Easter 6 A 14th May 2023 - Unconditional, Eternal Love and Acceptance

EASTER 6A  14^th May 2023 

Acts 17:22-31  •  Psalm 66:8-20  •  1 Peter 3:13-22  •  John 14:15-21

 

“Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?” This an exhortation from Saint Peter, and I’m sensing a continuation of last week’s theme where we are encouraged to go bravely into this world doing good.  Regardless of opposition.

 

Here, in Peter’s letter we are encouraged that no one should be harmed if they are eager to do good.  We are encouraged to do good in our community….in the church, and in our town and country.  We are God’s people and God has said that, through His people that the nations will be blessed.  We bring God’s blessing to our town and nation, and we don’t do this passively.  It is something that we need to be actively involved in.  There shouldn’t be any fear in us to do good, but as we know, sometimes discouragement and persecution does happen.

 

Peter goes on to say, “But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.” In this, Peter is acknowledging that the world does not always operate the way that it logically should.  No one should be harmed for doing good.  And the saviour of the world should not have been crucified by the people He came to save… but He was.

 

In the time between the resurrection and Pentecost the disciples were encouraged, but frightened.  This is the kind of message that they needed… go out and do good… no one should harm you for that, so be confident. I’m wondering if we are also like the pre-Pentecost timid disciples -or are we a church operating in post-Pentecost power?

Regardless of where we are at, those to whom Peter was writing were needing encouragement to have resilience in the face of persecution, because persecution was a fact of those early Christian’s lives.  All this is recorded and passed down to us for a reason; We too are like those disciples, called to be a blessing to our nation and we need to be encouraged to live with such conviction and assurance, that when persecution comes to us, we can also continue doing good.

 

When we resiliently continue to do good and people take notice of the different way that we have responded, even while under pressure, they will want to know why.  Saint Peter tells us; “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;”

 

Peter adds that we need to do this with gentleness and reverence.  He tells us this, because in the face of persecution, injustice and discrimination, our natural and sinful self may not want to tell them of the love of God, but instead tell them…. Well probably something not HELPFUl!  Instead, we need to be always respectful, with gentleness and reverence.

 

An example; very seldom, but probably once every couple of years, someone will be verbally abusive to the Street Chaplains.  The last time this happened was just a couple of weeks ago and it happened to me. This particular night the lady continued to hurl abuse at me, regardless of assurances that we were just trying to help, so I stopped engaging in the conversation.  The police actually heard her tirade and arrested her.  Others standing by made comments to me that we don’t deserve that kind of treatment. 

 

These other people witnessed our innocence.  We weren’t thrown by the abuse, although, honestly it is upsetting.  We need to understand that there are some who will be reacting to our presence for all kinds of reasons which may be unknown to us.  If we stay calm and continue to reach out in love, we show ourselves to be different.  And people witness something different about a group of people who claim to have a relationship with God.  Whatever the outcome, our conscience is clear.   To respond, rather than react, is certainly easier in our Chaplaincy setting than it may be in other scenarios, because we have a partner and a team to back us up.

 

Other than having a team to back us, we have an assurance of the acceptance of God.  Though others might reject us, we are loved and accepted by God who created the heavens and the earth.  God who came down to our earth, lived among us and died for the immense love that he has for each of us.  That very fact, is something that we all need to know most definitely and rest in.  You.. are so very loved and completely accepted by God. 

 

The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to the disciples and they were changed from encouraged, though frightened, followers of Christ, to courageous and confident proclaimers of the Good News of Jesus Christ.  What did the Holy Spirit do in those people to bring about this change?  I believe that when that third party of the trinity came to dwell with the disciples, they understood that they were so very extremely and unconditionally loved by God, and that love of God, reassured them, such that they were truly set free.  If God is for us, who can be against us.  What can humankind do to us?  We can’t lose, because no matter what happens we are in the presence of God and he is constantly loving us.  Like a proud parent, he pats us on the back to encourage us to continue to fight the good fight.

 

Saint Paul was one who had been persecuting the church and then he met Christ in the blinding light on the road to Damascus and he was a completely changed man.  Well, kind of.  You see, Paul was a very educated and clever man and he was zealous for God in his persecution of the church… he was equally zealous in his conversion, at proclaiming the truth of the Gospel.

 

Saint Paul lived in the reality of God’s love.  He had experienced overwhelming forgiveness and love.  Saint Paul understood the love and acceptance of God.  He was accepted and loved despite all his flaws and prior life mistakes.  This gave him the confidence to proclaim the message of salvation.

 

Being the intelligent person that Paul was, he didn’t go into a new city, like a bull at a gate, proclaiming that he had the truth and they needed to listen.  Well… not quite anyway.  This time we find Paul in the centre of activity.  The Areopagus was a court of philosophers in Athens which had authority over religion and morals.  I can just imagine him entering that town and wandering around gathering ideas, praying, asking God to give him the words and the way, to reach these people with the Good News of Jesus Christ.  As he wanders, he notices the monuments to the gods and sees the one to the unknown God.  Suddenly the penny drops and he knows just where to start.

 

Saint Paul compliments the people on how religious they are and directs their attention to the monument to the unknown God.  From there he declares to them to one true living God. 

 

Saint Paul tries to be all things to all people.  He looks for common ground and uses what they already believe, as a starting point, and he uses their own poetry that declares we are the offspring of God.  Paul tries to get along with people, yet he doesn’t water down the truth and he doesn’t compromise the message of salvation.

Each year we celebrate Easter, and for nearly 2000 years Christians have been speaking of the resurrection.  As Christians, it is central to our faith and outsiders often know it is part of our faith.  However, have you ever wondered what it was like for those early communities hearing this message?  What?  People can’t be crucified and raised from the dead?

 

The followers of Jesus came with a message of the Good News about God who loved the world so much that he sent his son to die for our sin.  If God is all powerful… powerful enough place the sins of the world onto the son and then to raise him from the dead, then we need to take seriously the message of salvation.  It was a controversial and powerful message from the start.  There was no theological musings about the metaphorical meaning in rising from the dead… it was presented as a straight out fact, and it proved the message of salvation.  People were assured of God’s forgiveness for their sins because Jesus was raised from the dead.

 

Just to expand one area of the Good News, if it says that Christ suffered for sins once for all, it means that absolutely everything that could keep you from God, has been atoned for.   There is NOTHING keeping us from the love of God… except possibly ourselves.  We always have free will and so, we can freely choose to live our lives apart from God.  However, we need not carry any guilt or feel that God would be disappointed in us… he is not. 

 

Jesus tells us that if we love him, we will keep his commandments.  His command is always love.  He loves us and desires for us to remind each other of how much they are loved by him.  He also desires that we show the world that God loves them.

 

Through the Holy Spirit, God is always with us.  How often are we aware of God with us?  Our Gospel reading reminds us that God abides with us and is in us.  He will never leave us and because he is with us  - united to us - our eternal live has already begun.

 

In this time, between Resurrection Sunday and Pentecost, we reflect on how essential is the gift of the Holy Spirit in order for us to actually live the life that God has planned for us.  We so need and pray for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Not everything will be easy or without harm, but when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the love of God is in our hearts and we can live the adventurous life that God destined us to live… a life of experiencing and sharing the love of God.  We can march to a different drum, take the road less travelled and our Spirit filled, eternal life has begun.

A Glimpse of Heaven and nothing else matters

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER    Year A   May 7, 2023

Acts 7:55-60  •  Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16  •  1 Peter 2:2-10  •  John 14:1-14

A glimpse of heaven.  How would it impact us if we had a vision of Heaven and saw the glory of God?  Stephen, the church’s first martyr, is not the only person to have had a vison of the glory of God.  If you google search glimpses of heaven, there are some incredible stories of experiences telling of the love of God.  I imagine from what we know of God, a vision of Heaven would be an experience of surprisingly thorough love and acceptance.

 

In contrast to that love and acceptance, is our experience on planet earth.  Once upon a time children being called nasty names would reply, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  In our modern times this is never quoted in the playground, as our generation has realized the power of words and the lasting impact that these make.  Children who are told all their lives that they are stupid will often grow up believing that they are not very capable.  And on the flip side is the story of Thomas Eddison.

 

The story goes like this; “One day, as a small child, Thomas Edison came home from school and gave a paper to his mother. He said to her "Mom, my teacher gave this paper to me and told me only you are to read it. What does it say?"

Her eyes welled with tears as she read the letter out loud to her child ...

"Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn't have good enough teachers to train him. Please teach him yourself."

Many years after Edison's mother had died, he became one of the greatest inventors of the century.

One day he was going through a closet and he found the folded letter that his old teacher wrote his Mother that day. He opened it ...

The message written on the letter was "Your son is mentally deficient. We cannot let him attend our school anymore. He is expelled."

Edison became emotional reading it and then wrote in his diary:

"Thomas A. Edison was a mentally deficient child whose mother turned him into the genius of the Century." A positive word of encouragement can help change anyone's destiny.”

 

Similarly, rejection and acceptance are powerful in our society.  This is one of the basic things we try to teach our street Chaplains.  Our acceptance of people on the street conveys love and, most importantly, the love of God.  Recently I saw the movie, The Jesus Revolution, where this openness to accept the hippies gave rise to the revival in the church.

 

But I also need to talk about the negative side; Rejection, because, unlike St. Stephen who was stoned to death, rejection is how most of us will experience persecution.  In Jesus’ day the aspect of rejection was just as powerful as it is today.  People followed Jesus or rejected him, sometimes based on the opinions of those around them.  Peer pressure is powerful.  The Pharisees had rejected Jesus and so Nicodemus came to Jesus under the cover of night.  It was a crowd, a mob, who called out “crucify him” when Jesus was on trial.  Did they all really reject Jesus or were they just scared of being rejected themselves?  And on Palm Sunday, did they all follow and accept Jesus, as they cried, “Hosanna” or were they wanting to belong… to be accepted themselves…. And not rejected. 

 

We still tend to go with the loudest voice.  Our society’s values have been largely shaped by the media and those voices who make us feel that we might too be crucified if we disagree… well, maybe not crucified, but certainly rejected.

 

Rejection is powerful.  What we witness in our readings, is that once we know we are loved and accepted by God, we can then overcome the power of rejection in our lives.  We see this in Saint Stephen.  In fact, St. Stephen, showed no fear at all!  It is quite probable that the key to nullifying the fear of rejection is to understand and experience the unconditional acceptance we have in Christ.  As the Bible tells us, perfect love casts out all fear.  This is the love we need to experience in our relationship with God.

 

I hope and pray that none of us ever have to face violent persecution for our faith such that we are stoned to death, but we already face the name calling, discrimination and other kinds of persecution.  Recently, a muso friend of mine, who has recently become a Christian, was doing a gig.  He said that it was going really well… people were enjoying the music, and he was enjoying being the entertainer.  As he finished, he said something to the effect of, “May the good Lord, Bless you all”.   Within a very short space of time, he received a call from his manager to say that the venue manager never wanted him to perform there again due to his speaking about God.

 

We are sometimes called flat earthers… even though we are not, and when I worked as Youth Worker in the Anglican school in Cairns, the teenagers informed me that I hated gays because I was Christian. I had never and would never say anything of the kind, and even have some gay friends.  Rejected and judged quite wrongly, but all because we bear the name, Christian.  But should we justify and explain?  We could, and there is a time and a place to do so, but to some extent we need to quote that old playground rhyme; Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me….  And we need to do a Taylor Swift and “Shake it off”.  As Taylor says, “haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate… I’m just gonna Shake it off… shake it off.”  And we are called to do more than this… to love.

 

Our letter from St. Peter tells us again, what we already know, that Jesus was rejected.  We should understand that we, as his followers, are bound to be rejected sometimes.  Saint Peter tells us that Jesus is the cornerstone that the people rejected, but the stone that God has chosen and we being his people need to become stones like him, built onto that corner stone.

 

But what gives us the power to Shake off the pain of that rejection?  It isn’t the exhortation from Taylor or even that childhood rhyme.  The power to shake it off comes from knowing that God has chosen us and to know the acceptance and love of God through Christ.

 

And here is where it gets tricky.  We can be told that God has chosen us and that God loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us, but we need to receive it, and experience it for ourselves, for it to have any impact in our lives… and even that is easier said than done if all we have experienced in our church family and in our world is rejection.

 

In our Gospel reading we have Jesus talking about going away to prepare a place for us.  This is the most common reading for funerals because it indicates that there is something beyond the grave and a place for us in the kingdom of God, but possibly the more important part of this reading, for the purpose of our discussion, is when Philip asks Jesus to show them the father.

 

“Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?”

 

Jesus is making it clear that He and the father are one…. He is in the father and the father is in him… the mystery of the deity as trinity is puzzling, but one thing is certain; the unity of the Father and the Son is such that if you have experienced one, you have experienced the other.  The disciples had experienced Jesus and knew that they were loved by him.  Jesus said there was a place for them in the Kingdom of God and they knew that because Jesus loved them and accepted them, God the father also loved and accepted them.

 

Many years ago, I was part of a group of young adults who worked together to put on an event called Youth Encounter.  The guest speaker was a man called Mike Nelson.  As part of the organising committee we got to know Mike really well.

 

Mike was a regular speaker with the international Bible school Capernwray.  At one of his speaking engagements, I heard him speaking about love and how he didn’t find it easy to love people so he deliberately prayed that God would help him to love people with the love of God. 

 

In about 1999 Mike Nelson died.  He had long struggled with an hereditary liver disease and he passed away during an operation to try to prolong his life.  It came out among the comments after and during the funeral, that people generally had the sense that God loved them, because they felt Mike loved them.  There was this strange sense of God’s love in the relationship that we had with Mike.  I would say, God well and truly answered Mike’s prayer and, though he may have been largely unaware of it, God loved people through Mike and his willingness to be a vessel of God’s love.

 

Likewise, others can feel rejection or God’s love through us.    Through the Holy Spirit we can allow the love of God to flow and show in our lives – through our actions and words.  I really do believe, like Mike Nelson, that most of us need to pray for God to love through us.  We are not naturally able to be loving and show the love of God… in fact sometimes God’s love might have boundaries.

 

When we are on Street Chaplaincy, the challenge is to always be loving, but this sometimes means we need to be firm and tell someone, in as caring a way as possible, that their action needs to stop… and even sometimes we may add that if they don’t stop, we will need to call for police help.

 

Loving with the love of God can not be achieved very effectively in our own strength.  On the flip side, even when we are unaware of it, if we are asking God to love through us, he will most certainly do so.  He will do so because this is His will.  He wants to love and work in and through us.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

 

We have this promise of answered prayer through the words of Jesus in our Gospel reading; “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.  I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

 

We know that amazing things happened after the Holy Spirit came on the disciples, but the question is; are we seeing these things today?  We desperately need to see these promises of Jesus realized in our day and age… and the key is the Holy Spirit.

 

The disciples, after the resurrection were joyful, but still fearful.  They hid away and prayed behind closed doors.  At the coming of the Holy Spirit everything changed.  Through the Holy Spirit they experienced for themselves the love of God and they knew the total and sure acceptance of God.  The Holy Spirit taught them this … taught their hearts, not just their heads.

 

It was Saint Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, who saw the vision of heaven…. And through that same spirit he, full of the love and acceptance he had in God, could intercede for those who were stoning him saying, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

 

It is not a natural thing to be able to show the genuine love of God, and continue in unconditional love for our persecutors, but it is possible and even natural when we are filled with the Spirit of God.  It is more than likely that there will be times ahead when there will be more rejection and even persecution for those who follow Christ.  How will we respond?  How are we responding now?  Sticks and stones may break our bones, but names will never hurt us when we are totally secure in the love of God and surrounded by a loving Christian community.

 

As we journey to Pentecost, we reflect on our need for the out pouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in our church, and in our community.  There is a world of people out there who are desperate for the indescribable love of God.  May we be like Saint Stephen in the face of persecution, declaring the vision of Heaven and lavishing love on those in our world.