Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B 2024

Title

The Implications of Love

Outline

Christian faith is built on the fact that God is love

Not that God is a feeling, for God has no body and therefore no emotions; furthermore in humans love as emotion, anger, and fear are interchangeable at the physical level. And not the old saw that all religions are basically about love.

No, God is love, a seeking the good of the other, so God must be a Trinity of persons for otherwise he could not be himself until he created someone to love.

God is love and he chose to create the world in love and therefore to love the world.

God is love and he therefore sent his Son to become incarnate within creation to rescue human beings by, of course, loving, that is, giving himself for them.

You can see how it is possible to say that Christian theology flows from God’s being love.

In Acts Peter discovers that God’s love is not ethnically limited

God loves the world, so ““In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.”

And so, having sent Peter to proclaim the good news to those eager to accept it, the Holy Spirit falls on them to complete the love union, leaving Peter to scurry and catch up with baptism.

In John love is to flow out of those in a love relationship with God

In the Epistle he says, “everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.” Then he points out that it was God who initiated this love relationship - he loved us first.

In the Gospel Jesus says, “Remain in my love” and Jesus does in the Father’s love and that this is done by “keep[ing] my commandments” and he did the Father’s. Then we learn, “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.” Well, he loved us by laying down his life for us.

This is where we find joy: in entering into this love-relationship and loving one another.

This is what makes us Jesus friends: in joining Jesus in fulfilling the love command.

Indeed, we were not able to be friends and bear the fruit of love before he loved us, i.e. chose us, told us what he heard from the Father, and appointed us to bear fruit.

And it is only in this relationship of love and friendship with Jesus and the Father that is fruit-bearing that whatever we ask the Father is “in my name” and will therefore be give us.

Christian life can indeed be summed up in one line: “This I command you: love one another.”

So, Sisters, we must go and do it

We do it out of our love-relationship with Jesus or we will not be able to do it.

We will reject the teaching that just tacking “in the name of Jesus” onto a self-focused prayer will mean God will do it.

We will recognize the fallacy in those saying that we are friends of Jesus even if his love does not flow through us to others, if there is no fruit.

We will realize that we cannot work ourselves up into joy with happy music, for true joy is only found in love-union with Jesus and therefore in seeking the good of others.

The other day I saw a short video of an act of love: it showed a man and his wife whom Judy knew because they had been at one of her Pastors’ Sabbath Retreats in the 2002 - 2006 period. She was dying of a blood cancer she had fought for a decade - it was probably very close to her death. He was tenderly lifting each part of her body into or into the center of the hospital bed in their home - so gently, so gently so lovingly - perhaps after cleaning her in some way. It was a sacred moment. She did not and could not speak. She could not assist him. There was nothing in it for him other than effort, and effort he had been carrying on for 10 years. He simply loved as Jesus loved us and gave himself, as Mary cradled Jesus’ corpse gently in her arms. I saw there a friend of Jesus, one who would know what to ask the Father in Jesus’ name, one who was bearing fruit. And I knew what John and Jesus were talking about.

Amen.