Today's gospel is a continuation of what we heard last week. This is Jesus' commandment, love each other just as you have been loved. But the part of it that has taken hold of my heart and imagination is this, "You didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you could go and produce fruit and so that your fruit could last." You see, here is the Good News, the good news that God chose us. That God loves us. That God plans to use us to make this world God loves a better place.
This matters, I think, because if it’s finally up to us – to choose Jesus, to remain in him, to obey his commandments, to pursue happiness, or to choose joy, then we are lost. We simply don’t do it. Maybe we can’t. We can try, and there is something valiant and noble and important about trying.
Not that God’s choosing us is a panacea, as if none of the difficulties of this life matter. Rather, knowing that God has chosen us, loves us, and will use us gives us the courage to face the challenges and renews our strength to do something about them. Ultimately, we cannot fix, let alone redeem, this world. That’s why that’s God’s work. But knowing that God has promised to do so can provide us with the strength and energy to work to make the little corner of the world we live in a better place.
God chooses us. We are God's beloved. We are named and marked as Christ's own forever. God provides us with the strength and energy, all that we need, to participate with God in the work of building God's kingdom. Our work is to bear that Good News into all of the places we find ourselves. God's love that we bear into the dark and hateful places of the world is not about a way we feel. It is about what we do.
God's love for us is not necessarily the same warm and squishy feeling we have for those we love. God's love for us, God's beloved, is love that is self giving, pouring out grace and dignity and justice. It is that sort of love that we are commanded to give to others. And that is not easy.
It is the kind of love that identifies the similar humanity in those we are called to love, even and especially when we don't like them. It is this love that can cast out hate, it is this light that will brighten the darkness, it is this love that will change the world. This is incarnational love. This is love in the flesh. This is the love that was born into our world to show us how to live this life. This is the love that wins.
We are called, we are chosen, we are marked, we must bear love, and light, and wholeness, from this place into all of the places we frequent, we must be the lovers that shine so brightly so that the haters are revealed and transformed. And maybe we can't, but there is something noble in trying.
This is the love that is made real in the incarnation, and in the crucifixion. This is the love that is born into our lives, and this is the love that holds us and cradles us each time we walk with those in our lives will die. This is the love that is embodied in our own death. This is the love that is real in Jesus's body and blood, it is the love that is real in the bread and the wine eaten at this table, it is the love that is real in all of the meals around all of our tables.
The difficulty of this love that God has for us and that we are commanded to have for one another, is that it isn't about us, it isn't about how we feel, it is about what we do, and it is about giving ourselves in love with the sure and certain reality that in doing so we are transformed, and that transformation is out of our control.
The result though of giving ourselves in love is that we go deeper into heart of God, we go deeper into the soul of the sacred. And the result of giving ourselves in love is that we partner with God in healing and reconciliation, we partner with God in justice and mercy. And maybe we can't change the world, but there is something noble in trying, and we can change our little corner of the world, and in so doing, we are made more completely in God's image.
You are called, you are chosen, you are marked as Christ's own forever. You probably know the likely apocryphal story of when someone asked Martin Luther what he would do if the world were going to end tomorrow. He replied that he would plant a tree today. The future is God’s, a gift given, like joy, to God’s beloved children. How do you make this world a better place?
I know how many of you, who are chosen, who are loved, who are marked as Christ's own forever, who give of yourselves and die a little to do it, make this world a better place, and in so doing, change your corner of the world. Many of you provide the meal for the cornerstone mission, many of you contribute in significant ways to feeding people, many of you provide resources for clothing children to go to school, sometimes it doesn't seem like much, but it is so much.
You see, Jesus’ story didn’t stop with the tomb. Rooted in God’s love for the world, it bears the fruit of justice, joy and reconciliation. It creates space for life where it seems that there is none, making room for other people to flourish. It nurtures friendships and fosters the ability to trust in God’s abundance, grace, provision in the face of scarcity, death. It includes the excluded, invites in the ostracized, meets the needs of the hungry, the isolated, the oppressed.
This love is not the love of warm fuzzies. Rather, it ultimately anticipates that our own bodies – individually and collectively as the church, the body of Christ – are a means by which God provides for the world if we’re open to and rest in the leading of the Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment