Sunday, May 3, 2015

Christians are Called to Get At the Roots

Fifth Sunday in Easter
Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches…abide in me, and my words abide in you.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.  John 15:5ff

The well-known theologian Karl Barth of the early 20th century said this – The Christian who wants to know God in their lives simply has one thing to do each day, read the bible and read the newspaper.

Personally I prefer doing that when the news is at a distance.  When the gospel imperative to love neighbor as self refers more to neighbors far away – than neighbors 15 minutes south by car.  Because as the religious authorities who explained to Pontius Pilate why Jesus should be killed said – the gospel he’s proclaiming stirs the people up!  Jesus came proclaiming a new economy, God’s economy that decried the status quo, made people uncomfortable, and stirred things up!  Jesus wanted people to change their lives, change the world – bring in the reign of God.  And 2,000 years later the message is only relevant if we continue to get stirred up when we hear the words of scripture as we hear the news of our world.

I was on a plane yesterday because I’ve been at Camp Allen outside of Houston, Texas for a church conference.  Invite, Welcome, Connect – basically about the thing we have a lot of conferences about these days – how to grow the church.  Anyway, coming home on the plane I watched the CBS Evening News on my phone.  The lead story was yesterday’s protests in Baltimore.  Protests expected to be a repeat of Monday but instead were peaceful.  The newscaster said it was almost celebratory because the city had charged the officers who arrested Freddie Gray.  The feeling being then that we’d reached some kind of resolution – at least for the time being.  The news likes resolutions for the time being.

At my conference, Bishop Andy Doyle of the Diocese of Texas, opened his key note with a quote from Henry Melville, not the author but an 19th century Anglican priest:

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

What’s life-changing and uncomfortable about the good news of Christ is that Jesus asks us, those who follow him to see the effects and then grapple with the causes.

We just prayed the words of our psalmist – the poor shall eat and be satisfied for Kingship belongs to the Lord.  That’s not true in Baltimore, or in Texas, or cities and rural communities throughout our country.  Perhaps fibers connect us to one another – but we believe we are branches connected to a vine.  What’s challenging and liberating for the Christian is to examine and prune those things in our lives and in our hearts and minds that keep us from seeing and tackling the root causes of cultures of criminality that lead to cultures of police brutality.

Jesus says, abide in me…as I abide in you.  Jesus doesn’t say – abide in me, or else your cut off!  Jesus doesn’t say – abide in me and if you don’t get it right all the time, I’m done with you.  No.  Jesus says – abide in me, for I already abide in you.  Jesus is here – with us – right now – resurrected life – to like Philip in our story from Acts – encouraging us to cast out fear and go down that wilderness road.

When I was around 10 both my parents worked in Manhattan and we lived on Long Island – the north shore of Long Island which is NY speak for a place very much like Ruxton.  I loved days when I got to go into work with them – go into the city, stop at the deli for breakfast, tall office buildings, fancy office phones (I’ve always loved an office – such order!)  And I always got to stay up late because we never left the city until after 6 or even 7pm.

One night we were getting on the Long Island Expressway (LIE) via the Triborough Bridge – and I had a Jesus inspired epiphany.  “Mom, Dad – I know how we can solve the homeless problem in the city!”  (The New York of the 80s was very different than the New York of today)  How about all the homeless people simply line up on the bridge, and everyone driving home can simply pick up one or two people with them.  They’ll come home with them, get dinner, spend the night, and then in the morning – they can just get a ride back into the city!”  Perfect, I thought!  And note my cultural conditioning at 10 was assuming everyone had a house like us, big enough to accommodate unexpected hospitality.
My parents smiled, I guess, I was in the backseat – that’s a nice idea, Arianne.

The older I get – the longer I’m a mom – the more I am struck by the similarities of why Jesus said, blessed are the children.  Kid logic works in God’s kingdom.

Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches if you will keep my commandments you will abide in my love.  What is the commandment – simply this - love one another as I have loved you.  We call this Agape Love – the all-inclusive neighbor love we celebrate in the feast at that altar.  Yesterday Bishop Doyle in his keynote basically told us – we can’t!  We can’t house the homeless, as Jesus would – we’re not there yet. And we, Christians today, use the impossibility that confronts us to keep ourselves from entering into relationship.  We do Agape Love at a distance. I love my neighbor – over there.  Yeah, I love you – just stay over there – don’t come into my world, don’t turn my life upside down.

So what is the love we can get to – you all already know there are 4 kinds of love referred to in the gospels. If Jesus commands us to love, what’s the love we can actually practice that will cut away the assumptions, and cultural conditionings, and fears that fill all our hearts?

Philia - friendship love? Jesus talks about that – no one has greater love than this but to lay down one’s life for their friends.  The problem with that though is that we don’t choose friends like Jesus did.  Jesus befriended anyone who wanted to be his friend – the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes.  That’s not how I make friends.  My way has been – hey, I like you!  Yeah, we have similar interests – hey, you don’t threaten me – sure great – let’s be friends!  I’m joking, kind of.  I choose my friends – I’d do almost anything for them – that close circle of people – but that’s it – it’s a close and closed circle.  The way you and I do friendship – it’s exclusive – it’s not everyone.

Well – what about eros love – that’s in the bible.  Yeah….no.  First of all we don’t talk about eros love in church ok – maybe, maybe in premarital counseling.  But eros love – that’s really exclusive – and if it isn’t well – that’s a whole ‘nother problem – and I’m not going to talk about it today.

So friendship (philia) love – exclusive – eros love – very exclusive – agape love – its what we’re called to – but – as we prayed in our opening collect we know that love needs to be perfected in us if we were to really and truly follow.  But there is the fourth kind of love Paul describes to help Christian communities – affection (storges in Greek) – love one another with mutual affection he says in Romans (12:10).  It is the love whereby you approach and treat every human being with mutuality and respect.  It’s what Philip is doing in the story we hear from Acts.

What might that mean for us – as a community that prays to live the way, the truth and the life?  As a community blessed with resources and means and networks of mutual support?  What would life-changing love practices of affection look like for us?

Well – we’d have Blue Jean Sunday here.  It’s great we strengthen our relationships working on our beautiful campus.  But could we take Blue Jean Sunday downtown?  Down a wilderness road to other places our care is needed?

What would it look like here?  We’d collect spaghetti sauce and food for Assistance Center of Towson Churches (ACTC) – that’s good, but my friend’s that is “at a distance love!” What if more of us spent time at ACTC – meeting the mothers and fathers and children who are served by that center.  We’d listen and get to know the people who use ACTC.  And we’d maybe even get stirred up to address the causes that bring them there.

We do this when we go to Habitat in Sandtown or Govins, Paul’s Place in Pigtown – when we go down wilderness roads of Baltimore to be in relationship with the faces of poverty, the children in poverty in communities that are bereft of so many of the resources we have. One by one, group by group, committee by committee, we can do that.  We are called to do that.  It’s terrifying because it’s life changing.  It’s challenging to face the enormous disparities in economies and education north and south of Gittings Avenue – but we believe we abide in God!  We believe God’s love casts out fear.  The simple steps of mutual affection move hearts towards making real our psalmist prayer - that the poor would eat and be satisfied.  Every week we pray, And now father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do – Jesus left this work of love to us.

We are the branches.  Jesus is the vine.  God is the root – deep down in the ground of eternal time.  What seems impossible for us is never impossible for God.  From this morning’s epistle - “Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.  The commandment we have from him is this – those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

We are called to read the bible and read the newspaper – and get at the roots of what our problems are.  Stir the people up – and do the life changing and liberating work of making real the resurrected Christ we say we believe in and say we follow into the wilderness roads of our time – here and now.

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks

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