Seek and strive after peace

 “…seek peace, and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:14)

John 14:23-29  (Year C: The Sixth Sunday of Easter, 26^th May, 2019)

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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS

COI	RC
Acts 16:9-15	Acts 15:22-29
Psalm 67	Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 22:1-5	Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23
John 14:23-29	John 14:23-29

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SERMON NOTES (766 words)

Fear is a natural emotion. To be afraid is our own way of responding to dangers from somewhere or someone. We read in the first Book of Samuel that King David was very afraid of the Lord and King of Gath – a man called Achish (1 Samuel 21:10-15 and 1 Samuel 22:1-3). David played a trick on the king and pretended to be mad. The King told him to get out of his way and David escaped to a cave where his family and others joined him. This experience inspired David to compose or sing what we know as Psalm 34, a beautiful hymn of praise and thanksgiving. David found peace and restoration just as sung in Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd)

To allow fear to take over and disrupt our lives is not good. We may jump forward about a thousand years from David’s time to when Jesus lived, died and rose again.  When the apostles saw Jesus in his risen body – not as some ghost but as the same person with a glorious body –  they were scared. And so would we be!

We live in a world where doubt and scepticism reign and to the extent that people ever think of God or things to do with God it a private matter for a minority of the dedicated. So it seems. But, we know Christ not because we had the privilege of seeing and meeting him as the apostles did. We know Christ through FAITH – which is a living relationship of trust. I believe or Credo in Latin is about trusting (from which the word credit comes). It is about trusting in a great love and gentle power that is ever around us and within us. How do we know that our faith makes sense and is ‘real’?

We know God through the peace that he gives us. The peace that He gives us is not to be confused with the false peace of this world. Many are the illusions and false gods we pursue whether in ego, power, addictive substances, money, pleasure or social and economic status.  None of these can give lasting peace to our souls. A heart at peace can save the universe! That seems like an over-statement. But think of the reality of the Holy Spirit dwelling in one of us right now breathing her peace through our veins and breath. The Ruach or Holy Breath is indeed among us when we gather in the name of the Risen Jesus.

Not only does Christ offer us his Peace that nothing in this world can give but He is our peace.

For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Ephesians 2:14)

I will hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace, peace for his people and his friends and those who turn to him in their hearts (Psalm 85:8).

There are many things that we tend to worry about more or less and now and again – relationships, finances, health, perceived threats, the past, the future, the present, death, life, what lies beyond etc. It would be unrealistic to think that we can free ourselves of worry. Everyone has their gethsemane moments and, somehow, emerge intact at the other end of such moment or moments.

There is a famous and familiar piece prayer from St Teresa of Avila which many millions across the world find helpful as they plod along or wait for sleep at night or jump out into a new day:

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

Some questions

Do I really listen to God’s Word in my mind and heart?

Do I allow this Word to shape my thinking and my behaving?

Would others say that I bring more peace than the opposite of peace in my day-to-day living?

What difficult personal price am I prepared to reach a lasting peace that is just, assertive of my rights and those of others and liberating for those who do not know peace in their lives at this time?

A religion that makes sense is one that enables us to find peace at the end of life. It also means finding peace today within ourselves and, if it be at all possible, with others. And if none of this seems possible we can still hang in there in hope and love and trust. After all we believe that Grace carries us in its arms.

When we love we find peace and under this peace we taste heaven even now.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:7)

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SOME IDEAS FOR INTERCESSIONS

Praise to our God in Jesus Christ truly risen. We are a people called in his name. Together with all peoples throughout the world we pray for:

• Peace in our troubled work …..
• Peace in Europe
• Peace in Ireland
• Peace in those places from where we have originated….
• The communities in which we live and work…may we extend a genuine and warm welcome to those who seek truth and love….
• The Christian churches … that we may hold to the true faith of Christ and the gifts of the Holy Spirit entrusted to us…
• One another….
• Other named persons ….
• Remembering with thanks those who have gone before us….

… praying in silence….

Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

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A PRAYERFUL WALK THROUGH JOHN 14:23-29

Fear is the overwhelming emotion as the disciples are bolted in on the evening of the Day of Resurrection. The full significance of what had happened had not fully dawned on the apostles. Were they in denial or were they waiting for a further sign? Either way, they were scared for understandable reasons.

In the course of a long discourse (sermon if you like) Jesus tenderly reassures his disciples and strengthens them for what lies ahead. Peace is his gift and his message.

v.23   The Trinity of love living in us

Jesus answered him, ‘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. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

Love is what God is. Love is what binds us to God. And God-who-is-love makes his home in us. The Word that has been planted in us through baptism, the gift of faith and the continuous outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our lives is more powerful than any force that stands against us in this world or ours.

This is how God reveals himself – as direct, personal and compassionate love. To find a home in us love must generate love. We love because we are loved. Realising this is the work of a lifetime because a lot of things stand in the way of realising this including ideas, assumptions and various notions planted early on in our awareness and sub-awareness. Bad theology and distorted ideas of God also play their part in blocking a realisation of God’s love within us and among us. Peace is the fruit of love and being loved. We need some measure of peace – as God gives it and not as we presume it – to become aware of the divine spark of love in us.  This takes time and patience and involves a daily practice of compassion towards ourselves and towards others. We do not ‘earn’ some favour from God but our actions stem from grace and build on grace. We are nothing without this grace.

v.25-26   Holy Spirit as teacher and advocate

‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 

The Holy Spirit is there to guide us. All we need do is call him that Spirit living in the Word and in the World about us.

v.27-29   Be not afraid

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

These words are as relevant to us today as they were 2,000 years ago. If only we abandoned ourselves to the Holy Spirit in mutual love we would experience a blessed peace that we might never have known!

Love is all you need (seriously)

“…you shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18)

John 20:19-31  (Year C: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, 19^th May, 2019)

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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS

COI	RC
Leviticus 19:1-18	Acts 14:21-27
Psalm 148	Psalm 144
Revelation 21:1-6	Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35	John 13:31-35

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SERMON NOTES (982 words)

Love is a popular term. It inspires an enormous amount of poetry, literature, music, art and even religion! But what does it mean? ‘Love makes the world go around’ as the old song goes and indeed it does. It conveys in the popular mind notions of warmth, feeling, desire, goodness, loyalty and maybe even sacrifice for another.  Certainly, what we call feeling comes into it. But, we only know love in action. That is what defines love: behaviour springing from a feeling heart that wants what is true, right and just for another. In this blog, I am going to situate love in its biblical sense and apply it to how we might live our lives in the concrete reality that faces us today and tomorrow.

Incriminating evidence.

Were you or I to be tried before a court on a charge of being Christian would the prosecution have sufficient evidence to win the case?  In short passage from the gospel of John that we have just heard Jesus imparts his final and lengthy talk to his disciples over a stretch of no less than five chapters. We are struck by one consistent message from the very outset: love. It is the very essence of God and how this world is brought from and back to God in Jesus.  Three key points stand out in this particular passage:

1. The time left to us is short
2. We are given a ‘new commandment’
3. By this the world will know God (and be saved).

Without love ‘faith’ is useless. It is no faith at all because faith is much more than an intellectual affirmation in one’s head of some doctrine.  Rather, ‘faith’ is a covenantal relationship with God and through God with others and through others with God.

The time left to us is short

‘I am with you only a little longer’ (verse 33) 

clearly warns the disciples that the time is indeed short – within hours according to the narrative of john. For us the time is short as well because we do not know the hour or the day when we make the transition to the next phase of life. Wasting time over what is not constructive and re-creative and preventing others from being fully alive needs to be weeded out. For sure we only have the ‘Now’. In this ‘Now’ as I write this and you read this (whoever you may be) we are and live and have our being in the one who goes beyond, and yet not far from, our human imaginings and instantaneous cravings and needs.

A new commandment

‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another’ (verse 34)

But what is new about that commandment? After all, the commandment to love and love our neighbour is found in many places across the entire Bible and the lived experience of the Hebrew people (for example in Leviticus 19:18). We could easily miss the point of what is new here. No, it does not mean that all the other religious ‘rules’ are redundant (some were and are because it all depends on how they serve the Law of Love). Neither does it mean that the commandment is new because Jesus or John or his community of disciples said so to annoy the Jewish authorities at the time. Rather, it is new because it is RECIPROCAL. John’s gospel if full of notions of growth, communion and mutuality.  That A loves B is one thing. That A loves B and B loves A is something else. The totality of individual loving acts and dispositions is greater than the sum of each individual part. In plain language, loving one another gives rise to a communion of persons where Christ dwells and a whole new reality is possible because of this. Love is THE sacrament of church (a gathering together) and without it there is no real church.

The litmus test

And so the litmus test to prosecute Christians is more than just a test of their love individual by individual (and this, in turn, is what matters infinitely more than squabbles over words, furniture and rituals though everything has a place and a season).  The killer punch that the prosecution can use to knock out any defence is that the reality of a community of love is so strong that we are faced with the real thing. No mistaking that! ‘ Writing a century after the gospel of John was written the North African theologian Tertullian (some of the best Christian theology, at that time, was coming out of Africa and Asia) wrote in The Apology (39:7):

See, they say, how they love one another, for themselves [pagans] are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death.

But there is something even more than that. It concerns our love for our enemies. Yes, our enemies. Recently, in an article written by Dr Iva Beranek I was very struck by the following words:

Our churches, our Facebook feeds, are filled with people we love and agree with, as well as those we disagree with. If you have struggled with loving people that you fundamentally disagree with on some core issue, you are not alone.  I have too. Yet, it is very clear that God calls us to love each other. Jesus said, “Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12).  To love also those we disagree with is to have God’s attitude. It is an essential ingredient needed to transform the world into a better place. And it is possibly also one of the least exercised muscles in our Christian faith.

And so, in today’s society, we need to incarnate social love so that it is embedded in the very norms, institutions and culture of states, organisations and families. It starts in the here and NOW.

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SOME IDEAS FOR INTERCESSIONS

God’s glory is in human beings fully alive.  Together let us praise the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as we pray for:

• A civilisation of love that overcomes every racial and political barrier…..
• The people of Yemen at this time …
• The church communities in which we worship and contribute our time…may we continue to extend a genuine and warm welcome to those who seek friendship, truth and love….
• Young people preparing for State examinations – God guide them in their efforts and choices…
• Young people who have left school and seek work or further education and training…
• One another….
• For those in our lives whom we find particularly difficult to love ….
• Remembering with thanks those who have gone before us….
• … praying in silence….

Holy Trinity, in You the continuous dance of creation, salvation and renewal plays out in all of creation and human living. May we reflect your love in the way we live and in the way we treat one another. Amen.

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A PRAYERFUL WALK THROUGH JOHN 13:31-35

In this short extract which comes after the last supper and before the passion of Jesus we get a further glimpse into the teaching of Jesus.

v.31   Light shines in the dark

When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 

The key to the coming words is that it is dark. The ‘he’ referred to in verse 31 is Judas the betrayer of Jesus. In verse 30 we read

So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. (John 13:30)

Like the early disciples when John wrote his gospel we are living in a time of darkness. We search for light. That light can only be found in Jesus Christ. However, it is in loving one another as he has loved us – to death – that his presence is visible to a world lost in darkness. Our role is to light little fires – even little candles by acts of generosity and forgiveness. This is not easy.

But, what is this reference to glory in verse 31? How could God be glorified in a crucified man? The answer is that God has become that crucified man; God is that crucified man. The Glory of God has broken into our dark and evil world by means of the cross. This is both the scandal and the ‘unreasonableness’ of the Christian message (1 Corinthians 1:23).

v.32   God’s glory revealed once again

If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 

God is no longer some remote deity and above and beyond the laws of physics and the affairs of humanity. God’s glory is shining in the world today in the acts of bravery, faithfulness and trust all round us. If only we could open our eyes!  When we pray ‘Glory to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit’ we acknowledge the glory of God in our mixed up world shining through brokenness, poverty, disempowerment and injustice. No wonder it is seen by some as a scandal and a logical impossibility (refer to new atheism).

Here is the paradox: it was the moment of tragic betrayal by one of Jesus’ own band that sets the scene for God’s glory to shine through. All seemed lost now but Jesus tells his disciples that they have not seen anything yet! We cannot grow unless we lose.  Life means change and change brings with it suffering, disruption, disappointment and new beginnings. The disciples had to lose Jesus – this beautiful and amazing man who had led them and nourished them for three years. Mary, also, had to lose Jesus after 33 years or so. Gutting is the word that comes to mind.

v.33   Suffering loss for a time

Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” 

In verse 33 the tone changes. Now, Jesus addresses them as ‘little children’ (teknía in the Greek version though, of course, Jesus would have spoken to his disciples in Aramaic).  Jesus is directly speaking to them and doing so in the most loving and tender of ways rather like one about to die might address one’s closest.

v.34   A new commandment

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 

If love of God and neighbour is already established under the Law and the Hebrew scriptures how is this a ‘new’ commandment? It is new for two reasons: first, Jesus urges us to love one another and second, to love as he has loved. The latter, surely, is impossible! How could we love as Jesus love even to the point of giving up our lives for others or for another? The point is that nothing is impossible with God and nothing worthwhile is possible without God. The ‘newness’ of the commandment lies both in its depth (giving one’s life in love) as well as in its mutuality. It is not just a question of you loving someone and so one. It is a question of a couple, a family, a cell, a community, a church being animated by reciprocal love. This creates a new reality bigger than the sum of its parts. Indeed, in a very special way Jesus is present where two or three are gathered in his name (Matthew 18:20). Not only that but Jesus is powerfully present and visible to those with eyes of faith when ‘two or three area gathered’ in mutual love with that same love with which Jesus loved us. This is radical and this is sacramental. Without it, church is not fully church and all our rituals, buildings, canons, articles, creeds are built on sand. Without love, we are like an empty gong (1 Corinthians 13:1).

v. 35   The global implications of personal love

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

A city is lit up by millions of individual but inter-connected lights all feeding off a massive electricity grid. It is the combination of such lights that make cities and towns visible from such heights when flying over a country or region. When the lights are out the lights are very much out: it is like a Cathedral in darkness with no visible stain glass images at night time. Nothing is shining out from within. Billions do not know Christ and his love. They may know love and live by love but knowing Christ and living by his love is an altogether different reality. And it has global implications because global change cannot and will not happen unless many small fires of love are joined together in a chain across the world. Let’s start where we are. Let’s love everyone right now no matter who they are or what they have done.