Sermon at The Church of the Holy Apostles, New York City,
May 21, 2006, The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B
by The Reverend William A. Greenlaw, Ph.D.

Acts 11:19-30
Psalm 33
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:9-17

           One of the most horrible moments in the Bible is at the time of Jesus’ arrest following the Last Supper and his praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Not only had Judas already left the supper to accomplish his betrayal, but in that most desperate hour of need, Jesus’ earthly companions, his disciples, those who have been with him from the beginning, those whose feet he had just washed and who had been fed in that first Eucharist at the last supper, these chosen ones who were to become the Holy Apostles, every last one of them—“forsook him and fled.”  Peter, the Rock on whom the church was to be built, did even better.  He lingered close at hand to see what would happen, was spotted, questioned, and ended up denying Jesus three times.  And then, the cock crowed—and all he could do was to go out and to “weep bitterly.” 

            Given this treatment, the astonishing thing to me is that these very wayward and unreliable disciples where not themselves abandoned, forsaken, left as orphans, given their behavior.  Surely Jesus could have done better than this.  But, clearly, it seems Jesus knew what he was doing. 

            Looking at our gospel lesson for today, we are once again at Jesus’ so-called “farewell discourse” at the Last Supper, just hours before those fateful events that lie ahead in which Jesus will himself be abandoned by his disciples.  Full of love and concern and blessing, and surely aware of just how tenuous his followers’ faith must be, he looks way beyond, well-past those events that are just ahead.  He looks ahead to that time after his death, after his resurrection, to what life will be like for them and for the church they will establish. 

            This “farewell discourse” is only in John’s gospel and it takes more than four chapters, a huge chunk of that gospel.  Our lectionary compilers have felt this material so important that in each of our three liturgical years, on the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Sundays of Easter, we hear different parts of this discourse. 

            It is perhaps worth noting that while the earlier synoptic gospels certainly include the Last Supper and introduction of the Eucharist, they do not have the foot-washing and this long discourse, both of which are unique to John.  And in John’s gospel,  Jesus appears far more all-knowing of all that is to befall him, his resurrection, and much that is to follow.  It is almost magisterial in its unfolding.  And yet, even knowing all the frailties and limitations of his chosen band, he devotes himself entirely to them, to their welfare, to their future, even as his own earthly end is every closer.  Mark’s gospel, by contrast, in its urgency, seems almost in another world from John.  Happily, not being fundamentalists, we can accept that gospels compiled in different times and places and circumstances are going to have at the very least differing emphases and interpretations—and they do not have to be almost forcibly reconciled, somehow.  In fact, we can marvel that they are as similar as they are. 

            In our gospel lesson for today, there is so much that is so rich.  “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.”  “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”  “I do not call you servants any longer…but I have called you friends…”  “You did not choose me but I chose you.”  “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” 

            This is powerful, evocative language.  Throughout the farewell discourse, Jesus lays it on the line repeatedly.  In a word, these disciples and all who follow them—and that means you and me—must love one another. 

            I believe that it is a particular temptation for preachers everywhere to try to spell out the meaning of the command to love one another much more directly, much more specifically than Jesus himself ever did.  

            Reflecting on this temptation, one commentator I found recalled the great nineteenth century novelist Anthony Trollope who wrote in his Barchester Towers, “There is, perhaps, no greater hardship on mankind in civilized and free countries, than the necessity of listening to sermons.  No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent, and be tormented.” 

            This actually reminds me of a comment I have not forgotten in the 45 years or so since I heard it.  It was in a sermon by my Methodist bishop of the Los Angeles area, Gerald Kennedy.  He noted rather sardonically, “many preachers would fly across the country to give a sermon.  Yet most would not even cross the street to hear one.” 

            This all has to do with our temptation to lay out what is perfectly obvious to us—and to suggest at least implicitly that surely it must be so to all of you as well.  And the astonishing thing to me is that here you are all so remarkably and wonderfully forbearing—which tempts me to think that all of us who preach at Holy Apostles are wonderful exceptions and resist such temptations always—except of course we don’t, I don’t, at least some of the time. 

            This is why when I have my wits together I think it is usually far better to invite you—even in terms of Jesus’ farewell discourse—into the mystical, a world of paradox and struggle and uncertainty, in seeing religious truths as far more poetic and mystical rather than linear, straightforward, direct—a place where each of us is invited and helped to find his or her own way.   

            This is a time to focus on the love and grace we have experienced and are offered ever anew—and to wonder and marvel that it could be offered so freely.  To sense in that divine mystery that we too are loved, chosen, considered friends—even in spite of the fact that we can, all of us, individually and collectively, be so recalcitrant a bunch—as we seem to follow in word and deed all the wonderful examples of our namesakes, those irascible Holy Apostles. 

            We love, when we love, when we are able to love, not because we are hit on the head or are ordered or commanded to do so—and to do it just so, or that it means “just this.”  For that can hardly be love.  No, we are able to love, even I on occasion may be enabled to love, when we know and experience in the very core of our beings that God loves us, that God loves me, that God in Christ chooses us, chooses me, calls us out, even calls me out.  Out of that divine matrix of love in which we find ourselves, if only we can open ourselves to it, we can find ourselves changed, transformed.  Where chronos can become kairos—where ordinary space and time becomes suffused with the presence of God.  Where the imperative becomes the indicative—that is to say when commands and orders from outside become rather our responding naturally to the love we find within us precisely because we know and experience ourselves being loved by God.  And grace abounds.  And at least sometimes, at least part of the time, we are able to reach beyond ourselves, sometimes in extraordinary ways. 

            Lord knows, this is not all so very neat and pat and straightforward.  No, it is rather elliptical, dialectical, poetic, mythic, mystical, evocative.   

            It is such a common observation that in our society and in our churches so many folks seen to want to be told, to want certainty, want things to be just so, in black and white—religiously, ethically, politically—in a world that is forever murky and ambiguous—so long as life shall last.  

            I believe the genius of Anglicanism is in its realization that its fundamental beliefs and principles come not through formal theological confessions and proclamations or literal readings of scripture, but rather in that wonderful phrase, often used to describe Anglicanism, “lex orandi, lex credendi”—which means simply that how we pray, how we are who we are in our liturgy, preeminently, shows and reveals  what we believe, who we are.   

            We find our guideposts, our identity, our culture, our heritage in who we become as we pray and experience and know in God’s word and sacrament, in discovering that we are loved, chosen, even “friends” of our Lord.  And we are to live out that God-given identity, if you will, in freely being who we are, in being who we are in the process of becoming in the divine matrix of faith, hope, and love.  For we are free in Christ, not enslaved. 

            Epistemology—or how we know what we know—so often determines the content of all else that may follow.  It is certainly true in looking at religion.  And to me this is what is most at stake in our Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion in the days ahead.  Ultimately, I believe the controversy about sexuality which seems so all-consuming is but a part of this larger issue that goes to the very heart of our identity as Christians and the character of the faith we have been given.   

            And I do wonder if much of our hope in “saving” the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion is that moderates as well as liberals sense that something of that core identity is at stake in our current conflict.  But if we can maintain that identity, we also maintain the possibility of an open and expanding view of sexuality as well as many other issues going forward. 

            I want to close by mentioning two different areas where this very morning we can live out the Easter faith that is our gift and our joy.

            First, if we care about our church, our community, our tradition—and want to see it preserved and strengthened as we face a deeply uncertain future, there is one thing we can do which is actually relatively painless.  And that is to support this parish for those who will come after us, first by having a will, and secondly, by remembering Holy Apostles either in it directly or in other ways that are open to us.  Your Stewardship Committee invites you to join those of us who have already remembered Holy Apostles in one these ways.   

            I hope and pray you will look carefully at the new hot-of-the-press brochures that are included in your bulletin today.  The brochure was written by John Covington and produced by Father Barry.  And I hope you will join us at the forum following the coffee hour today when John Covington will be discussing some of the many ways we can look after the long term future of Holy Apostles.  In considering whether you can stay, please do consider that we are here today in this parish we love so much because of those who came before us, and who wanted their legacy to benefit those who came after them—that’s you and me. 

            And, finally, this is also Rogation Sunday, the day the church traditionally asks God’s blessing on the spring’s planting and for all things that grow in the earth.  With the help of Tina Barth and Doug Warn, Ellen Knudsen, and the children of our church school, we remember God’s bounty and the beauty of the earth, we bless the spring flowers, and our children lead us outside as they plant them in the garden.  It is a good and joyous time, all the while remembering that it is God who gives the growth.  And it is a day in which we are asked to remember our stewardship of the earth as well as so much would threaten the good earth God has made. 

            May our risen Christ be with us and bless us in all the days ahead.   Amen.

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