It is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. – 2 Cor 4:6-7

Several years ago I attended an event called the Festival of Homiletics, an annual gathering at which clergy from a wide range of denominations gather to hear sermons and talks by some of the greatest preachers and teachers of our time. I heard a lot of good things, but the one that stuck with me the most was a talk by Walter Brueggeman, one of the greatest living scholars of Scripture. He happened to be speaking on today’s Epistle, this portion of Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth.

He began by inviting us to imagine the apostle Paul, leafing through the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, looking for a sermon text to support what he wants to say to the Corinthians. The Corinthians are majoring in the minors, and Paul wants to remind them about what really matters. And he finds this bit about the clay pots, which we used as our Old Testament reading this morning. As preachers do, he takes that text, this image of God as Divine Potter, and he does something new with it – thinking about the purpose of that clay pot, what it’s meant to hold. 

The church in Corinth, the church Paul is addressing, is afflicted and perplexed and persecuted and struck down. We 21st-century mainline Christians can relate! Our budgets and membership rolls are shrinking. Our faith is associated with policies we do not recognize. In the eyes of many, our convictions appear irrelevant at best, oppressive at worst. The temptation for the church, whether long ago or today, when it is afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down, is to give in to being crushed, forsaken, and destroyed. We may feel hopeful about St. Dunstan’s – but there’s plenty of cause to feel helplessness, frustration or despair about the state and future of the larger church. 

But when we do that, say Brueggeman and Paul, we are taking our clay pot too seriously, and confusing the pot with the treasure. Paul says, We have confused the container and the stuff contained. As Christians, as church folks, we often start to think our ministry, our mission, is the point. We think that WE’RE the treasure… but we’re really the pot. The container for something much more important – and much less fragile – than anything we can make or do. 

The treasure is the good news of God in Christ. It is forgiveness in a society that holds grudges forever. It is generosity that overcomes lack in a society of scarcity and selfishness. It is hospitality in a society that closes doors to the immigrant. It is justice that protects the vulnerable in an unjust society. It is the old old story of God giving Godself for love of God’s creatures. THAT is the treasure. Everything else is clay pots. Fragile. Likely to break. Never able to fully and reliably contain the treasure. 

It’s easy for people like me – pastors, but not just pastors; church folk, people who just love the church – it’s easy for us to worry about the pot. But when we think about it, we know the pot is not the treasure. At the Festival, Brueggeman stood at the podium in front of a giant hall full of pastors and preachers and said, NOBODY thought our hymnal would last forever, or our prayer book, or our favorite seminary, or our diocese, or  … And I laughed to myself, because I knew, and he knew, that the room was FULL of people who thought exactly that. 

Myself included.

But in our most honest moments, we know that no form of the church will last. Because clay pots don’t last. They wear out, they chip, they break. Sometimes they shatter. The church is not durable, not eternal, in any form or manifestation, even the ones that we value the most.

But Paul says, If we keep our focus on the treasure – that should prevent us from taking the vessels so seriously. The value and beauty of the treasure should help us avoid getting too invested in the longevity of any given clay pot. It is the treasure, the Gospel, the very light of God shining forth in the face of Jesus Christ, that lets us say, with Paul: We are afflicted in every way,  BUT NOT crushed; perplexed,  BUT NOT driven to despair; persecuted,  BUT NOT forsaken; struck down, BUT NOT destroyed. It is the “but not” that matters. When we fall into despair and cynicism, when we spend our energy and resources arguing trivialities – I say this as someone who will soon spend ten days at our church’s national convention, God help me! – When we are seized by the urgency of keeping church the way it used to be – or the hubris of creating our own maps of the church of the future! – then we have made the pot more important than its contents. We have forgotten that the Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath. 

And our over-investment in our particular clay pot is often tied up with a certain egotism. Brueggeman said, We have been seduced by the American can-do attitude to trust too much in our own skill and our own work. But transcendent power, the power to change hearts and transform the world, that power does not come from good planning or good scholarship. It certainly doesn’t come from watching the right webinars or hiring the right consultants. It comes from vulnerable self-giving. It comes from trusting in the treasure. 

This is a hard time to be Christian in public. Some awful stuff is being said and done in the name of Jesus. There’s cause to worry about how all that will affect our clay pots. I know there are people in this household of faith who find that the toxicity of public Christianity right now makes it hard for them to come to church, even though they know that’s not what we’re about here. I’m sure there are people whose faith and commitment to this body remain strong, but who are more hesitant to speak about those things to friends or acquaintances. Because we wouldn’t want people to get the wrong impression. 

But the value of the treasure is not diminished, the light of God’s glory is not dimmed, by prominent people mispreaching a Gospel of prosperity, exclusion, callousness and judgment. The Bible shows us that when people are speaking falsely about God, God sends prophets to speak truly about God – like our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who told a worldwide audience that Love is God’s way, and then marched his convictions right to the White House as part of the Reclaiming Jesus vigil last week – a vigil proclaiming that the God of Scripture, the God made known to us in Jesus Christ, calls us to reject racism and sexism, nationalism and authoritarianism, xenophobia and neglect of the poor. 

After that Royal Wedding sermon, lots of clergy I know posted on social media to say, Hey, if you liked what that guy had to say, come check out your local Episcopal church! Friends, I would love it if some folks came to our doors seeking a Gospel of love and justice, and found it preached and lived here. But Bishop Curry isn’t doing what he’s doing to make more Episcopalians. To save and strengthen our particular clay pot. He’s bearing witness to the treasure. He’s letting the light shine. 

This conflicted, scary, vulnerable moment for the historic churches, here in the early 21st century, this may be a moment when we need to focus on the treasure and let God take care of the container. Brueggeman said: People in institutional leadership, pastors, treasurers, vestries, are often exhausted and perplexed… The good news is, More is going on than us. In and with and under and behind us and our efforts is this bouyant fidelity – Brueggeman’s words, I love them – this buoyant fidelity that abides and sustains, no matter what.

So we are watching the clay pots being smashed, like Jeremiah imagines old Jerusalem being smashed, for being disobedient and complacent, too comfortable with national ideology and middle-class morality. The pots are being smashed on behalf of Jesus, so the treasure can break loose in the world. 

We like our clay pots to be just so. The handles and the shape and the color. The prophet Isaiah names this human tendency to question the potter: What are you making? Where are the handles? A pot has to have handles, you know!… (Isaiah 45:9) We like church just so, and all its trappings, buildings and books and committees and ministries. 

But what if, what if, in our days, before our eyes, the pot is being remade because it no longer pleases the potter? Because it’s not the right vessel for the treasure, in this season of the life of the world? 

Brueggeman said, This is my word to you, as a white, male, tenured, retired guy who has no risks to run:  Care more for the treasure. Because here’s the truth: There is not any single person anywhere who does not eagerly hope for the news of God’s reconciling, liberating love. Not one. That treasure breaks free and fills some new containers, some of which will surprise us, some of which will make us anxious. 

For me as a pastor, the clay pot we currently inhabit includes my salary and health care coverage, and my family’s security. For all of us as church people, that clay pot includes our beloved buildings, our denominational structures, our Books of Common Prayer. We worry about all that stuff, we care about it, for some good reasons, but those things are not the treasure. The treasure is not at risk. 

We are indeed afflicted… but we are not crushed. We are indeed perplexed… but we are not driven to despair. We are indeed struck down… but we are not destroyed. And because of the treasure, because of the Light shining forth in the face of Jesus, we do not lose heart. 

Full text of Brueggeman’s talk:

http://time.com/110732/sermon-series-getting-smashed-for-jesus/

The Reclaiming Jesus statement:

http://www.reclaimingjesus.org

In those days Peter stood up among the believers and said, “One of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us… must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles. (Acts chapter 1)

The Calling of Matthias, Movement 1: Congratulations, You Have An All-Male Panel!

Back in 2015, a Finnish scholar, Dr. Saara Sarma, started a blog called Congrats, You Have An All-Male Panel! She’d been noticing for years that panels of experts were very frequently all male – regardless of whether the field under discussion was agriculture in the Sudan, developments in the music industry, advances in chemical engineering, global banking regulation, or even women’s reproductive rights. (Source) Her blog quickly went viral as people began submitting photos of “expert” lineups that meet the All Male Panel criterion. In one recent example, a magazine asked the question, “What can the real estate industry do to better promote gender equality?”, and shared responses from… four men. 

If you go to Sarma’s blog – and you should – you’ll find that the header image at the top of the page is Leonardo da Vinci’s famous image of the Last Supper. You know the one: “We’d like a table for twenty-six.” “But there are only thirteen of you.” “That’s OK, we’re all going to sit on the same side.”  The image makes the point that Jesus’ Twelve Disciples are one of the classic All-Male Panels. 

The Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus – overwhelmed by the crowds seeking him out for healing – calls his disciples to him and appoints twelve of them “to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.” (Mk 3:14-15). Matthew and Luke follow Mark’s lead in naming the Twelve. Twelve was an important number; it called to mind the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and suggested completeness and fulfillment. So after Judas’ betrayal and death, and after Jesus’ final ascension into Heaven, the remaining Eleven decide they need to fill that slot. The verses just before today’s Acts text tell us that among the 120 people present, there were many women, including Mary the mother of Jesus. And yet, when it comes time to pick candidates for the role, somehow they turn out to be men. 

Why would you expect otherwise, Miranda? In a patriarchal society and era?Well: the thing is, Jesus called women to follow him. Jesus’ inner circle included women – Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, Salome, Joanna, Mary and Martha, and others. And women were important leaders in the early church – Lydia, Phoebe the deacon, Prisca, Junia the apostle, and more. 

Dorothy Sayers, one of my favorite writers of both mystery novels and theology, commented on this point back in the 1930s: “Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man – there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them…; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend…” 

(From Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society)

I’ve often heard the question: How can someone who believes wholeheartedly in the capability and called-ness of women, be  loyal to a holy text that is so profoundly marked by sexism? I am loyal to Scripture – more, I love Scripture – because Scripture teaches me that God is not sexist. In both the Old and New Testaments, the dignity, strength, resourcefulness, intelligence, and simple humanity of women is honored. Not everywhere! But here and there, by the grace of God and the guidance of the Spirit, the Bible shows us humans living into a fuller understanding of humanity as made in God’s image, regardless of biological sex or gender. 

The calling of Matthias is not one of those times. Simon Peter, always trying to earn that gold star, reckons that since Jesus appointed twelve men, that means there should ALWAYS be twelve men. I think it’s interesting when the church turns to prayerful discernment, in this story. Not about whether it’s important to “replace” Judas and have Twelve again – that’s Peter’s idea. Not about the candidates for the open slot – Matthias and Barsabbas are suggested by an undefined “they.” Only when it comes to choosing one of those two men does the assembly open their hearts towards God before casting lots – a lot like rolling dice, only you pray first. I wonder how the outcome could have been different if those first church leaders had sought the Spirit’s guidance earlier in this process… 

A task force called to study how the Episcopal Church calls bishops, those with oversight of the church in a certain region, recently released its report.  That report shows that the current bishops of the Episcopal Church are 90% male and 90% white. Which is much closer to an all-male panel than it really ought to be, given our church’s teachings and membership. Just like in the first chapter of Acts, somehow, when it comes time to pick candidates for a leadership role, they turn out to be men. 

The Calling of Matthias, Movement II: The Deeds of the Apostle Matthias

Acts chapter 1, verse 26, says, “And they cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.” That is the last time Matthias is mentioned in Scripture. We have no idea how or whether he lived out his apostleship – a word that just means, One who is sent.  There are texts that claim that Matthias became an important evangelist, that he spread the faith in the region of Cappadocia, that he was eventually martyred there. There are also traditions that say he was stoned to death and beheaded in Jerusalem; and that he died of old age. His grave is claimed by sites in the countries of Georgia and Germany.  Many of these texts are from a thousand years after the events they claim to describe. There are some earlier texts, dating from the third century, such as one known as the Acts of Andrew and Matthias. In that story, Matthias is sent as a missionary to a city where the people eat only human flesh. He is captured and drugged, as a first step towards making him into a meal, but the drugs have no effect on him and he prays for God’s help. Meanwhile, the apostle Andrew comes to rescue him, carried on a boat piloted by Jesus Himself. It’s all quite exciting! – but I would definitely place it in the genre of fanfiction, rather than history. 

So it’s pretty hard to know if Matthias actually went on to do great things that just didn’t make it into the texts that give us our best historical record of the early church – or if Matthias just didn’t do much. He might have been kind of a dud; or he might have been a faithful, effective, kind, ordinary saint, whose acts of charity and grace were simply too everyday to be remembered. Like most of us! 

Meanwhile, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles goes on to tell us about the adventures and struggles of others who traveled the ancient world, preached the Gospel, and built up the first churches:  Paul, Barnabas, Timothy, Philip, Lydia, and others. These are the heroes that Scripture remembers. Not Matthias. 

In selecting Matthias, Peter and the rest of the Eleven were doing a very churchy thing – a very institutional thing: We have this vacancy on our board; we’d better recruit someone. Looking at this story in light of the rest of the Book of Acts, it sure looks like this bit of sacralized bureaucracy didn’t actually matter much to what God was doing in and with the church. I’ve heard this approach summed up as “filling the slot instead of fulfilling the volunteer.” – focusing on maintaining a certain way of being, rather than letting the gifts, skills, and passions of those called into our fellowship of faith lead the way, perhaps into a new way of being. 

A lot of churches do this; I think we do it less than some, but we still do it, for sure.  I carry the list in my head: who’s the next greeter, the next Sunday school teacher, the next Vestry candidate….  Sometimes I’m able to say, Well, you know, if nobody’s clamoring for the role, let’s leave it empty and see what happens, or think about how we might restructure that ministry… Let’s just trust that God is at work in the church, and that we’ll have the people we need to do what God wants us to do. But I’m a person in institutional leadership, and I get anxious about filling slots sometimes. I feel the temptation to seek out a Matthias with an arm I can twist. Gently and lovingly, of course. 

The good news is that God’s work in the world is bigger than the church – and God’s work in the church is bigger than the church’s institutional leadership. Peter thought they needed a twelfth apostle to meet God’s expectations and be the church Jesus intended. But while the church was fretting about matters of order and hierarchy, God was changing hearts and minds and lives. Matthias may or may not have helped spread the Gospel and build the church, but Philip did. Paul did. Barnabas did. Lydia did. And Luke and Timothy and Phoebe and so many others. 

The Calling of Matthias, Movement III: What About Barsabbas? 

There were two finalists for the role of Twelfth Apostle: Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas, known also as Justus.  If Scripture says little about Matthias, it says even less about Barsabbas.  All we know is that he’s loser. Not the right man for the job. 

Mike Kinman, a wonderful preacher now serving at All Saints in Pasadena, preached about Barsabbas a few years ago. Kinman observed that the matter of winners and losers, chosen and not-chosen, is one where most of us have not fully taken the teachings of our faith to heart. Jesus says things like, “the last shall be first and the first last” and “those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” And then he dies on a cross – the very image of failure, loss, rejection, shame mockery. And we name it as triumph and glory and salvation. We know all of this. But Matthias has a feast day, and Barsabbas doesn’t. 

We’d just as soon not think about somebody like Barsabbas.  Many of us live in fear of becoming a Barsabbas – or having it discovered that we’ve been Barsabbas all along. 

Losing – being not chosen – is painful. It means we miss some opportunity, yes, but there’s more to it than that.  Kinman writes, “Not being chosen, whether it be in a job, in a relationship, in the church or wherever – not being chosen taps into our deepest insecurities and triggers painful memories. Not being chosen can fill us with embarrassment and shame. It can make us feel two inches tall and want to run away and hide. Not being chosen stabs like a knife. It makes our hearts cry out “Why not me? What’s wrong with me? Why am I not good enough.”  Or even worse, it makes our hearts crumble and whisper: “See, I knew it, I’m not good enough. I was right all along.” Not being chosen is like a giant amplifier for all the voices in our head and our heart that tell us we are less than, that we are unworthy, that we are unlovable. Losing stinks. Not being chosen hurts.”

But it happens to most of us, at one time or another. Most of us – maybe all of us – have had moments like this.  And yet in the church, where we’re called to love each other, where we should know better than to measure our worth by the standards of any human institution, we still don’t handle these situations very well. Kinman observes that he’s seen church folk deal with these moments in one of three ways: We “silver lining” it – insisting that people see a bright side in the situation, even if it takes binoculars or a microscope to find one. We offer consolation prizes – “You don’t get to do that, but maybe you’d like to do this?” Or we say and do nothing. We just don’t mention it, because we fear that bringing it up will be painful. Or we just never get around to calling the not-chosen person… because you never know; failure might be contagious. All of those responses – while very human and very understandable – are basically about managing our own discomfort, rather than actually caring for the person who’s struggling with a Barsabbas moment. 

What’s the alternative? 

Being not-chosen hurts – often disproportionately to the actual opportunity lost – because it feels like a rejection of who we are as a person. It undermines our sense of worth.  Could we instead take those Barsabbas moments – ours or someone else’s – as opportunities to remind ourselves of our true and unshakeable worth in the eyes of the God who made us? In our Gospel today we see Jesus speaking to his followers’ sense of being rejected, not taken seriously, of not fitting into the world as it is. He says, You may not belong here – but you belong to God; you belong to Me. 

Mike Kinman writes, “The deepest truth of our faith that our Barsabbas Moments invite us to lean into is that our goodness and belovedness come from God and God alone… Our Barsabbas Moments are opportunities for us not to lean on the admiration… [of other humans], but in those moments where we are feeling the deepest rejection to lean back into the loving arms of a God in whose eyes we are always good and always worthy and always deeply, deeply beloved.”

So before he drops out of the story, let’s pause to name and claim and celebrate Barsabbas, who did not become the twelfth apostle. Friends, Barsabbases all, listen, hear, remember, believe: Whatever opportunities or rejections the world or the church may hand you, you are never not chosen. Never not wanted. Never not worthy. 

Some sources: 

The origins of Congrats, You Have An All Male Panel!

The Acts of Andrew and Matthia

Kinman’s sermon in full

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

What does Jesus command us? Jesus teaches. He tells stories. He models kindness, righteous anger, self-sacrificial love. He calls people to transformation of heart and life. But does he command? 

If you can’t think of one of Jesus’ commandments at the moment, don’t feel bad. There is a fair amount of talk about commandments in the Gospels, the books of the Bible that tell about Jesus’ life and teachings, and in the Epistles, the letters of the early church.  But broadly, most of those texts are addressing a big question for the first Christians: In the new relationship with God brought about by and through Jesus Christ, do the commandments of the Old Testament still apply? Are Christians supposed to follow Jewish law? 

Jesus’ teaching about the Great Commandment was important for early Christians because it gave them a touchstone for wrestling with that question. Someone asks Jesus, What is the most important commandment, in the whole of Jewish law? The dialogue is a little different in Matthew, Mark, and Luke; Luke is my favorite because Jesus does that teacher thing: “Well, what do *you* think?” And the man says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus says, Yep. That’s it. That’s all the Law you really need. 

It took many decades, but Christians eventually resolved that this teaching – and Jesus’ other teachings that touched on law, obedience, and holiness – meant that Christians are not bound by Jewish law, the commandments of the Hebrew Bible.  

Today’s Acts lesson gives us a glimpse of the apostle Peter in a moment of epiphany: “Look, the Holy Spirit of God has come down even upon these Gentiles, non-Jews who are unholy and unclean! I guess if God will baptize them with the Spirit, we should baptize them with water!” 

So the Great Commandment is powerful stuff. Love God as hard as you can, and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself: If you carry those intentions into daily life, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to put them into practice. 

But that’s not what John’s Jesus is talking about here. The Great Commandment doesn’t appear in John’s Gospel. Yet Jesus says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” What command does Jesus have in mind, here? 

Our Gospel and Epistle today have the same name: John. Biblical scholars talk about a Johannine community – a church that gathered around a particular teacher, identified by tradition with John, one of Jesus’ disciples. That community seems to have received and developed some distinctive memories or understandings about Jesus, which gives the Gospel and the letters that that community produced their special theological perspective. I’ll keep talking about our author here as John, because that’s the easy; but let it be noted that that is a shorthand. We don’t know that the core voice here was a disciple named John; we don’t know that the letters and the gospel were written by the same person, although there is clearly influence and overlap. 

These texts that bear John’s name have a distinctive voice in lots of ways. 

John’s Gospel overlaps with the other three – Matthew, Mark, and Luke; it’s clearly telling the same story about the same person. But it tells it very differently – with events and characters that don’t appear, or appear differently, in the other Gospels; and with Jesus making some theological speeches that have no parallel elsewhere – except in the letters that extend some of their themes. 

It’s in these texts – the Gospel of John, and the Johannine letters – that Jesus tells his disciples to obey his commandments.  Jesus doesn’t talk about following him that way, elsewhere. Sure, he tells his followers what they should do, and how they should act. He just doesn’t use that Old Testament vocabulary of obedience to a commandment, in other texts. 

So to understand what John’s Jesus means when he says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you,” we need to look at the Johannine texts and see what they say about Jesus’ commands. That is not quite as straightforward as it sounds. The Johannine texts are notoriously dense; the grammar can be hard to untangle; they’re full of cryptic and mystical sayings whose meanings are far from obvious. But fortunately, if we follow the vocabulary of command and commandment through these texts, there is a pretty strong pattern. The gist is, Love each other. 

It starts in John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper, when Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. This is how people will know you are my disciples: by your love for one another.” (13:34) Later in the same speech, we have the passage that comes to us as today’s Gospel:  “This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you. No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you….  My command to you is to love one another.”  (John 15)

That core command comes up repeatedly in the first (and longest) letter of John – in the third chapter: “This is [God’s] commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” (1 John 3:23) And again in chapter 4: “ The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters^* also.”

So by the time we come to today’s passage in chapter 5, we should be pretty clear that God’s command is to love and trust in God, and, most of all, to love one another:  “We know that we love God’s children, when we love God and keep God’s commandments.” The second letter of John is only one short chapter long, but still this theme of the core commandment shows up again:  “Dear lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning: Let us love one another.” (2 John 1:5)

If I were John’s editor, I would ask him to tidy up these texts a little. Sometimes “commandment” is singular, sometimes plural; sometimes loving God or trusting Jesus is part of the commandment too, but not always. But nevertheless there’s a solid, consistent theme: Jesus commands his followers to love one another. 

There is overlap with the Great Commandment here, for sure: Love your neighbor as yourself. But it’s pretty clear that Jesus means “neighbor” quite expansively. Your neighbor isn’t just the person standing next to you, or the person who lives next door. Your neighbor is anyone whose path crosses yours. Anyone to whom you might show – or from whom you might receive – kindness and care. 

The “love one another” command is more specific. Jesus is speaking to his gathered disciples. And the letters are addressed to churches, Christian fellowships.  This commandment has to do with how we treat each other, within a faith community. If that’s not clear from words themselves, we can look at context. The first statement of this core commandment, in the thirteenth chapter of John’s Gospel, follows Jesus’ washing his disciples’ feet – an action which, for John, is the core symbolic act of Jesus’ last evening with his friends. And it’s very clear that the action is a teaching about how Jesus’ friends should treat one another: “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

Love each other. Serve each other. This is what Jesus commands. 

I’d guess some of you feel some resistance to this idea. It sounds so inward-looking, and we want our faith to be other-oriented… rightly so. Many other Scriptures direct us to care for the wellbeing of our neighbors, expansively defined. Why does John’s Jesus, Jesus as the Johannine community remembers him and gives him voice, lean so hard into love within Christian community? 

There are hints that conflict may have an issue in John’s community or other early Christian fellowships. Like this one from First John chapter 4: “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20; see also 2:7-10). 

But John isn’t just pushing a love agenda to try to get people to be nicer to each other, to quit their infighting and get on with the work of the church. There’s more to it than that. This isn’t just about organizational stability and effectiveness. This is ecclesiological and theological, for John. 

Ecclesiological means having to do with our understanding of the ekklesia, the church. Why did Jesus call Christians to do what they do in groups, not just follow his path individually? What is church for? You could be a Great Commandment Christian without a church – well, at least you could try. But John thinks church matters. John thinks our obedience to Christ begins with our capacity to extend faithful and generous love to one another. John sees Christian community as a practice field for mercy, kindness, repentance and righteousness. 

And that rings true to me. I have seen it at work here – though we could go much further. The more we love each other, the more we tell each other our truths. And the more we tell each other our truths, the more we discover how much scope there is to grow in wisdom and compassion, right here, right among the people in this room. 

I promise I won’t bring everything back to the capital campaign for the next six weeks, but there’s a very real sense in which that whole process has been an exercise in love and listening. I came to the conversation with my own list of stuff that bugged me about the building, like many others. Mostly the lack of storage space and the floor in this room!… 

And then, through focus groups and surveys and casual conversations, I learned about more and more things that had never been a problem for me, but are problems for people I love – the loft stairs that fascinate crawling infants and terrify parents; the heavy front doors; the oppressively small bathroom stalls; the introvert-torturing coffee hour setup; the terrible acoustics in the meeting room; and so on. We named the campaign the Open Door Project because it really became focused on making it possible for all kinds of people to come and be present here in safety and comfort and joy. 

Could talking and listening here, within this community, and coming to understand the importance of push-button doors – or gender-neutral bathrooms – or chairs with arms – or toddler-safe spaces – could carry over into our daily lives in the world? Could make us more mindful of, and compassionate towards, the comfort and safety of others whose needs may differ from our own? I think it could. I think it does.

And that’s just thinking about physical needs; the effect is so much bigger when we also talk and listen about hearts and minds and souls. Doubling down on loving one another isn’t insular or inward. It can be mind-opening and heart-changing. 

This is kind of a crazy year for me and for St. Dunstan’s. If you get our church emails, you got one on Friday reminding you that I’m taking a sabbatical later this year, starting in August. That hasn’t been a secret or anything – we announced it to the parish when we first got the grant. But we haven’t talked about it much for a while because we were focusing on the capital campaign. It’s only three months now till my sabbatical begins, so it was clearly time to remind everyone that this is happening, but the Vestry and I worried about it a little bit – not, Will St. Dunstan’s be OK?, because St. Dunstan’s will be OK, but, Will this make anybody’s anxiety shoot through the roof? Having a parish capital campaign AND a rector’s sabbatical in the same six-month period? I mean, we’re Episcopalians. Consistency is kind of our deal. 

I hope nobody’s anxiety is shooting through the roof. I see the Holy Spirit’s hand in how things are falling into place, with both of these big projects, and so I’m able to feel hopeful and curious instead of anxious. Mostly. But I’m not going to lie: it’s a lot to manage. Right now I’m trying to do all the normal church stuff I do,

Plus organize things for an extended absence, plus plan travel and study for my time away, plus help organize the parish’s renewal project, plus help run our capital campaign. 

In the moments when it starts to spin out of control – when anxiety starts to overwhelm hope – tou know what keeps me grounded? What makes it all seem possible, and worthwhile?

Loving you. That’s what anchors me, and what drives me. Loving you. 

I said earlier that this whole “love each other thing” is both ecclesiological and theological.  Meaning it has to do with both the nature of the Church, and the nature of God. John or John’s Jesus says many times that when his followers are one with each other, they – we – also approach oneness with God through Jesus Christ. The best-known example is probably from the 17th chapter of John, when Jesus prays that all his followers may be one, just as Jesus and God the Father are one. But there are lots of passages that point towards this vision of a mystical fulfillment that is achieved when our love for each other within Christian community draws us into union with the Divine. And that this is somehow the goal of the whole endeavor. 

I have no idea what that means. I can repeat John’s words – they are beautiful – but John is talking about levels of reality that are beyond our human perception and comprehension, here. 

But maybe we glimpse it, now and then. In those moments when our care for each other makes our differences into strengths instead of weaknesses.  In those moments when someone walking a new road finds a companion here who’s been that way before. In those moments when simple acts of kindness lift someone’s spirit or lighten their load. In those moments when the Spirit gives us words of peace, comfort, or encouragement, for one another. In those moments when we love each other, and God fills the space between us.