Circle of Life - a Few "Simple" Rules Fifth Sunday of Easter

improve our circle of life - self reflection on potential sinful answers, correcting our actions

John 13:31–35 NIV

When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Acts 13:44-52 “On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “ ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and…”

Revelation 19:4–9 NIV

The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne. And they cried: “Amen, Hallelujah!” Then a voice came from the throne, saying: “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both great and small!” Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

Leviticus 19:9-18 ““ ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. “ ‘Do not steal. “ ‘Do not lie. “ ‘Do not deceive one another. “ ‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. “ ‘Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. “ ‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight. “ ‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord. “ ‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly. “ ‘Do not go about spreading slander among your people. “ ‘Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord. “ ‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt…”

Psalm 145:1-9 “I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty— and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They tell of the power of your awesome works— and I will proclaim your great deeds. They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”

Glory and fame are the currency of American pop culture. In preparation for a sermon on this lection, I suggest you purchase current issues of magazines that feature the hottest figures in entertainment and sports. Go online to the mass-appeal Web sites. Watch the celebrity television shows with the highest ratings. Listen to the interviews with the heroes and stars of the day. The pursuit of glory and public fascination with those who attain it are as ancient as human civilization. These passions are not the invention of our electronic world, no matter how much the media may feed them. Two thousand years ago in the cosmopolitan cultures of the Mediterranean basin, people paid attention when someone rose to glory and prominence. According to John, Jesus himself had a moment of high public acclaim. In an earlier passage that is significant to understanding this Sunday’s reading, the Pharisees observe: “Look, the world has gone after him!” (12:19b). Immediately afterward “some Greeks” come asking to see Jesus. Given the placement of their appearance in John’s narrative, it is reasonable to suppose that the Greeks are eager to see the one whom the world has “gone after.” It is at this point that Jesus introduces the theme that he will later elaborate in today’s Gospel. Jesus begins radically to transform the meaning of glory: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (12:23–24). This is not the kind of glory that the world has in mind. It does not make for the grandeur of marble monuments in the ancient world or glitzy magazine covers and titillating interviews on talk shows in the media world. However, to be fair, it is not just the world that has difficulty grasping the kind of glory that Christ reveals in the Gospel of John. Even his disciples, and in particular Peter, are initially embarrassed and uncomprehending. When Jesus, in a scene leading up to our lesson, wants to wash Peter’s feet, the baffled disciple exclaims: “‘You will never wash my feet’” (13:8). Peter cannot hold together his understanding of how to honor Jesus and Jesus’ understanding of how God is glorified through humble and sacrificial action. Because John’s Gospel operates simultaneously at two different levels—the unfolding story line of Jesus’ ministry, and the life and concerns of John’s community—today’s reading may reveal how the church was continuing to struggle with Jesus’ radically transformed understanding of glory. The church at this point in history is still a relatively peripheral movement amid the global economic and military might of the Roman Empire. (We might not think of the Roman Empire as “global” nowadays, but it must have felt global to those who lived under its rule.) For John’s community, the signs of Caesar’s worldly glory abound. His head is on the coins they exchange, his standards are carried by occupying troops, his governors and proconsuls live in splendor. How can the church, living in such an environment and feeling the pressure of its material and cultural forces, begin to understand why Jesus would say at the moment of his betrayal to suffering and death: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him” (John 13:31)? I go to a current American dictionary to see if since the Roman Empire any of Jesus’ transformed understanding of glory has entered into common parlance. The dictionary gives eight definitions. Every single one of them is a variation on the first definition: “Exalted honor, praise, or distinction accorded by common consent; renown: ‘For what is glory but the praise of fame’ (Milton).” The dictionary offers not the slightest inkling of Christ’s transformed understanding of glory. How then can people grasp the transformation of glory through the death and resurrection of Christ? Whether we lived in the Roman Empire two thousand years ago or live in American pop culture today, the answer clearly requires more than words. In common speech the meaning of glory stubbornly persists as honor, praise, renown. We cannot verbally argue people into a transformed understanding of glory. That is why Christ instructs the disciples: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). The newness of the commandment is not that love has never before been commanded (Lev. 19:18). The newness is in the source that feeds this love: the humility of the Almighty as revealed through Christ’s death, the transformation of the meaning of glory from worldly renown to Godly compassion. We are not simply to use words to tell people about the meaning of the cross and resurrection; we are to love one another as a way of embodying the truth that Christ reveals through his death and resurrection. There is a way of translating this verse that makes even clearer the causal connection between the loving action of Christ and the community’s loving one another: “I have loved you in order that [hina in Greek] you also love one another.” I prefer this translation to the NRSV’s “you also should love one another,” because the “should” sounds like a moral commandment divorced from the gracious action of Christ that makes possible our love. When we allow the love of Christ to take deep root in us, so that it flourishes in all that we do and say to one another, it is the first step in helping the world to understand how Christ has transformed glory. We give witness to what no purely verbal argument can ever accomplish: the glory of God breathing through the life of a Christ-centered community. THOMAS H. TROEGER John 13:35