6 Easter, Yr B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
6 Easter, Yr B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Acts 10:44-48 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
John 15:9-17
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
who was, and is, and is to come. Amen.
Jesus said to his disciples,
“As the Father has loved me,
so I have loved you;
abide in my love….
“This is my commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 15:9, 12)
Jesus makes it sound so simple…
this love thing,
but any of us who have lived for very long know that it’s not so simple!
Not to truly love.
Sometimes the path to love is easy:
we hold a newborn baby,
who, despite their crying even in the middle of the night,
is so vulnerable that we are called to a tender, loving care.
Or we know someone who is gentle and kind and filled with generosity…
these folks are easy to love.
Other times love requires humility, courage, repentance, and change.
Sometimes love means forgiving a friend or family member or even a stranger who has harmed us.
Sometimes love means that we have to humbly ask forgiveness for harm we have done,
and that takes courage…to own our own mistakes.
Sometimes love requires moving out of our comfort zone for the sake of the other…
maybe approaching someone we don’t know very well or even at all.
I remember one day I was shopping at a grocery store,
and as I turned the corner to walk down the aisle,
there was an employee in the aisle with tears streaming down her face.
She was clutching her phone and pacing up and down a 10-ft section of the aisle,
almost wailing, “Please don’t ring. Please don’t ring.”
I have no idea what terror gripped her:
whether a family member had been in an accident
and she was waiting to hear an update
or her child was in trouble…
maybe one of her parents was in the hospital.
As I was trying to figure out whether to say anything to her
and if I did, what to say to her,
a fellow employee came from the other end of the aisle and spoke with her.
I was relieved she was connecting with someone else in her pain
and yet I kept her in the corner of my eye as I shopped…
just in case that phone call came,
and she fell apart and was there alone.
Before too long she went into the back of the store with someone else,
and I didn’t see her again.
For me, an extreme introvert,
stepping out to check on someone I don’t know is difficult.
And…we live in a culture that breeds independence:
often we live under the illusion that we can take care of ourselves
or that others can take care of themselves.
Except, we were not created for independence.
Quite the opposite, it seems we were created for interdependence, for community.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) said:
The physical structure of the universe is love.
That seems a pretty radical statement:
The physical structure of the universe is love.
Richard Rohr reflects on the implications of such a thing:
“If a loving Creator started this whole thing—the Big Bang,
the evolution of diverse and beautiful life forms—
then there has to be a “DNA connection,” as it were,
between the One who creates and what is created.
“The basic template of reality is Trinitarian… it’s relational.
“God is relationship.”
[In Genesis 1:26 we hear] “Let us create in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves.” The Hebrew writer used plural pronouns.
“The energy in the universe is not in the planets or in the protons or neutrons,
but in the relationship between them.
“Not in the particles
but in the space between them.
“Not in the cells of organisms
but in the way the cells feed and give feedback to one another.
“Not in any precise definition of the three persons of the Trinity
as much as in the relationship between the Three!
“This is where all the power for infinite renewal is at work:
The loving relationship between them.
The infinite love flowing between them.
The dance itself. (Rohr’s daily meditations)
Jesus says, “as the Father has loved me,
so I have loved you;
abide in my love.
The Trinity abides in love in the midst of the relationship among Father, Son, and Spirit.
The Trinity abides in love in relationship with the whole of creation.
We abide in love in the midst of our relationships with one another.
We all engage in the divine dance!
So, you see, love cannot exist in a vacuum…
Love exists in relationship!
St. Teresa of Avila said:
“There are only two duties God requires of us:
the love of God
and the love of neighbor.
“The more we grow in the love of our neighbor,
the more we grow in the love of God.”
So, how do we love our neighbor?
Barbara Brown Taylor, offers a suggestion, in her book,
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith.
She says that “the wisdom of the Desert Fathers includes the wisdom that the hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self – to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it. (italics added)
“All you have to do is recognize another you ‘out there’ – your other self in the world – for whom you may care as instinctively as you care for yourself.
“To become that person,
even for a moment,
is to understand what it means to die to your self.
“This can be as frightening as it is liberating.
“It may be the only real spiritual discipline there is.” (p. 93)
This, of course, is difficult…
it requires us to get outside ourselves…
to love as Jesus loved.
And yet, if we indeed abide in Jesus’ love,
God’s love,
then it is possible!
Taylor says such love in encountering one’s neighbor requires paying attention…
really paying attention.
She suggests paying attention to people we may not normally notice…
like the clerk at the store.
When I am shopping,
I often see the folks who work there,
but this woman I saw was so distraught that I couldn’t help but really notice her.
What would it be like if, when we go into the store, or the bank, or the post office…
or even when we’re out walking the dog or see a neighbor,
we really take notice of the person standing in front of us…?
What would it be like to look into their eyes and greet them?
To get out of ourselves for just a moment to notice how they are doing…
to offer a smile and say hello.
To truly encounter a stranger – or a friend…
to connect with another of God’s creatures
brings new life to both.
To be seen and acknowledged is to be loved.
To “love beyond” ourselves…
I think that is what Jesus does
and what Jesus commands us to do.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down their life for one’s friends…
or for strangers.
Loving others means means setting aside our agenda
or even our needs for the moment.
Loving means stepping outside ourselves…
laying down our own lives for a bit to tend to the life of another.
And Jesus says that when we love in this way we will experience joy…
the joy of God.
Jesus loved with a non-exclusive love,
and he commands us to do the same:
Love one another as I have loved you.
It is the eternal dance of creation…
the eternal dance of the Trinity…
It is into this eternal dance that we are invited.
May God grant us the courage to say “yes.”
Amen.
