A
New Commandment (4/24/16)
Peter's Vision, Stained glass from the Church of St. Peter, Nottingham, UK
I drew my title for this Sunday's message from the Gospel of John, but if I'd waited until Thursday night to write my title, I probably would have borrowed the title of a song by Prince, though I'm not sure which song I'd have used. And if I felt a little more confident about the fair use of images, I probably would have used a picture of Prince for this blog post, as it would probably get me more page views. But alas, I'm too afraid of running afoul of copyright and fair-use rules.
A New Commandment (4/24/16)
Sermon
Good morning!
This is one of those weeks where I wrote my sermon title early in the week—long
before I actually wrote the sermon—and the events of the week changed my
thinking just a little bit. If I could have picked a title on Thursday night, I
probably would have used the title from a song by Prince, though I’m not sure
which song. For those of you who might not be sure who I’m talking about, the
recording artist, Prince Rogers Nelson, known to most of the world simply as,
Prince, died on Thursday at the age of 57.
Some
of you may not be familiar with his music, but if you were a kid or a young-ish
grownup during the mid-1980s, Prince was inescapable. His music was all over
the radio and his music videos were on heavy rotation on MTV. Prince’s first
big hits, “Little Red Corvette” and “1999,” were released in 1982. In 1984 he
released his best known album, Purple Rain.
That year Prince also starred in a semi-autobiographical movie of the same
title. Purple Rain sold millions of
copies and it also won an Academy Award for the best film score. As I said,
Prince was everywhere.
Prince
was a phenomenally talented musician. He sang. He was a great guitarist. He
played the keyboards and several other instruments. He arranged and produced
all of the songs that he recorded and he played all of the instruments on his
early recordings. Many young recording artists are carefully stage managed by
their record labels. Industry executives make decisions about what an artist
will record and how that artist is marketed. And make no mistake, these
recording industry folks know what they’re doing—they can take an artist with
minimal talent and make that person a star. But Prince had the talent and he
insisted on control over his music and his image.
Prince
also had incredible timing; he became popular in the age of MTV. He was able to
reach more fans in more places than previous generations of musicians. So if
you grew up in the 80s, with dozens of mass-marketed pop stars, who sported
spandex pants and bleached-out 80s hair, recording artists whose success had
more to do with looks than talent, then you understand that Prince was a singular
talent.
However,
if you didn’t grow up in the 80s, you might be wondering why so many people are
so broken up about the death of this or any other pop music star. First and
foremost, Prince’s death is a reminder of my childhood and just how far in the
past that time was. But it goes deeper than that. Music is one of the first
choices we get make on our own. No, I didn’t know Prince, but his music was popular at a time when I was forming
my tastes—my own identity. His music
represents a link to my past; a link that was broken when he died.
Since
I started here at Houston, I’ve been preaching about our identity in Christ.
Sometimes we forget that our true identity is in Christ, but we don’t exist in
a cultural vacuum. We are all products of the times and the places of our
youth. Pop music marks the generations that we belong to, the timelines of our
lives. I know I heard the choir singing a lot of pop songs from the 1960s
yesterday; pop music is important. We cannot divorce ourselves from this
culture and we kid ourselves when we say it doesn’t have that big an impact on
our lives. And yet, because we are Christians, we are called to be so much
more.
In
this morning’s reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus is giving the disciples
some of the last instructions he’s ever going to give. He gives them a new
commandment, to love one another as He has loved them. God’s love for humanity
is the most fundamental and enduring message in the Bible. This commandment
echoes Leviticus 19:18, “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” We know
this!
This
is not a Bible story that’s difficult to explain; it’s a story that’s difficult
for us to live up to. For many weeks I have been urging you all to be the
church, and to be the church in different ways. I have urged you to get outside
of these walls to be the church. And that’s not easy. Sometimes it’s difficult
to love people you don’t know—people who are much older or much younger, people
who look and act differently, or people who just seem a little bit weird. It’s
a lot easier to love the people we already know and care for. But even here
inside the church, we fail to love one another as Jesus commanded us.
Let’s
face it, sometimes church members fight with one another. Sometimes a person or
a family will grind an axe for generations. If Sarah Jones gets to serve on the
Session, then Joe Smith has to get a seat on the Session, too, because the two
families have held a grudge since 1958. Why? Nobody even remembers, but in
1974, someone on the Nominating Committee forgot to put a member of the Jones
family on Session and things got ugly.
That’s
not the only way we fail to love one another within a congregation. Too often,
we suffer in private. We don’t share news about an illness or a divorce, or our
fears and anxieties. Maybe we don’t want to burden other people with our
problems or perhaps we’re uncomfortable asking for help. The problem is, when
we keep those things to ourselves, we deny other people the opportunity to show
love to us. That love originates with God the Father. When we deny other people
the opportunity to share their love, we are denying God’s love for us. At the
same time, we are also withholding the opportunity for that person to
participate in God’s reconciling love for all of humanity. We have to open
ourselves up to that love. This is also what I’m talking about when I say we
have to be the church in different ways; we have to grow in our relationships
with one another and we have to remove the barriers to growth.
“The
way Jesus talks about loving each other is a precursor of the spread of
Christianity;” Jesus shared His divine and perfect love with the disciples, and
then after the crucifixion and resurrection, the disciples became apostles—they
loved others as Christ had loved them.[1]
The first Christians took this new commandment to heart and they taught it to
their disciples. Christianity grew and spread. God’s love was freely offered
and accepted.
Our
story from Acts tells us a little bit more about how the first apostles spread
that message of love. Remember, at that time, Christianity was not entirely
distinct from Judaism; it was more of a movement within Judaism. In fact, there
was a great deal of debate as to whether or not Gentiles could become followers.
And if they did follow Christ, would they have to get circumcised? Could they
eat only kosher foods? These were the burning questions in the first generation
or two after the resurrection.
In
this morning’s reading from Acts, Peter is asked to explain himself to Jewish
leaders in Jerusalem, the “circumcised believers,” because he has visited the
homes of Gentiles and eaten food in their homes. Peter explains that he had a
dream in which God instructed him that he may eat any animals, even if they had
been considered unclean before. At a stroke, God removed some of the barriers
that made it difficult for the first apostles to spread the Gospel. That is,
God tore down the walls of hostility between some Jews and some Gentiles, so
that Peter could spread the good news of God’s love for all of humanity.
And
it worked! The Book of Acts and the letters of the Apostle Paul show us how the
message of the Gospel spread outward from Palestine, to Rome, and all across
the Roman Empire. It worked! It worked because the members of those early
Christian communities loved one another and everyone could see that love. It
worked because every aspect of their life together was filled with the Holy
Spirit. Jews and Gentiles could see that there was something different about
these communities of faith; they weren’t like the established groups.
Our
world today is a bit different. Most Americans believe in God and most of us
identify as Christians. Yet most of
us aren’t here in worship on a Sunday morning. Most of us are engaging with the secular culture in some way. In
the short term, we’re not going to change that in a meaningful way. In the
short term and in the long term, we need to adapt. We need to meet people in
different ways and different places and show them the love of God in Christ. At
the same time, we need to practice that same love more fully and more
completely within our own community.
Some
of those practices can be simple, like shaking hands and sharing Christ’s peace
with your neighbors at the beginning of worship. We can also do that by voicing
our prayers for one another during worship. Those are relatively easy steps to
take and they’re important. It’s also important that we keep on loving one
another in all of the familiar ways, like the luncheon that we had yesterday
for our members who have been part of this community for fifty years or more,
or the care packages that our Deacons prepare for our homebound members. And
yet, we still need to do more.
I
want to share something with you that I found to be very encouraging. Last
Saturday I went to an introductory workshop for the Stephen Ministry. Are any
of you familiar with this ministry? Stephen Ministers are lay leaders within a
congregation who provide one-on-one Christian care to folks who are hurt or grieving.
Stephen Ministers provide an active supplement to the pastoral care that’s
given by an ordained pastor. This is not a new ministry. This whole thing was
founded in 1975 by a pastor in the Midwest who realized that his congregation
had so many needs for care, and he only had so much time to give.[2] So
he enlisted some members of his congregation to assist in that care giving, and
the Stephen Ministry program was born.
Since
this organization was founded, some 12,000 congregations, from many different
denominations, have taken the Stephen Ministries training and established
Stephen Ministry programs. This is a wonderful thing, but this is not why I
felt so encouraged by the workshop last Saturday. The reason why I felt so
wonderfully encouraged last Saturday was that three members of this
congregation attended the workshop with me! Virginia Bayne, Janice Blosel, and
Mindy Kelley all stepped up and said they wanted to find a new way to be the
church.
Okay,
those are my words, not theirs. Still, they took a big step in the right
direction. Now I want to stress that Virginia, Janice, and Mindy are still very
much in the discernment process. Becoming a Stephen Minister requires a lot of
time and training. The training isn’t cheap and the congregation has to affirm
their efforts and commit to becoming a Stephen Ministry congregation. I need to
stress that no decisions have been made. I just want to offer up their
willingness to serve and their entry into the discernment process as an example
of what it means to be the church in new and different ways. I also want to
encourage you to explore new and different ways of being the church—inside and
outside of these walls. If you need help in discerning how you are called to do
this, all you need to do is ask. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Benediction
Now,
beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that we are an Easter people. We
are called to be Christ’s church in the world, the world today. We are called
to live in the light of Easter morning! We are called to change. So go forth
and be instruments of God’s peace and reconciliation. Do not return evil for
evil to any person, but know that we are all loved by God, and that we are
called to reflect that love to everyone we meet. In the name of Jesus Christ,
our Lord, let all God’s children say, Amen!
[1] Karen
Wiseman, “Commentary on John 13:31-35,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1621
[2] Stephen
Ministries St. Louis, “History of Stephen Ministries,” retrieved from: http://www.stephenministries.org/aboutus/default.cfm/721
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