Sermon
Sixth Sunday of Easter
St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church -
May 25, 2014
John 14:15-23
Those of you who know me, know
that I –like everyone else - have my “idols.” Walter Brueggemann and Thomas
Merton are right up there on top, along with Martin Luther King, Dietrich
Bonhoffer, and Henri Nouwen. On a more secular level, let’s not forget Jack
Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, Katherine Hepburn, and Helen Mirren. All fascinating
and gifted people. People who have had the talent and courage to in some way
“make a difference.”
However, at the very top of my
list is someone that we don’t hear about all that much these days. Someone who
entered my life very briefly many years ago as the priest who counseled and
married my first husband and I. Someone who I really wish I had had the
opportunity to know better and to work with. Someone who was incredibly passionate,
direct and “right on.” Someone who had the most charismatic, yet love-filled
being that I have ever encountered.
Someone whom I will never
forget - William Sloane Coffin.
William Sloane Coffin, as some
of you may know, served as chaplain of Yale University and Williams College,
was senior minister of Riverside Church in New York City, and president of
SANE/FREEZE: Campaign for Global Security. He became famous at Yale, where I
knew him, in the 1960s for his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was jailed as
a civil rights “Freedom Rider,” indicted by the government in the Benjamin
Spock conspiracy trial, and was immortalized as Rev. Sloane in the Doonesbury
comic strip.
Towards the end of his life
Coffin wrote in his book CREDO, “Credo – I believe – best translates ‘I have given my heart to.’ However
imperfectly, I have given my heart to the teaching and example of Christ, which
among many other things, informs my understanding of faiths other than
Christianity. Certainly religions are different. Still most seek to fulfill the
same function; that is they strive to convert people from self-preoccupation to
the wholehearted giving of oneself in love for God and for others.” (Credo, p. xv)
Later, in one of his sermons,
Coffin preached “Make love your aim, not biblical inerrancy, nor purity, nor
obedience to holiness codes. Make love your aim, for (and here he quotes 1
Corinthians 13): ‘If I speak in the
tongues of mortals and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or
a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do
not love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over
my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.’”(1 Cor.
13:103)
Coffin ended the sermon with
these words, “I doubt if in any other scriptures of the world is there a more
radical statement of ethics. If we fail in love, we fail in all things else.”
In today’s brief but powerful
Gospel reading from John, Jesus emphasizes, once again, his all-consuming theme
– love. Today’s gospel passage begins and ends with love.
Jesus opens with, “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments.” He concludes with “They
who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who
love me will be loved by my father, and I will love them and reveal myself to
them.”
It is interesting to note that
in John’s gospel Jesus gives only a single commandment, and that commandment is:
To Love – “Just as I have loved you, you
should also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John
13:34-35)
We hear this commandment first
as Jesus washes his disciples’ feet after the last supper. We hear it again in
the chapter directly following today’s gospel passage as Jesus continues his
dialogue with the disciples by referring to himself as the true vine, and God
as the vine-grower. He says to these reluctant believers once again, “…abide in my love (or, be one with me in my
love)…This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No
one has greater love than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John
15:9; 12-13)
The author of John’s gospel
would have been quite pleased to hear William Sloane Coffin’s claim to his
fellow Christians, “If we fail in love, we fail in all things else.” Most
certainly Jesus would be clapping his hands in joy.
The disciples may have been
puzzled and reluctant to fully understand the importance of Jesus’ great
commandment, but William Sloane Coffin and so many others have not only taken
it to heart – not only understood its centrality to the well-being of humanity
– they have also put it to work through their work in world.
In the Bible, the word love is
mentioned between 500 and 700 times, depending on which version of it you are
reading. In John’s gospel Jesus uses love verbs 57 times. Overall, love is the
core principle that defines our identity as Christians and drives our life of
faith and mission as we live and move and have our being as Christ’s disciples
in a fragmented and troubled world.
Love, in the sense that Jesus
used the Greek word – agape – is
selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional. It is not simply affection or
friendship, and it is, of course, not eros,
or needful love.
The love – agape - that Jesus refers to is not something be achieved by
certain acts, or anticipated as an end product. It is not a lust for pleasure. It is not a desire
to work hard, and to be the best. It is not the camaraderie found at a
gathering of friends. It is not a love to be found in the future.
The love that Jesus refers to
is an unconditional love. It is a love, agape,
to be entered into in the present. The commandment is: To Love. It is the love
of God or Christ for humankind. It is the covenant love of God for humans, as
well as our reciprocal love for God. It is also a love that mandates agape for our fellow man.
The love that Jesus refers to
is a love that is our salvation. It is a love that brings us into one being
with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus assures us, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while
the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also
will live. On that day you will know that I am in my father, and you in me, and
I in you.”
Jesus concludes this part of
his message with two verses not included in the lectionary version of this
gospel passage. “Those who love me will
keep my word, and my father will love them, and we will come to them and make
our home with them.” (John 13:21-23)
Everything that matters, that
is, our relationship with God, our salvation – our eternal peace – exists right
now. We don’t have to wait for God. Abundant life is available in the here and
now. If we understand and abide in Jesus’ command to love in the broadest sense
of agape, a world filled with peace
is a possibility.
Memorial Day is a time to
remember those who have died in service to this country. It is a time to honor the
men and women who gave themselves and their lives in the many wars waged in the
hopes and dreams of a better, more peaceful, world.
However today, as never before,
does it seem less and less possible to achieve peace through war.
Today, as never before, does it
seem critically important, indeed - essential, to achieve peace through a series
of international, inter community, and interfaith dialogues that are brought
about by bridges of communication built with love, with agape.
Love, agape, is our refuge, the rock of our salvation.
John reminds us “Those who keep my commandments are those
who love me; and those who love me will
be loved by the Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Paul reminds us, “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not
envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it
is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrong doing, but rejoices
in the truth. It bears all things, believes in all things, hopes all things,
endures all things. Love never ends.” (I Cor 13:4-8)
William Sloane Coffin reminds
us, “Fear destroys intimacy. It distances
us from each other; or makes us cling to each other, which is the death of
freedom.... Only love can create intimacy, and freedom too, for when all hearts
are one, nothing else has to be one--neither clothes nor age; neither sex nor sexual
preference; race nor mind-set.”
Love is our salvation. “If we
fail in love, we fail in all things else.”
Beutiful
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