Easter VI (RCL Cycle B)\/9 May 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Happy Easter!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today Jesus is saying \u201cfarewell\u201d to his disciples, and to us.\u00a0 This Thursday is the Feast of the Ascension.\u00a0 On that day, we will gather with the disciples on the crest of the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem and watch as Jesus vanishes from our sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In last week\u2019s Gospel, we heard Jesus tell us to abide in him in the same way he abides in the Father.\u00a0 We are instructed to live this way because this is the means by which our faith, even our lives are sustained and nurtured.\u00a0 Thus, enabling our souls to grow deeper into that mystery we call grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two questions before us this morning and in actuality they are one and the same question.\u00a0 The first is how do we live the abundant life Jesus promises?\u00a0 The second is how do we live and abide in this abundant life?\u00a0 Brother David Vyrhof of the Cowley Fathers puts it this way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why is it that we do not always experience abundant life? Perhaps it is because we do not know how to abide, how to live in union with Jesus, so that his life becomes our life, his strength our strength, his love our love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our Gospel passage today is a continuation of last week\u2019s reading (Jn. 15:1-8) from Jesus\u2019 farewell discourse to his disciples on the night before he died. Here we learn that God\u2019s love for us as followers of Christ is in turn to be embodied through love for Christ and for one another. Jesus declares, \u201cAs the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love\u201d (Jn. 15:9). Moreover, just as Jesus has been faithful in keeping the Father\u2019s commandments, his followers are to do likewise (v. 10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obedience and abiding are indistinguishable in the life of Jesus. From his Baptism, to the wilderness temptations, to healing the ill and infirm, to fraternizing with the outcast and unclean, to challenging Israel\u2019s religious leaders, and finally to giving his life at Golgotha \u2014 Jesus\u2019 life has been lived according to God\u2019s will for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such obedience, as a sign of genuine love, is also a source of great joy. Far from being oppressive, this obedience to God leads to a sense of purpose, wholeness, and fulfillment, so that believers\u2019 \u201cjoy may be complete\u201d (v. 11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are to express that Divine love by loving one another in the same way that Jesus loved us. \u201cThis is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you\u201d (v. 12; cf 13:34-35). This love is expressed by actions, not just words or feelings, and is seen most clearly in the way of self-sacrifice \u2014 in laying down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s friends (v. 13), as Jesus did for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the disciples obey Jesus\u2019 commandments and share his love, they are no longer \u201cservants\u201d \u2014 they are his \u201cfriends\u201d (vv. 14-15). The slave or servant of even the most generous master does what is commanded by necessity, because a hierarchy of authority exists between them. Now a new relationship is established based on mutual commitment and trust. This friendship is a manifestation of Jesus\u2019 steadfast love and a call to service and faithfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In acknowledging the disciples as friends, Jesus has opened to them all that the Father has given him to reveal. He has withheld nothing \u2014 they know what he knows. They now have everything required for them to be fellow workers with God for the salvation of the world. They have matured in Christ from being servants who follow orders to becoming co-working friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus goes on to make clear that their discipleship is not something they planned and executed. Jesus chose them and charged them with a purpose. John\u2019s Gospel makes no stronger statement on the call to vocation than here. Moreover, they are chosen to bear fruit that should last (v. 16) as they carry on Jesus\u2019 mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To this Jesus adds a promise. When a disciple brings his or her will into conformity with God\u2019s will, which is love, the empowerment to love will be manifested in any petition. In this obedience, there is no limitation to what God can and will do in the life of the believer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have not chosen Jesus; he has chosen us. We may never understand the reasons for God\u2019s choice. It is enough if we learn what we have been called to do: love one another and glorify the name of the Father by keeping the commandments given to us. \u201cI am giving you these commands so that you may love one another\u201d (v. 17).<\/p>\n\n\n\n These words of Jesus are echoed in today\u2019s Epistle, where we read that we are children of God by loving and obeying God\u2019s commandments: \u201cFor the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments\u201d (1 Jn. 5:3a). However, the commandments are not burdens to be borne, but are the way to life and fulfillment. Thus, the life obtained in Jesus\u2019 name is a gain over the world for all who believe. \u201cAnd this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith\u201d (v. 4b). This victory is the work of Jesus the Redeemer \u201cwho came by water and blood\u201d (v. 6a) \u2014 the water of Baptism and the blood of his death and Resurrection. The presence of the Spirit further affirms the witness of Jesus as God\u2019s Son. \u201cAnd the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth\u201d (v. 6b; cf Jn. 15:26).<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Taylor, writing in The Go-Between God states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patriarchs, prophets and kings had from time to time acted as intercessors for the people, and Moses was the supreme example of this. Yet no figure in the Bible before the appearance of Christ seems to have depended upon the habit of communion with God as Jesus did. We tend to read back into the Old Testament and into the devotional patterns of other faiths those meanings which Jesus gave to the word \u201cprayer,\u201d and so conceal the fact that what was so characteristic of Jesus is almost unique amid the formal recitations which are the commonplace of religion everywhere else, including most of the churches. Other faiths have their mystics, but only in Jesus, I believe, can we find such spontaneous and personal communion with God combined with such passionate ethical concern for humanity. Both awareness of God and awareness of the world attain their zenith in him. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then, for the first time, through the quiet tones of human speech, the sound-waves of this world were stirred by that eternal converse which is ever passing between the Father and the Son in the Being of God. And since the third person of the Trinity is himself that communion which flows between the Father and the Son, the Spirit is the very breath of the prayer of Jesus. Immersed in the Go-Between Spirit, he cried Abba! And knew himself as the Beloved Son. And pouring out that Spirit upon the openness-to-each-other of his friends he shared with them the right to use the same naively bold address: Abba![i]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the saving grace of Christ was to be offered to all \u2014 not through external circumstances, but because of the faith of believers. The message of God\u2019s love through Christ can truly be preached to the ends of the earth, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit and Baptism extended to all who hear and accept the love of God through Christ. This is indeed a \u201cmarvelous thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Living the abundant life and abiding in Jesus is both simple and difficult at the same time. All we have to do is to accept the unconditional love Jesus offers \u2013 that is the easy part. The other thing we have to do is to love our brothers and sisters unconditionally, just like Jesus, thus we abide and build what our Presiding Bishop calls \u201cThe Beloved Community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Happy Easter!<\/p>\n\n\n\n ________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n [i] John Taylor, The Go-Between God (Oxford Univ. Press, 1972), pp. 225-226<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How Do We Abide? Easter VI (RCL Cycle B)\/9 May 2021 Happy Easter! Today Jesus is saying \u201cfarewell\u201d to his disciples, and to us.\u00a0 This Thursday is the Feast of the Ascension.\u00a0 On that day, we will gather with the disciples on the crest of the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem and watch as Jesus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-father-george","category-worship-service","tag-sermon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":521,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}