Easter 6 B

On the Sixth Sunday of Easter in 2015 I was providing supply at a church that had scheduled for that Sunday to have an informal children’s sermon followed by a sermon for the adults. Here is how I spoke about friendship and love to both the children and the adults. 

Easter 6 B

May 10, 2015

The Rev. Valerie Hart

Children's sermon 

Any of you have a best friend? Raise your hands.

Tell me, what makes a good friend?

See how they respond. Bring up

Fun

Trust

Honesty

They are there no matter what

Someone we can tell our secrets to

Won't judge us

Jesus tells us that we are his friends. Jesus is like that. He will care about us no matter what. We can trust him. We can tell him our secrets. We can even have fun with him. He says that he wants us to have the joy that he has and for our joy to be complete. 

Say a prayer telling Jesus we want to be his friend. 

Adult sermon

During the children's sermon we talked about what a friend is like. (Refer back to some of the things the children said.) 

I'd like you to bring to mind one of your really good friends, either current or in the past. Think about what made that relationship so special?

Really good friends are always there for you, no matter what. If at three o'clock in the morning you are stalled by the side of a lonely highway you can call them on the phone and they'll get up out of bed and come to get you. They may be cussing you out the whole way there, but they will pick you up. 

A good friend is one that you can ask them if a pair of pants make you look fat, and they'll tell you the truth. 

Such friendships are built over time. They usually have to do with going through stuff together. It might be a coworker or someone you volunteer with or a neighbor, but a good friendship is built on being tested together. Soldiers who have been on the battlefield say that the one thing they remember positively about that time was the friendships that they developed. Successful soldiers in battle form a cohesive whole where each of them is willing to sacrifice themselves for the others. The same is true of firefighters. They are people who are willing to risk and even lose their lives to save one another. 

Given that it is Mother's Day I have to include that mothers are like that too. They are willing to do whatever it takes to keep their children safe and healthy. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus says, "I have called you friends." What we have been talking about is the type of friendship that that Christ offers us. We are offered a deep and abiding friendship with God. 

There is a tradition in the Hebrew Scriptures of friendship with God. Abraham is the best known friend of God. In fact, that is the term that is most often used to describe him. He was a friend of God because he totally trusted God. He trusted enough to leave his homeland and wander without knowing where he was going, trusting God’s promise of a home. Now if you read Genesis you will see that Abraham was not always courageous, that he sometimes did not live up to what we might have expected of a hero of the Bible, but he was always God’s friend. He was willing to argue with God and to sometimes doubt God, but he was always God's friend. 

Jesus says that we are his friends and abide in his love if we do what he commands. 

And what does Jesus command? That we love one another as he has loved us.

We are to love. 

Now in Greek there are several words that all get translated into English as love. The Greeks had a more nuanced understand of the concept of love than we do. 

The first is Eros. It has to do with emotion. It is the romantic, sexual kind of love. It is about feeling good. 

The second word is Philio. This has to do with affection and positive regard, as in a friendship. We find the word Philio in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Philio is that brotherly love. 

And then there is agape. Agape love is not about emotions. It is not about feeling warm and fuzzy inside. Agape love is not about how one feels, but what one does. It is about action not about warm feelings. 

It is a love that is unconditional 

It is a love that is sacrificial

It is a love that sees beyond the surface of things. 

In agape love there is no self benefit. It is not concerned with what is in it for me

Agape love is offered whether it is returned or not

C.S. Lewis describes agape love as "gift love."

It is not a feeling - it is a choice. It is a choice to care. A choice to give. 

Thomas Aquinas describes agape love as "to will the good of another." 

And it is the Greek word Agape that is used each of the many times love is used in these passages. 

When Christ says that we are to love one another as he loves us it is this is the kind of love he is talking about. It is a universal, unconditional, sacrificial love that he is talking about. 

Christ wants us to obey his command to love, not out of fear, not out of concern for punishment, but out of friendship and love. 

It is like how hard we worked to obey a teacher that we really respected; that we knew had our best interest at heart. Not out of fear of punishment but out of a desire to do what he or she wanted us to do. 

Christ invites us to be his friends, not his servants. He wants us to obey not out of fear, but out of friendship. 

He wants us to love one another in the sacrificial way that he loves us. He wants us to choose to love. He wants us to choose to will good for another. 

He wants us to do this not for his sake, but for our sake. He wants us to do this so that his joy may be in us and that our joy and be complete. 

There is no greater joy than this, to abide in his love - to be Gods friend. 

Amen

6 Easter A

Peter writes, "Be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you." What does that mean? What is the hope?

6 Easter A

Transcribed from a sermon give

May 29, 2011

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

When I get ready to preach and read through the lessons for the coming Sunday, sometimes a passage, a little short something, will just jump out at me. Then I know that I have to preach about that, even if I’m not real excited about having to preach about that.

The one that stood out for me today is in the First Letter of Peter, where he says, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you.” Be ready, be ready to make a defense of the hope that is within you. As Christians we are always to be ready to make a defense of the hope within us.

Now of course the first question is what is that hope? I will get to that later in the sermon. But first of all there is the the idea that we need to be ready to respond. This doesn’t mean proselytizing. This doesn’t mean going to your neighbor and knocking on the door and insisting that they listen to you talk about God. This is when someone approaches you, and questions you, and asks, because if a person is asking “Why are you going to church? Why do you waste your Sunday morning at church? You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?” If they bring it up. If they ask you, that means that they are thinking about it and that means there is some part of them that really does want to know and understand. That is an opening and an opportunity to proclaim the hope that is within you.

Peter goes on and says we are to do it with gentleness and sensitivity. We have the perfect example of that in Paul in this reading from Acts. Here Paul is in Athens. Athens at that time was the center, or at least they liked to think of themselves as the center, of intellectual exploration. There wasn’t any TV. There weren’t any reality shows, so entertainment was going to the town square and listening to people talk about philosophy. Sounds like not entertainment for us, but for the Athenians that was the most exciting thing they could do. And there would be debates. And any time someone came through town that was a teacher, speaker, or well known in any way everyone was excited to hear what they would have to say.

A crowd had gathered to hear what it was that Paul was going to say. Notice how he begins. He begins by having observed and listened to the people he is going to be talking to. He begins with where they are by saying, “I was walking around your town and you guys are really very religious people.” He complimented his audience. It is always nice to do that. And he said I notice that you had a shrine to an unknown god. Well we know who that god is. God is not unknown to us. Then he quotes one of their own poets, Aratus, by saying "God is him in whom we live and move and have our being." It is a wonderful way to describe the creator, the source and foundation of all. The one in whom we live and move and have our being. He started with where the people were.

So if someone asks you about your hope or your belief, listen to them. Start with where they are. For example, when I go a party or a reception or a place where I am meeting somebody outside the church and they hear that I am a priest I get one of two reactions. The first is, "Gee I’m really sorry I haven’t been to church in a long time." I don’t know this person. Why should I care that they haven’t been to church? That’s their issue.

The second is “Well I don’t believe in God.” If they look like they really want to have a conversation I’ll say, “Well what is the God like that you don’t believe in?” And then they’ll begin describing the God they don’t believe in, “I don’t believe that there is some male with a big white beard up in heaven who is looking down at us and if we ask them we’ll get what we want if we are good and if we are bad we get coal.” And I’ll say, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus either.” The God they don’t believe in I don’t believe in either. Then I can begin to start talking about the God I do believe in. The God that has created - the source of everything. If it is a scientist you can talk about recent physics that suggests the complexity and interrelationship of the world. And if they love nature you can talk about the beauty of the creation. This God in whom we live and move and have our being.

So when we have the opportunity to defend the hope that is within us, what do we say? We are as Christians supposed to be prepared to give a response. The first thing in order to give a response is to have spent some time and thought and prayer and reflection on just what is this hope? Notice Peter is not saying be ready to quote scripture at them. And he doesn’t say be ready to recite the creed at them. It doesn’t say be ready to know all the rules. It says be ready to defend the hope that is within you. It is all about our hope. What is that hope that brings us to a church on Sunday morning? What is that hope?

It is Easter time and we have been celebrating the resurrection. Is the hope based on that? Is it the hope that we will continue to have life after our death? Is it a hope in the presence of Christ right now? Is it a hope in the future second coming, when Christ will come and heaven and earth will all be renewed? What is your hope? Is it a hope that life is not meaningless, that there is some kind of purpose? Or perhaps you are here today because you are feeling hopeless. Your job Is a mess or you lost your job. Your relationship is a mess. Money is running out. Everything is falling apart and you are feeling hopeless and you come to church with a glimmer of hope that there will be something said or something happen, or something that you will experience that will give you a glimmer of hope. Or perhaps you have come to church because you don’t believe but your spouse does. Thank you for being here. Perhaps there is the hope that it will strengthen that relationship. Or maybe you are here for your children because you know that Sunday school will help them develop a foundation. It is a hope for the future, for your children. What is the hope? What are you hoping for?

When I try to describe my hope it is about a relationship. My hope is based on a relationship with Christ. It is based on a relationship of love. It is based on an experience of the presence of Christ, the experience of the presence of love. And that is what the Gospel is all about, that relationship. The Gospel reading today where Jesus says to his disciples, I won’t leave you orphaned. I have a relationship with you that will continue. And I’ll send the Holy Spirit to be with you so that the love we have for one another will continue.

Then he gets into that rather complex language that John’s Gospel uses, where Jesus says that if you love me you are in me and I am in the father and the father is in you and it gets all this kind of complicated language and long complex sentences that when you sit down and you try to read you kind of read half way through the sentence and have to go back to the beginning to figure out just who… But the point of all that is relationship. A relationship of love. A relationship of support. And it is that relationship of love, that promise of the Holy spirit, that promise of God’s spirit being with us, strengthening us, leading us teaching us, loving us, surrounding us, caring for us. It is that relationship that is the foundation of our hope.

I also love the prayer for today, the first prayer, the collect that is at the beginning of the readings. You may not have been paying attention at the beginning of the service. It is a wonderful prayer.

Oh God you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding. Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire.

The hope is the promise for something that is beyond all that we can desire - that what the future holds is more magnificent then any of us can even imagine. It is not sitting around on clouds playing a harp, it is not something up there, it is something more, it is something grander, it is something more profound and it is based on a relationship of love. The love we have for God and the love that God has for us that was shown in Christ and proved through his resurrection. That is the hope within us that we need to be ready to defend.

6 Easter Sermon

Here's a sermon I gave back in 1996 that considers what it means to abide in Christ and to bear fruit. Hope you find it interesting.

Sermon - Easter 6 - A

Given at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Brentwood CA

By Rev. Valerie Hart

May 12, 1996

         What beautiful and comforting words “Abide in me as I abide in you.” What a wonderful relationship we have with Christ, abiding in his love. How incredible to let ourselves experience abiding in that love. And Christ tells us that He is the vine, the source of nurturance, of food and water, of all that is necessary for the branch to grow and bear fruit. And we are the branches. We are fed by Him, nourished by him. An infinite source of love and support. How incredible, how comforting, what security. To abide in his love, to be nurtured as the vine nurtures the branch.

         Julian of Norwich, the 14th century Anglican mystic who we heard about on Monday night compares Christ’s love to mother love. Just as a mother holds us and supports us, so Christ surrounds and supports us. Just as before birth the baby is totally and physically abiding in the mother, so we abide in Christ. Just as the mother supplies all the newborn infants needs, we as the branches on the vine receive all that we need from God through Christ. Or as Paul puts it, “In him we live and move and have our being.”

         Such a sense of love and support. This God of ours, through Christ, holds us, nurtures us as a mother would. This relationship is one of total love and giving on the part of God. Jesus even says,  “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” What comforting words. What Good News, to know that we are so totally and completely loved and supported. Such courage and strength it gives us, to know, as Julian said, “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” This passage from John is one of the most supportive and beautiful in the Bible.

         And there is another theme that is also entwined in this passage. Along with the nurture and support there is the theme of bearing fruit. Not only are we to abide in Christ as the branch abides in the vine, but we are also called to bear fruit.

         When my mother was in town a few weeks ago, we went to visit her relatives in Cloverdale. She told me of when she was a girl traveling across country in the train to visit her grandfather, my great grandfather, who owned vineyards in the area. She told of helping them one day to graft new shoots onto the vines. The roots were strong and sturdy, and the grower would choose shoots that he felt would eventually bear fruit. When the shoots were first grafted on, they were carefully cared for, to make sure that they could take hold. And sometimes it would be several years before the shoots would actually bear fruit. There was a sense of faith that it would take hold and bear fruit. That it was worth all the effort and support and care at the beginning, for the fruit that would eventually arise.

         In the same way, little is expected of us when we first come to Christ. We are like small shoots grafted onto the root. The first step is for the shoot to take hold, to develop the relationship with the vine that is necessary for the branch to be nurtured and supported. But eventually, any healthy branch will bear fruit.

         What would it mean to bear fruit as a follower of Christ? Let’s see, all fruits have within them a seed. And that seed is surround by beautiful, rich, luscious fruit that is bursting with nourishing pulp that makes it attractive to people, so that they will eat of it, enjoy it, be fed, and nurtured with the hope that the seed will take hold somewhere. So it is with the fruit that Christ wants us to bear. We, nurtured by the love that flows from the vine, bear the fruits of joy and service to others that makes it so attractive that others want to be nourished as we are, so that seed of Christ’s abounding love can take hold in others.

         Christ never says or implies that it is enough just to receive all the gifts that he showers upon us. Always he speaks of sharing that which we have received with others. Christianity is not only about coming to church to receive support and love, but to prepare us to give support and love to others. As the Eucharist Prayer C states “Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal.” Christ is the vine, the source of everlasting nurture and love, but for a purpose, that the vine can grow, that the Kingdom of God may become more and more manifest on the earth. That all people may hear of the good news of God’s love

         We as Christians are called to go forth and share the Good News of Christ’s love. Just as a child is always loved and supported by the mother, there comes a time when it is expected that the grown up child will go out into the world and make a contribution. Make a difference in the lives of those it touches. That is part of how the child shares the love for the mother, by doing things that the mother would want to see, by becoming all that he or she can be. The cycle of parental love is complete when the children become parents themselves and love their children, sharing and expanding the love that they received.

         Jesus says, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. He implies here that we do not fully become disciples until we begin to bear fruit. The full journey to discipleship includes reaching out to others to share what we have found. And even those who bear fruit continue to be pruned continue to be encouraged to bear more. Pruning can be quite uncomfortable sometimes. We continue to be stretched and tested and pushed to give more to share more, to love more.

         We can also think of the individual churches as branches on the one vine of the body of Christ. Always they must abide in Christ, they cannot bear fruit unless they abide in the love of Christ. Each church gets its strength and its nurture from the one vine. And each is expected to bear fruit. To plant seeds of Christ’s love in others. To serve the less fortunate, to speak the Good News, to work toward the expansion of the kingdom.

         Today St. Alban’s is at a crossroads. We have many buds developing toward mature fruit. We have individuals who want to truly expand our ministry to the community. One would like to start a program of lunches for the elderly of our neighborhood; another wants to develop a grant to work with middle school students after school. We have an enthusiastic leader for our Sunday School program who is ready and willing to develop a program to not only serve our own children, but also bring other youngster to the love of Christ. We are in an area that is growing at an incredible rate. There are so many people who need to hear Christ’s message of love. There are so many people who are in need of our love. People who are lonely, left behind by the system. People who do not feel connected to any vine, people who desperately need nurture and love. There is so much potential for the Episcopal Church in this area. There is so much we can do together. People are hungry for the fruits that we can share. It is an exciting time to be part of the church in Brentwood. There is so much that I feel, and others in the congregation feel, Christ is calling us to be, to become.

         And we are at a crisis point. As you may remember, in January the Bishop’s Committee presented a budget to the congregation that was a deficit budget. It was clear that either additional pledging or fund raising would be essential this year. Well, our deficit is catching up with us, and unlike the federal government, we can’t just issue more money. I’ll leave it to the Bishop’s Committee members to share the details, but financially we are at a crisis point.

         In Chinese the character for crisis is the same as the character for opportunity. Within each crisis lies opportunity. St. Alban’s now has the opportunity to really consider together what our vision is and how we are to achieve it. We are being asked to bear fruit. We are being asked, for each of us individually as well as collectively, to consider what our commitment is to doing the work of Christ in the Delta.

         On the surface this looks to be a financial issue, but in actuality it is a spiritual issue. (Leave it to your priest to see the spiritual side of everything.). We have talked of stewardship, of time, talent and treasure. There are many here who give deeply of all three, but right now we are confronted with the need to give more. Are we ready to make supporting the work of Christ our first priority? Do we give of our first fruits? Or do we give of what’s left over. Do pay all the other bills first and then consider what we can do for the church, or have we made a pledge based on a percentage of our income that we pay as our first bill each month.

         I know, as do the members of the bishop’s committee, that none of us have a lot left over at the end of the month - most of us don’t have anything left after we pay all our bills. We are all trying to live in an expensive part of the world, struggling to make ends meet. That is the financial perspective. But from the spiritual perspective, we are nurtured by the great endless vine who has promised that when we abide in Him and His words abide in us we will get what we need. When we feel drained, burned out by giving of our time, stretched in the giving of our treasure must remember that we have the infinite endless source to drink from. If the branch looked only at what it had it would never dare to bear fruit, because then it would run out of moisture, but the branch does not, can not, live on its own. It receives from the vine more than enough moisture to live and to bear abundant fruit. We need to look not at our own limited resources, but at the great abundance of the creator in whom we live and move and have our being. We then realize that we can bear fruit, and more fruit, and bear it abundantly and rather than feeling drained we will feel even more abundantly nourished.