Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 5/7/2023, Easter 5
Lessons: John 14:1-14
Many years ago, a luxury ocean liner was voyaging across the sea when tragedy struck, and the ship began to sink, leaving its many passengers to fend for themselves aboard lifeboats.
As the days went by and the rations began to diminish, on one particular lifeboat where an elderly couple was doing the best they could to survive, each was given the day's rations when it was observed that the wife was giving her ration to her husband.
"Why are you doing that?" She was asked, “Don't you want to stay alive?”
To which she responded quite resolutely, saying, “My husband and I have been married for 50 years, this voyage was to memorialize our anniversary, and one thing we've learned in all these decades of marriage is that the point of life is not to stay alive, it's to stay in love.”
The point of life is not to stay alive, but to stay in love.
Without love, writes St. Paul - "I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
"And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge.
"And if I have all faith so as to remove mountains…
“[And] If I give away all my possessions“ and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,
"but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
The essence of life and the source of all universal energy, it has been argued, is love.
God is love.
Love in action is God's son, Jesus Christ.
This is who we meet in this morning's gospel for, what may be for you, a life-changing message in love, oh yes, love is at work here this morning, as we have come to realize how important it is to go through our lives walking in love.
Maybe, in the past week, we’ve just been beat up and spit out by a world that is unfair, unjust, unruly, and unpredictable. Maybe we’ve tried retribution, aggression, avoidance, and cut-off -
And maybe today is the day we come back to the realization of that biblical truth uttered so concisely and authentically by Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, ’the only way to make an enemy into a friend is through love.’
The point of life is not to stay alive, but to stay in love.
Yes, loving is hard - loving the unlovable is near impossible.
But if Jesus showed us anything it’s how to do the impossible.
Which is why so many of us lovers are here to grow in love.
Yes, that’s what you are - lovers- Writer Tim Shriver says,
"We were made to fall in love.
"We were made to fall in love with other people, with ourselves, with all things.
"Our greatest duty and highest calling is to yield to that love."
Many of us have come here wanting to yield more completely to love - I have - wanting to experience, give, share, be more deeply rooted and grounded and motivated and guided by love.
We suspect that’s what the early disciples who gathered around Jesus wanted as well - those clueless disciples, which, of course, are just like you and me…
The 4-year-old asked his mother the other day if God had a car.
“Why not?” said mom.
“Then what color is it?” the boy asked.
“Probably all the colors.” Mom said.
“Oh! That’s great!" said the boy, "God drives a rainbow car!”
Sound logic, but it lacks common sense - which we see mimicked by these disciples - as they are talking with Jesus on the eve of his arrest, torture, and death.
This morning’s Gospel reading is from the 14th chapter of John -
One chapter previous, in the 13th chapter, we hear Jesus saying, ‘I am going, and where I am going you cannot come.’
This is not received well.
Who wants to see the momma bird leave the nest when the chicks still can’t fly?
Peter tries to talk him out of it.
Then these disciples still don’t have a grasp on things - and don’t feel comfortable hearing their leader saying they’ll soon be on their own… I get it!
Years ago, when I was newly ordained, my mentor, Mother Joy Rogers, left for an extended summer vacation - and put me, her very-green associate priest, in charge. It happened to be the summer of that historic General Convention when the Episcopal Church would formally approve the election of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church - and, for that matter, any large mainline church.
That summer, this Convention was all over the news.
Everyone was talking about it.
And it would send shock-waves through the church - causing division and disagreement -
As my rector packed her bags, and I had a nagging sense of impending trouble, it’s as if she was telling me, ‘I am going, and where I am going you cannot come!’ - which I received about as well as the disciples - causing my rector to mimic Jesus -
Oh Fr. Chris - “Do not let your heart be troubled.”
To which I immediately thought - “Easy for you to say…” You’re leaving!
Like the travel agent who just sold you the ticket on the Titanic,
“You’ll love it! It’s the safest ship ever built!”
And the disciples didn’t get it - even though they’ve heard him say, countless times, that he and the Father are one - That the Father leads and guides him
That He only says things that please the Father -
That there is nothing to worry about because they belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.
But they would eventually get it - and so do you and I -
We understand that we must believe in God and believe also in Christ.
The point of life is not to stay alive, but to stay in love.
Jesus wants them to stay in love - by dwelling with them.
Years ago, when my mother, who had a keen interest in homes and design, would ask me, every time I would have a new home, where my favorite 3’ x 3’ spot in the house was:
Was it on the cushion of a bay window?
In an easy chair?
On a sofa across from a fire?
What was that one place I’d cuddle up with a book or sit to pray and contemplate with ease and in complete comfort?
For in the Father’s house there are many dwelling places - which is an intimate question about where you and I feel most comfortable with God - where we connect with God - where we are at home with God.
Where and how do you find that intimate link with the Almighty?
What helps you see and be seen?
Know, and be known?
It’s a challenge in this passage about how we dwell, most completely, in that special place -
That special place of closeness with God.
What’s that look like for you?
Where is that place of love - where you are energized, replenished, and refreshed?
How do we spend more time there?
The point of life is not to stay alive, but to stay in love.
Friends, now, more than ever, this world needs lovers.
We have division in Israel.
We have war in Ukraine.
We have deadly tension in Sudan.
We have complete anarchy in Haiti.
We have a government that wants to balance the budget off the backs of the poor - not working to collect taxes from those who have enough - but by cutting benefits to those who have too little.
Where’s the love?
How do we bring it - into our public lives - into our personal lives?
"How can we know the way?” St Thomas asked, as we do as well:
"Love is the way, Love is the truth, Love is the life.
"No one comes to the Father except through Love.
"If you know Love, you will know the Father also.
"From now on you do know love and have seen love."
Frustrated, dear Phillip asks, ‘Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied!’
And Jesus says ’The Father has been with you the whole time - you just don’t recognize him!’
Last June a 90-year-old widow left her London bungalow for the last time - to take up residence in a nursing home. Her children, clearing out the contents of her home, decided that a much-admired painting that had hung in mom's bedroom for decades might be worth having evaluated by an auction house - they were raising money to help pay for mom’s new digs - and every penny would help.
We can all imagine the surprise when the auction house declared the painting an original Filipino Lippi - and valued it at $321,000.
It makes us wonder about the valuable things we have - that we just don’t realize we have.
Jesus seems to think it’s the presence and power of God’s love - around us and in us.
Had this widow known more about Italian Renaissance painters - she’d have been rich.
How wealthy we become as we learn more and more about God’s love - our inheritance, our greatest possession!
Friends, every human person is a unique creation of love.
Every human person has an irreplaceable function within God’s glorious plan of love.
There is no such thing as competition - it is senseless to compare one gift with another - for neither is better - both are irreplaceable.
We live in a world bound and determined to convince us that things are more important than people - That the things we can see are more important than the things we can’t -
He who has the most toys wins -
He who lives the longest gets the prize.
And we know, as environmental scientist Donella Meadows articulates, that people don't need enormous cars; they need admiration and respect.
They don't need a constant stream of new clothes; they need to feel that others consider them to be attractive, and they'll need excitement and variety and beauty.
People don't need electronic entertainment; they need something interesting to occupy their minds and emotions. And so forth.
"Trying to fill real but nonmaterial needs - for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy - with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to never-satisfied longings.
"A society that allows itself to admit and articulate its nonmaterial human needs, and to find nonmaterial ways to satisfy them, would require much lower material and energy throughputs and would provide much higher levels of human fulfillment."
Yes, we know better.
It’s not the unexamined life that’s not worth living - to paraphrase Socrates - as if attentiveness were the most important thing - No, it’s the life void of love that’s hardest to work through.
That’s why you and I strive to be a people of love - and we strive to be a community of love.
The point of life is not to stay alive, but to stay in love.
Let this love, God's love, around us and in us, be our life pursuit.
Amen.