Sermon, Easter 5

Fran Gardner 6 May 2007 Easter 5 Ontonagon (and Houghton)

We human beings are good at sorting ourselves into subgroups. We do a nice job of delineating who belongs with us, and who does not. Perhaps we do it by how we dress, by skin colour, or by accent. We divide the world into boxes called counties, states, and nations. We identify strongly with the place of our birth, our national origin, and our ethnic background. And to some degree, this categorizing is natural and it makes sense. This dividing up of our selves into groups we belong to is a way of finding some order in a potentially chaotic world. It gives us identity.

We do the same kind of thing regarding our lives of faith. We identify ourselves as Episcopalians or Methodists. We claim to be followers of Mohammed or the Buddha. We name people as Gentile or Jew.

Today, Jesus tells his followers, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Jesus’ message reminds us that is not how we dress, or what we wear that distinguishes us as Christians. It won’t be the cross we wear around our necks or (as the early disciples used) the sign of the fish that will mark us as Jesus’ followers. It will be the love that we show for one another.

Doing some research on this sermon, I googled a song I sang growing up in the RC church. In the end, the words weren’t quite right, so I opted not to use it. However, while on a Christian lyrics website, I saw a fascinating banner ad.

It offered me clothing that would make me Jesus Branded. This Christian clothing company made T-shirts with scripture passages and catchy graphics. It invited me to wear my faith on my sleeve. As if, somehow, wearing a T-shirt showing me to be a Jesus Ninjette (a truly frightening image, actually) or proclaiming “God is love” would mark me as follower of Jesus.

According to this website, all we have to do to demonstrate our faith as Christians is to be Jesus Branded.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise that contemporary Christians are confused about what is really important, if we are to follow Jesus. It sure didn’t take Jesus’ followers long to manifest the same confusion. It was shortly after Jesus’ death and resurrection when Peter ran into trouble.

Peter was in Joppa and in a dream was told to bring God’s word to some Gentiles. For most Jews, Gentiles were wholly other. Different. Forbidden. Speaking or eating with Gentiles would make you ritually unclean. This message to bring the Good News to the Gentiles would have been anathema to Peter.

In fact, it’s striking that in Peter’s dream, all of the unclean forbidden animals are roughly equivalent, at least in his mind, with those Gentiles. However, God’s message, and God’s subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit to those same Gentiles, convinced Peter that Jesus’ message was for all people, not some small subset that Peter happened to be a part of.

It was the same thing back in Jerusalem, where the Jewish followers of Jesus really needed some convincing. They were furious, and called Peter to account for his actions, certain that Peter had strayed terribly from the core message of Jesus, which they believed was offered only to the Jews.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Left to our own devices, we might be as confused about what this passage means as Jesus’ followers were. We are naturally good at dividing up, drawing lines, marking people as either in or out. It might be hard for us to imagine a world where what truly marks us as Jesus’ followers, the real Jesus Brand if you will, is our capacity to love.

We overuse love. I’m as likely to tell you that I love ice cream, or kayaking, or board games, or my mother. The love that Jesus is talking about here is not Hallmark card love. It’s not the passionate love of lovers. It is the love that leads to action. This love is not a feeling, it’s a choice. This love is radical and world changing.

It’s the sort of love that tells a story where the hero is a Good Samaritan, a hated non-Jew, rather than a priest or temple authority. It’s the kind of love that offers living water to a non-Jewish woman of questionable moral values at Jacob’s well. It’s the kind of love that says, from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

It’s the sort of love that caused Oscar Romero to speak out against the fighting in El Salvador, even knowing that it might (and ultimately did) cost him his life. It’s the sort of love that prompted Rosa Parks to say no to sitting in the back of the bus, despite enormous personal cost, because she could not longer tolerate living in a racially segregated society. It’s the kind of love that allows Desmond Tutu to speak of forgiveness, despite being personally harmed by South African apartheid. It’s the kind of love that allowed members of the Amish community to reach out to the family of the man who murdered their children, rather than to speak of vengeance.

These examples might sound impossible to us. We are, after all, not Romero, Parks, Tutu, or even members of an Amish community. But we are Christians.

It was fashionable several years ago, to wear a bracelet with the letters WWJD. What Would Jesus Do? It’s a question with great potential. It’s a question that has the capacity to lead us to deeper readings of scripture. There was the possibility, with the rise of WWJD, to resensitize a new generation of Christians to the depths of love and compassion that could be reached at every moment of choice we encounter. It could have provided the true Jesus Brand.

Instead, WWJD turned a deep question, worthy of years of reflection, into a sound bite, a bumper sticker, a question with no teeth, prompting snap judgments and lots of behaviour that didn’t appear to be much like what Jesus might actually have done.

In fact, we don’t have to wonder what Jesus would have done. Scripture is filled with the stories of what Jesus actually did. Our tradition is filled with the stories of holy men and women, prompted by love, who did radical things.

Each time we offer love, rather than hate; an open hand, rather than a fist; comfort and consolation, rather than scathing criticism and critique; we do what Jesus would have done. We brand ourselves with the true Jesus Brand.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”