its fruit.  They relate this good and bad fruit to good and evil deeds.  Other than our Gospel today, John talks very little about fruit.  When he does talk about fruit, he is talking about those things that are worth doing.  Anything not worth doing is not fruitful. 

Jesus is trying to teach us that there is much more to life that money.  Or maybe that money and wealth are not the same thing.  When we live our lives intentionally, when everything we do is because of Jesus’ call, our lives will be much more fulfilling.  We will be wealthy beyond measure.  We will know God’s presence in our lives and we will always have enough to do what we are called to do.

So what does that mean for us today in this community?

“Let every one who loves me, love one another.”

Our community has just been hit with a couple of big blows.  With the cutbacks at the park, there are fewer jobs and those who have jobs will have fewer hours.  On top of this, the prices for lobster and crab are very low this year.  This means that there will be less money brought into our community by fishing.  Our fishermen and women will be hurting this year.  We need to live up to the promise we made when we blessed the fleet.  We need to extend our support to these people.  We need to let them know that we will do what we can to help, no matter how small that help might be.  We need to do the same for those who are employed by the park.  If we truly live in Christ, we can do no less.

In fact, because there will be less money in the community this year because of these issues and because of rising prices, we need to support each other.  We must offer help when we see a need and we must ask for help when we are in need.  This is what it means to be part of the Body of Christ.  This is also what it means to bear good fruit.  “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

We are called in to share in the food that Christ provides, to be nourished by the Gospel.  We are sent out to bear good fruit and to share in the abundance of God’s gifts to us.

Thanks be to God.