During this Easter season, for our Second Reading, we have been hearing selections from the First Letter of John. This is not really a letter, but more of an exhortation to a community that is divided and in conflict. The content of the disagreement was the debate over the true nature of Jesus … was he human, or was he divine? Because of this disagreement the community was fractured and people were angry at each other. Leaders on both sides of the issue vied for followers. Thus, the purpose of the First Letter of John … whoever wrote it, and to whatever community that received it … the purpose was to proclaim the true faith: Jesus, the divine Christ, lived as a human being. In other words … Jesus was both human and divine.
Easter 4
April 26, 2015
In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the spirit.
Amen.
April 26, 2015
In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the spirit.
Amen.
ted During this Easter season, for our Second Reading, we have been hearing selections from the First Letter of John. This is not really a letter, but more of an exhortation to a community that is divided and in conflict. The content of the disagreement was the debate over the true nature of Jesus … was he human, or was he divine? Because of this disagreement the community was fractured and people were angry at each other. Leaders on both sides of the issue vied for followers. Thus, the purpose of the First Letter of John … whoever wrote it, and to whatever community that received it … the purpose was to proclaim the true faith: Jesus, the divine Christ, lived as a human being. In other words … Jesus was both human and divine.
The words contained in the five short chapters of this proclamation are some of the most familiar descriptions of our faith:
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
But beyond the declarations of the faith is an unmistakable call to act with integrity in that faith:
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before [God].
And, although scholars are undecided as to whether the author of this treatise is the same as the author of the Gospel of John, it is obvious that this writing comes from the Johannine community, and there are constant echoes of the Gospel of John throughout. In this morning’s reading from the Gospel of John … which is different from the letters of John … we hear that the Good Shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep. Then, in this First Letter of John we hear:
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
And, remember, in the account of the Last Supper in the Gospel of John Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and then tells them to, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Again, this is echoed in the First Letter of John:
And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
It is this call to living the truth, AND taking action, that we heard read this morning. If this is what Jesus would do for us, in the name of a loving God, then that is what we are called to do for others through our faith in that same loving God. It is not about what we say, but about what we do. Again, in the words of the First Letter of John:
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
This is as true for us today in this community of faith as it was for that community to whom this letter was written almost 2,000 years ago. So, you may ask, what is the problem? St. Cyprian’s is a community where we all believe the same thing, don’t we? And certainly all the people of this congregation love one another, isn’t that true? I think we would like to believe that the answer to both questions is “Yes!” However, what we would like to believe and the truth are not always the same. In reality the answer is “No!” and “No!” No, we do not all believe the same thing, as some of you have made clear to me. And, no, St. Cyprian’s is not a community where everyone loves everyone else. I hate to say it, but that, too, has been made clear to me. However, I imagine that it is a very rare community of faith where everyone truly believes the same thing, as if there was a monolithic expression of the faith. And, I also have my doubts about a community of any sort where everyone claims to have a sincere love for everyone else.
Do the people of St. Cyprian’s all believe the same thing? I don’t think so! As I said, some of you have made it very clear to me that your faith and beliefs differ from mine … in one case I have been called a heretic. But it is not the first time I have been called a heretic, and I doubt it will be the last, and I admit that my beliefs often fall outside of “orthodoxy.” Yet I still believe that I am a faithful Christian.
For example: The Resurrection is central to the Christian faith … it is what we proclaim during this Easter season, and it is celebrated every Sunday of the year in our Holy Eucharist. However, do I believe that Jesus, who died a horrible death on the cross, was literally raised from the dead? No! I believe that the story of the Resurrection is about a spiritual experience the disciples had that was so powerful that the only way they knew how to tell about what happened to them was through the stories that are contained in our gospels. The accounts of the disciples and others seeing Jesus raised from the dead are ways of telling others about the extraordinarily powerful event of Jesus’ spiritual presence in the community even after his death.
Now, many of you believe that the Resurrection appearances of Jesus as told in our gospels are literally true ... they are fact and happened exactly as it is written. That is just fine with me … I have no argument with them. As a matter of fact I believe arguing about whether it happen like I propose, or it happen exactly as it is written, misses the point. You see, I believe in the Resurrection! You believe in the Resurrection! That is what we celebrate in this community. There is, indeed, a life … a powerful new life … after we have suffered death. And I see it happening all the time. This community of faith is a Resurrection community … we are people of the Resurrection!
So, if that is true, then what does that mean for us today? That is exactly what the First Letter of John is addressing. Jesus was both human and divine. However, there are those who confuse worshipping the divine with participating in the reality of Jesus’ human teaching. The scripture today enjoins us to love one another. And elsewhere, we are commanded to love even our enemies. Presumably, the “one another” we are to love is not just our best friends and family but also those who have hurt us, betrayed us, misused or abused us. We are commanded to love … love unconditionally.
I believe it was when I read something by the philosopher Nietzsche that I came across the insight of how much we get out of our resentments. When someone hurts us through betrayal, deceit, or abuse, they hurt us not once, but for a long time. Yet, there is something about us that enjoys dredging up old hurts. We talk about them to other people. In loving detail we reiterate the specific ways in which the other offended us. We feel righteous in our anger, and we love our furies and our rage. If we didn’t we would give them up.
Many of you know that I have a son, Christopher, who is 44 years-old and who was disabled with severe head injuries in an auto accident when he was 12. The young man who was driving the car, Branson, had been reckless; he had gone off the road; and he hit three pine trees at 70 miles per hour. My son Christopher was in a coma for a month, a body cast for five months, and in rehab for years following the accident … and he still has health issues today some 30 plus years later. Yet, following the accident, Branson, the boy driving the car, never took responsibility for the crash, and never really expressed remorse.
I was angry at Branson, and I felt justified in my anger. My mind spun out of control in my fury … at times it was all I could do to contain my rage. But Branson and his family were members of my congregation, his mother served on the Vestry, and I had called them friends. I was even asked, after the accident, to pin his Eagle Scout award on Branson’s chest. I did so, and smiled, while my insides were churning in wrath. I remember feeling like I wanted to stick the pin in his heart … not pin it to his shirt.
As you might imagine, months after the accident … with all of these conflicted feelings … I became clinically depressed. Several more months into counseling my therapist asked me, “Why do you allow Branson to have this power over you? It is your anger that is making you depressed.” It was a watershed point in the recovery of my health. It took a while before my anger disappeared, but the less anger I harbored the healthier I became, and the healthier I became the easier it was to let go of the anger.
Today, some 30 years later, I can say that I have love for the boy who is now a man in his 40s with children of his own. As a sixteen year-old Branson was not emotionally equipped to express his feelings to me shortly after the accident. And, as a 40 year-old father my spiritual journey was in its adolescence. Now, I feel hurt for the burden he has to carry, just as I continue to hurt for the condition with which my son lives. And, not long ago, I found myself praying for Branson and his family and his children … that they may be kept safe from a similar trauma in their lives.
What I have come to know, and what I proclaim to you, is that I can forgive because I know I have been forgiven by God. I can love, because I know that I am loved by God. God has called us to love each other … friends and enemies alike … to the end that
If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
All of us have been hurt at one time or another in our lives. Often the hurt is most painful when it comes from someone we are close to, someone we respect, someone we trust. It becomes hard not to obsess about the pain they have caused us, the abuse they have inflicted, the betrayal of our trust. We feel justified in our anger, even righteous in our rage. Once someone has truly, undeniably wronged us, then we feel as if all moral bets are called off. We feel free to abuse this person anyway we want … at least in our minds and hearts.
But to do so is to make ourselves even more of a victim. The author of the First Letter of John tells us that there is another way … love one another. This means that when we are wronged, all moral bets are definitely NOT called off. In fact, according to this ethic, it is precisely when we are used spitefully and wrongfully that the true challenge of our faith begins. In the midst of the anger it may seem ludicrous, but God is calling us to love the other.
The Christian faith makes the stunning demand that we love one another … including those we might like to think of as our enemies. In order to love every one of those others in our community, in the world, and even in our families we must attempt to see their lives lovingly, with charity, with a generosity of spirit, and show our determination to love them no matter what.
In this Easter season we proclaim the risen Lord … the one who died on the cross on Good Friday and whose Resurrection we proclaim so that we might know that there is new life after death. That proclamation of our faith is meant to be more than mere words … indeed, it is a way of life. Once more, in the words of the First Letter of John:
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
Amen.
The words contained in the five short chapters of this proclamation are some of the most familiar descriptions of our faith:
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
But beyond the declarations of the faith is an unmistakable call to act with integrity in that faith:
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before [God].
And, although scholars are undecided as to whether the author of this treatise is the same as the author of the Gospel of John, it is obvious that this writing comes from the Johannine community, and there are constant echoes of the Gospel of John throughout. In this morning’s reading from the Gospel of John … which is different from the letters of John … we hear that the Good Shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep. Then, in this First Letter of John we hear:
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
And, remember, in the account of the Last Supper in the Gospel of John Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and then tells them to, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Again, this is echoed in the First Letter of John:
And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
It is this call to living the truth, AND taking action, that we heard read this morning. If this is what Jesus would do for us, in the name of a loving God, then that is what we are called to do for others through our faith in that same loving God. It is not about what we say, but about what we do. Again, in the words of the First Letter of John:
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
This is as true for us today in this community of faith as it was for that community to whom this letter was written almost 2,000 years ago. So, you may ask, what is the problem? St. Cyprian’s is a community where we all believe the same thing, don’t we? And certainly all the people of this congregation love one another, isn’t that true? I think we would like to believe that the answer to both questions is “Yes!” However, what we would like to believe and the truth are not always the same. In reality the answer is “No!” and “No!” No, we do not all believe the same thing, as some of you have made clear to me. And, no, St. Cyprian’s is not a community where everyone loves everyone else. I hate to say it, but that, too, has been made clear to me. However, I imagine that it is a very rare community of faith where everyone truly believes the same thing, as if there was a monolithic expression of the faith. And, I also have my doubts about a community of any sort where everyone claims to have a sincere love for everyone else.
Do the people of St. Cyprian’s all believe the same thing? I don’t think so! As I said, some of you have made it very clear to me that your faith and beliefs differ from mine … in one case I have been called a heretic. But it is not the first time I have been called a heretic, and I doubt it will be the last, and I admit that my beliefs often fall outside of “orthodoxy.” Yet I still believe that I am a faithful Christian.
For example: The Resurrection is central to the Christian faith … it is what we proclaim during this Easter season, and it is celebrated every Sunday of the year in our Holy Eucharist. However, do I believe that Jesus, who died a horrible death on the cross, was literally raised from the dead? No! I believe that the story of the Resurrection is about a spiritual experience the disciples had that was so powerful that the only way they knew how to tell about what happened to them was through the stories that are contained in our gospels. The accounts of the disciples and others seeing Jesus raised from the dead are ways of telling others about the extraordinarily powerful event of Jesus’ spiritual presence in the community even after his death.
Now, many of you believe that the Resurrection appearances of Jesus as told in our gospels are literally true ... they are fact and happened exactly as it is written. That is just fine with me … I have no argument with them. As a matter of fact I believe arguing about whether it happen like I propose, or it happen exactly as it is written, misses the point. You see, I believe in the Resurrection! You believe in the Resurrection! That is what we celebrate in this community. There is, indeed, a life … a powerful new life … after we have suffered death. And I see it happening all the time. This community of faith is a Resurrection community … we are people of the Resurrection!
So, if that is true, then what does that mean for us today? That is exactly what the First Letter of John is addressing. Jesus was both human and divine. However, there are those who confuse worshipping the divine with participating in the reality of Jesus’ human teaching. The scripture today enjoins us to love one another. And elsewhere, we are commanded to love even our enemies. Presumably, the “one another” we are to love is not just our best friends and family but also those who have hurt us, betrayed us, misused or abused us. We are commanded to love … love unconditionally.
I believe it was when I read something by the philosopher Nietzsche that I came across the insight of how much we get out of our resentments. When someone hurts us through betrayal, deceit, or abuse, they hurt us not once, but for a long time. Yet, there is something about us that enjoys dredging up old hurts. We talk about them to other people. In loving detail we reiterate the specific ways in which the other offended us. We feel righteous in our anger, and we love our furies and our rage. If we didn’t we would give them up.
Many of you know that I have a son, Christopher, who is 44 years-old and who was disabled with severe head injuries in an auto accident when he was 12. The young man who was driving the car, Branson, had been reckless; he had gone off the road; and he hit three pine trees at 70 miles per hour. My son Christopher was in a coma for a month, a body cast for five months, and in rehab for years following the accident … and he still has health issues today some 30 plus years later. Yet, following the accident, Branson, the boy driving the car, never took responsibility for the crash, and never really expressed remorse.
I was angry at Branson, and I felt justified in my anger. My mind spun out of control in my fury … at times it was all I could do to contain my rage. But Branson and his family were members of my congregation, his mother served on the Vestry, and I had called them friends. I was even asked, after the accident, to pin his Eagle Scout award on Branson’s chest. I did so, and smiled, while my insides were churning in wrath. I remember feeling like I wanted to stick the pin in his heart … not pin it to his shirt.
As you might imagine, months after the accident … with all of these conflicted feelings … I became clinically depressed. Several more months into counseling my therapist asked me, “Why do you allow Branson to have this power over you? It is your anger that is making you depressed.” It was a watershed point in the recovery of my health. It took a while before my anger disappeared, but the less anger I harbored the healthier I became, and the healthier I became the easier it was to let go of the anger.
Today, some 30 years later, I can say that I have love for the boy who is now a man in his 40s with children of his own. As a sixteen year-old Branson was not emotionally equipped to express his feelings to me shortly after the accident. And, as a 40 year-old father my spiritual journey was in its adolescence. Now, I feel hurt for the burden he has to carry, just as I continue to hurt for the condition with which my son lives. And, not long ago, I found myself praying for Branson and his family and his children … that they may be kept safe from a similar trauma in their lives.
What I have come to know, and what I proclaim to you, is that I can forgive because I know I have been forgiven by God. I can love, because I know that I am loved by God. God has called us to love each other … friends and enemies alike … to the end that
If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
All of us have been hurt at one time or another in our lives. Often the hurt is most painful when it comes from someone we are close to, someone we respect, someone we trust. It becomes hard not to obsess about the pain they have caused us, the abuse they have inflicted, the betrayal of our trust. We feel justified in our anger, even righteous in our rage. Once someone has truly, undeniably wronged us, then we feel as if all moral bets are called off. We feel free to abuse this person anyway we want … at least in our minds and hearts.
But to do so is to make ourselves even more of a victim. The author of the First Letter of John tells us that there is another way … love one another. This means that when we are wronged, all moral bets are definitely NOT called off. In fact, according to this ethic, it is precisely when we are used spitefully and wrongfully that the true challenge of our faith begins. In the midst of the anger it may seem ludicrous, but God is calling us to love the other.
The Christian faith makes the stunning demand that we love one another … including those we might like to think of as our enemies. In order to love every one of those others in our community, in the world, and even in our families we must attempt to see their lives lovingly, with charity, with a generosity of spirit, and show our determination to love them no matter what.
In this Easter season we proclaim the risen Lord … the one who died on the cross on Good Friday and whose Resurrection we proclaim so that we might know that there is new life after death. That proclamation of our faith is meant to be more than mere words … indeed, it is a way of life. Once more, in the words of the First Letter of John:
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
Amen.
