|
Back to Sermon Archives
May 6, 2007
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture:
Acts 11:1-10, Psalm 148, John 13:31-35
“Happening Homies:
Love Revealed in Sheets and Other Such Fabric”
We are invited to see this month, growing out of
Mothers Day, as Month of the Christian Home – in a very real sense “whatever
that means.” Tongan-language members of our congregation I think celebrate the
first three Sundays this month as Children’s Sunday, Mothers’ Sunday, and
Fathers’ Sunday. We celebrate this place called church we love as “home away
from home,” and these people called congregation who enrich our lives as
families, or homies, away from family.
Yet we know there is no more typically
“Christian” family than there is “biblical” family. We are one-parent,
two-parent, three-parent, and more. We are nuclear, extended, biological,
adoptive, foster, and what one of our church members in Chicago called “family
by affection.” As with “The Simpsons” on our all-church retreat, so with the
families throughout the stories in Genesis, for example – the more dysfunctional
we are on earth – another “home away from home” – the more revealing we seem to
be of “heaven” – often in spite of ourselves! Jesus defines his own family --
by working relations with disciples who never “get it!”
According to Peter’s dream image this morning --
received because he wonders what he is free to eat, and whom he is free to eat
it with – we are all family wrapped in one sheet, or whatever our fabric of
choice. We are paying so much attention today to our “church family’s” campaign
to raise funds to repair and improve the “family home” for us all – now and in
the future – with today’s “family meal” of communion as well. It might have
been prudent to wait another Sunday to hear about the summer arts project of
young people creating banners and flags out of fabric to adorn our church home
on the inside and out. The project is called “Colors of Hope” and the
sponsoring group is Youth ArtWorks –
www.youthartworks.org. Please choose how to be involved with the project!
Then I saw the scripture included this
“something like a large sheet coming down from heaven,” filled with all the
animals, beasts, reptiles, and birds! And Peter hears God saying “What God has
made clean, you must not call profane!” What a great message about the whole
creation, and about the whole human family! And what an image for our summer
project, that we are all wrapped in one fabric!
Just imagine all persons and peoples of our
community, state, nation, and world as wrapped in a single sheet, or other such
fabric – of love! Of communion! Of love out-pouring the cup, and of love
in-breaking the bread! Of God’s infinite creativity and joy in creating us each
and all! We are still finding more creatures under the sheet to this very day!
Here’s a newspaper article from back in
December. It reports discovery of “the smallest form of life known to
science,” microbes so tiny that four million of them “could fit into the period
at the end of this sentence!” They were found living in “drainage water as
caustic as battery acid from a mine in Northern California!” We are still
finding new forms of life after all these years – some would say especially in
California! Imagine how much we have yet to discover about one another’s
cultures, faiths, traditions, languages all over the world today. Imagine how
much more we have to discover about our own spiritual, sexual, mental, emotional
conditions. Imagine all the diversity, imagine all the complexity – all it
means for us to affirm forever, God is not done with us yet!
So we will be hearing testimony each Sunday this
month – as from Sheila this morning on “the power of one” to make whatever
difference we can! -- to this place and this people we love so much. We will
reflect further on all that it means to be “Christ-centered” homes and families,
church and congregation. I want to emphasize that by “home and family” we
always mean “household” – whatever number of whatever persons in whatever
configuration making a life of love for each and all. We always start with
Jesus’ vision that to be “Christ-centered” is to be “love-centered” – “I give
you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you
also should love one another.”
Love is not an option, not a choice, not one
characteristic of Christ among others. Love is all pervasive – all-present in
God the Creator, all-passionate in Christ the Redeemer, all-powerful in Holy
Spirit the Sanctifier and the Sustainer. A look at the “Holy Family Window”
before us (and on our cover) – beneath the “Hosanna Arch” of children connecting
us with new life of generations past, present, and future – reveals these very
words of Jesus raised up as Christ, our Liberation and our Life – “A New
Commandment I Give” – “That Ye Love One Another!”
In effect, as with his three times asking Peter
“Do you love me?”, Jesus repeats this commandment three times. First he says
what it is – “a new commandment, that you love one another.” Then he says how
to do it – “as I have loved you.” Then he says what it will mean: By our love
for one another – nothing else about us – not even our beautiful building, our
wonderful music, our worship, our prayer, our tithing, God help us, our
preaching – only by love for one another will we be known as disciples of
Jesus! People around them marveled at the early church – See how they love one
another!” For the love of place and people! If all these other things about us
do not serve the purpose of love, then they are, Paul puts it, but clanging
cymbals (and symbols!) that signify nothing.
This is both a new commandment, says Jesus, and
a great one! The first command is to love God with all we are, say, do and
have. The second is to love neighbors – all neighbors everywhere – beginning
wherever we are – in all the ways and with all the means we would love
ourselves. For we and our neighbors are wrapped in one sheet of God’s joy in
and love for us all.
As we celebrate visual arts in our midst, we
remember what this commandment looks like – literally, visually, actively,
indelibly. For Jesus gives it to us in the context of what we call Maundy
Thursday, that is, “Command Thursday. Jesus is the “Command Central” of our
lives. He shows us how to prepare and partake of the Passover Feast – the Feast
of all Liberation and Life – with the serving of bread and cup to one another –
and with the washing of one another’s feet – and with the going forth in
awareness and prayer to offer our very lives in nonviolent resistance to those
forces denying the love of place and people in this world.
Make love a part of all that we are, all that we
say, all that we do, all that we have. Make love what Gustavo Gutierrez calls,
“a permanent creation, a daily innovation, the ongoing search of ways to get out
of ourselves and make the other the center of our lives.” For Jesus is betting
his very life that any one act of loving, of giving, of sharing (as Sheila so
beautifully said) will lead to others! That we can grow the love around us,
within us, between us, among us, for us and through us for all others! That we
are not competing with one another for limited resources, but by love we are
becoming resources ourselves!
As John Dodson reminds us, every one of us can
be “resourceful” --whatever our resources are! Some of the poorest people I
know are among the most resourceful – if only of necessity! Every one of us can
and will find our own way to “love this place” and to enrich one another’s lives
-- as we are enriched by the whole of the life we make together here as home and
family. In the name of the One, Connector, Relater to Us All – Amen!
top of page
Archives
|
