Sermon: 6th Sunday of Easter, 5/5/2024

Texts: 1 John 5:1-6, John 15: 9-17
Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I used to quarrel a lot with my brother. We would fight over the most inane things. I would especially get combative because he would always win when we played basketball, and no matter how hard I tried, the ball would not go in through the hoop. Then, when we were teenagers, we went to a church retreat. And we played a basketball game. After the game, instead of fighting, we went on a walk together. We talked about the retreat and what we had been learning, and the Holy Spirit worked out the gift of love and reconciliation for us. I don’t remember the exact words he told me that day, but I remember we embraced each other. After that moment, we have not quarreled in the same way since. I don’t have to labor to point out that Jesus made such a moment possible, that it was because we sought Him earnestly that He allowed us to have such a moment together, to experience Him as the reconciling love that He is. I have the gift of being able to say that I love my brother. My mother used to ask me, who would you want to have with you if you were stranded on a deserted island, and I would always say, my brother.

Beloved, the essence of following Jesus is to love. I will repeat: to follow Jesus is to love. This statement is the refrain that accompanies all the images that Jesus provides about Himself in the Gospel of John. Last Sunday’s reading we listened to how Jesus said that He is the true vine and we are the branches, and he gives the commandment: abide in me as I abide in you. Now Jesus expands that commandment and reveals to us a deeper dimension of that same commandment. To abide in Him, means to abide in His love, and we abide in His love, when we follow His commandments, which above all lead to one result: that we love each other as He has loved us. Love is the lasting fruit that He seeks from His disciples. Jesus says to us: there is this uninterrupted chain of love beginning in God, made visible in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus then commands His followers,that they are present in Him, that they are in relationship with Him, in so far as they love each other. That is His great and culminating commandment for them. How important it is for us to understand, that this is our main task as church. It was not just the apostles that needed to love each other. If we want to abide in Jesus, it is imperative that we ourselves practice the same love. The joy of the church is to abide in Jesus’ love, that is our complete joy.

So when we think about, what does it mean to be the church, what are we thinking about? The church is thought of and described in many ways: it is a house of worship, it is a non-profit, a service center, among many other things which can be a social good. But the question that should be burning in our spirits is: Is the church the gathering of people that love each other because God commands them to love? Is the church, the beloved community? Sometimes, the church can fulfill all of the above criteria on paper, and tragically, it can miss out on the essential element: it does not practice the commandment of being the beloved with each other. Church can deaden itself by becoming mere habit. The lasting fruit is not the quantity of times we have sat at a church pew, but the actual struggle of living out this belovedness with each other, that we have taken seriously the commandment to love one another, as God has loved us.
This truly is the greatest task and challenge for the church, for loving as God does, may seem almost impossible from a human point of view. Our love is always limited. It is often hard to love those we do not know for example, it is hard to love those that irritate us, it is hard to love those we consider our enemies. God, on the other hand, it is His essence to love, persist and struggle infinitely for the sake of even the most wayward of humanity. Knowing our limits, why would He give us such a commandment? Of course, we are also a people of mercy, forgiveness is always at hand when we fall short, that is part of God’s love for us. But perhaps this commandment is part of the radical dream of God to make us the Beloved Community, to make us not into some special social clique that loves what is comfortable or palatable to them, but into a love that loves like God, meaning, that it seeks to explore and navigate the depths of loving others. In this way, being the church is the greatest of tasks, it is where love seeks to flourish where in the world it would probably extinguish itself. To follow Jesus is to love.

Now, how would that look like, to be the beloved community? As we say back in Puerto Rico, con la boca es un mamey, meaning saying these things is easy, doing them however, that’s something else entirely. A few examples. I would like to highlight the work of the ministry of Annunciation House, in El Paso, Texas. It is a Roman Catholic ministry, in which shelter and spiritual support is given to migrants entering through the southern border. It is in all effects and purposes, a church that opens its doors to migrants and provides them with much needed assistance after their long and arduous journeys. To love one another more fully, we must begin by loving the stranger, especially those in need. It is to not presume that coming towards is a human burden, but rather Christ Himself makes Himself present in the needy so we might align our love with God’s way of loving. Remember, God loves even when we are at our worst. Annunciation House stands to practice the love of Jesus with every person they meet, not only providing services, but building the bridge of seeing these strangers as part of the community that God gathers together. As Jesus calls the disciples no longer servants, but friends, in the church we move from calling each other strangers, to knowing each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. When the church is more about being with, than simply doing for, it begins to understand the dynamic of God’s way of doing things. It begins to understand the need for the struggle to love. It begins to understand the need to persist in loving others, for no other mission is more important than this. Only through love will any action bare the fruits that feed with abundant life. Indeed they struggle and persist because they are currently being sued by the government of Texas for their work with migrants. The government of Texas, full of self-proclaimed Christians, deem that Annunciation House’ way of loving people is a danger to society, and they must therefore cease operations. They see their love as a threat to their own designs of

what society should be, so they marginalize and threaten. This is a concrete example, that Jesus’ command is far from some kind of smiley-face fantasy. It is the radical opening-up of our lives, it is a real standing up for the goodness of God on the Earth. As the writer of our epistle reading today: His commandments are not burdensome, for what is burdensome about what provokes our complete joy? But it certainly is not easy. Another example: the students across US universities were arrested and beaten because they dared to love the Palestinian. I know of Jewish and Christian students who stood precisely on the basis of this commandment of God to love one another. Mister Rogers couldn’t have said it any better: “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” Here in our own congregation, we know of this same struggle to love one another across our differences. I’m not talking about anybody in particular, but each of us knows that deep inside us we have the capacity to make enemies of our neighbors, and therefore even here we must practice love in this godly and deeper sense, to see everybody from the God-point of view, and ask God to help us love our siblings in Christ with the love that He is.

Loving one another is this continual renewal of forgiveness, redemption, and joy. But if we persist, then we will abide, and if we abide, we might be getting a glimpse of the Reign of God that Jesus proclaims to us. So to love in this way, is to be in this state that Jesus calls friendship. Meaning that in love we become intimate with the ways of God. I can imagine the disciples discovering the gift of seeing Jesus in every loving disposition and act for their neighbors. The same gift is available to us, if we set our spirit to abide in His love.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, you gave us this powerful task of loving one another, as you have loved us. Give us the patience and strength to live in this way you have shown us. Let us be faithful imitators of your love, that we might see you in every loving act, and others might

see you in ourselves, when we open up to receive love. Be with us in the struggle, O God. In your name we pray, Amen.