6 Easter B May 9, 2021
Acts 10:44-48 Ps. 33:1-8,18-22
1 John 4:7-21 John 15:9-17
The Gospel of John presents Jesus in the most ideal parent-child relationship. In fact, Jesus, in the Gospel of John is proposing that we know ourselves as children of God and experience this ideal relationship to God.
A happy Mother's Day to all mothers today and we offer thanksgiving to the only person in whom we ever literally lived.
Jesus said: Abide in me. Our birth mothers did not have to say that to us; we were in them from our beginnings.
In our Gospel today, Jesus clarifies what he meant by the notion of abiding in him. Abide in my love as I abide in my Father's love.
Obviously we were doubled blessed by literally abiding in our mothers from before birth and when we were born, we were blessed if we could abide in our Mother's love.
One might say the profound effect of Jesus of Nazareth is that he cast an aura of love, so profound that he created a "love environment" within which people were invited to abide and live and dwell and develop their own ability to have a love aura for the befriending of others in this world.
And that is what the church is to be today; a befriending society creating a love aura, a love environment where people can find acceptance and nurture and peace for growth into their full personhood.
In the history of the church, it is sometimes hard to find the original genius of our foundation; we were made to be a society of friends, who befriend others because of the good news about a love relationship with God.
We can note that the institutional structures of the church have often functioned, not for befriending but for separating us from each other as exclusive clubs with tight boundaries. Sometimes the boundaries have been seen in doctrinal wars between people who are Christian or other people who profess a different belief in God. Sometimes the boundaries have been ethnic and racial. Apparently colonial powers of European and American Christians were happy to convert people of color to the love of Jesus, without ever truly practicing the justice of the love of Jesus with such people. We, white people, have taken a Middle Eastern religion and made it into a "white empire" of privilege, admitting people of color as long as they did not insist on interacting with us with the same kind of privilege.
We who have been glad about the success of Gospel among people of color, need to pray for the success of the Gospel to attain the fullness of loving practice in our own communities.
Befriending is perhaps the major issue in our world today. Befriending can only happen between people who are willing to live out equality with each other. Jesus of Nazareth wanted his students to graduate, from being mere pupils and disciples with diminutive status to become full blown friends with him.
Jesus said, "I now call you friends; you have graduated because you now have become the teachers to others and I send you to befriend other people as I have befriended you. You have learned the curriculum well; the curriculum of my commandments of love."
One of the goals of motherhood is to have one's children grow up and become parents too. Once a parent, one reaches a new type of equality with one's own parent, an equality of identity.
Let us remember the graduation ceremony of Jesus for his disciples. "Peter, James and John, and the rest, I confer upon you the certificate of friendship. You are my friends, because you have learned to befriend other people to be able to find their friendship with God."
My friends, we can in the middle of being an institution with property, and lots of other baggage, forget about the core reason of why we exist. We exist to befriend each other and our world with the love of God in Christ.
Befriending happens when we cast an aura of love from God's Spirit of love which creates an environment for people to abide in the wonderful friendship community founded because of God in Christ. Let us go forth in love to befriend and heal our world trapped in broken relationships with each other and God. Amen.
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