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6th SUNDAY OF EASTER
On the Julian calendar, today is Memorial Day weekend, a template of national
remembrance for our military dead that is superimposed over the Church’s Easter
rhythm. We have followed the Church’s calendar of events as it follows the growth of
the Church in Luke-Acts and the words from Jesus and an early Christian disciple that tell
us to "love one another." War and love do not make for peace in the context of
worship, nor should they. You may feel more tension on this Memorial Day weekend in the
face of returning troops and victory in Iraq fed by wild patriotism than in other years,
yet the words of peace and love will be sounded from our faith communities. Living within
the tension may, in fact, be the best sermon you could preach on this Memorial Day.
Acts 10:44-48-God Does It Again . . . and Again . . . and Again . . .
Luke closes the "Caesarean Pentecost" with dramatic flair. Peter’s
proclamation has recited the essential Christian beliefs about Jesus-his ministry of
wholeness, his death, resurrection and the concomitant witnesses to his resurrection, and
the message entrusted to the apostles to accompany their mission to the world-to the Jews
first, and also to the Greeks. The response to Peter’s words forms our lesson for
this Sunday. What occurs as an interruption to Peter’s sermon, comes to them
externally as on the Day of Pentecost: the gift of the Holy Spirit comes to the Gentiles
followed by the same kinds of evidences that also occurred at the Jerusalem Pentecost.
Peter requests baptism for these new Christians and the Petrine missioners remain for a
time with the neophyte Caesarian believers.
1 John 5:1-6-Loving, Believing, Obeying
1 John 4 begins with a criterion for being a Christian: those who love one another
(4:1); in today’s lesson (5:1-7) John says everyone who believes is a child of God
(5:1). In this short passage and in ever widening circles of ideas, we encounter several
implications of what such believing includes: a corollary belief in Jesus as the Christ
will also extend to a love for other Christians; such belief will be reflected in obeying
God’s commands; and at the core of such belief in Jesus who is the overcoming
Christ-Messiah is an empowerment that will enable believers to overcome the world.
John 15:9-17-This is My Commandment
Clearly, this is one of the places where lies great similarities between our epistle
and the gospel lesson. As in the epistle lesson so here, the writer portrays the
Christ-Messiah as speaking about being loved by the Father and the Son. Thus so-loved, the
Christ-follower also is called to "love one another" (15:12). Love then
translates into obedience and service, even to the yielding up of one’s life on the
behalf of others. Such a loving, giving life is not selected from the suit rack at the
whim of personal choice, but the reverse-Christ chooses us to flourish and to be
successful in our calling. The gospel lesson closes with the theme that pervades the
passage: "This is my commandment to you: love one another" (15:17).
