Sermon Sixth Sunday of Easter C
John 14:23-29
Revelations 21:10, 22-22:5
May 26, 2019
Valerie Ann Hart
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
What a beautiful promise. Peace.
Who doesn’t long for peace. The frantic parents juggling work and children. The employee who’s trying to make ends meet and hoping the job remains. The senior contemplating retirement and wondering if the money will last. The patient digesting the last doctor’s report and seeing life transformed.
Who doesn’t long for peace, for a quiet mind, for a good night’s sleep, for a deep sense of inner satisfaction.
Who doesn’t long for peace.
Yet here it is. Christ offers us peace. Not the peace of the world, but his peace.
He goes on, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
But we are afraid. Afraid of the future, afraid we’ll run out of money, afraid our children will be hurt, afraid we will let someone down, afraid we’re not enough. We all have our own fears.
Yet Jesus tells us not to be afraid.
Jesus offers us his peace.
How are we to know this wonderful peace?
He gives us some clear directions
“Those who love me will keep my word.”
So we are to love him. We are to respond to his love by loving him in return. This is not the kind of warm fuzzy love for your child. It’s a love that involves surrender, a love that sacrifices for the other, a deep longing to serve. We are to love him.
And keep his word.
What is his word? What does he tell us to do?
Forgive – It’s right there in the Lord’s prayer. We are to forgive others. Not for their sake, but for our own. When we forgive we are not saying that what the other person did was right. When we forgive we are making the choice to not hold on to the pain any more. We let go of the burden of the hurt and the anger.
When we forgive, we find some peace. We are no longer haunted by the past.
What is his word? What does Christ tell us to do?
“Love one another as I have loved you.”
Love one another, everyone, starting with those closest to us. When we open our hearts to Christ, when we love him, we begin to see Christ in others. We love the image Christ we see there. The image of Christ in the poor, the ill, the destitute, the homeless. The image of Christ in “The least of these.”
To love one another means to be in right relationship. It means we are working together for a better world for everyone. There’s no need to fight with someone you love, there’s no desire to hurt someone you love, there is peace. As we learn to love more we fall deeper into peace.
And when we love and keep Christ’s word, he and the father will come and make their their home with us.
What a beautiful image. To have God, Father and Son, dwelling with us. With us at all times. Not distant. Not up there somewhere. Not in the future. Not someday I’ll meet God. But here, with us, right now.
Christ’s love, God’s love, is with us. Here. Now. Closer than our own breath.
Christ’s love, God’s love, surrounds us, interpenetrates our being. That love is in the deepest part of our souls.
But we are so busy, so distracted, we don’t even notice it.
We need to take time to be still. Not just to pray to God, but to listen to God. To find the time, carve out the time, to sit quietly and listen. To make the search for God’s love within us a top priority.
Perhaps you can engage in some kind of contemplative, meditative practice each day such as following your breath, Centering Prayer, praying with a rosary, or sitting quietly and listening to the birds.
Do something, regularly, that will open you to the presence of God.
Something that welcomes the Holy Spirit.
Something that takes you deep within, where you will find God dwells.
Something that takes you deep within to discover the peace we are promised.
Something that gives you a few minutes free of fear.
It’s not always easy to find that peace. Sometimes we first find demons of unresolved grief, long held resentments, unhealed wounds. Sometimes we have to deal with these before we know that peace.
That’s what I think the book of Revelation is about. The struggle within that we have to go through, the demons within ourselves that we must fight, before we live in that wonderful Holy City described in the reading today.
The Book of Revelation is full of dramatic battles, but after all the struggle it ends with a city of peace, a city of light, a city of abundance. Pure running water, trees that not only give fruit all year round, but whose leaves are healing.
A place where there is no fear. A place where our hearts can sing.
A place where we dwell with God.
A place of peace.
Christ offers us his peace.
May you seek that peace.
May you find that peace.
May you live in that peace.
And may you share that peace with others.
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