All Up, All In

6 May 2018 – 6^th Sunday of Easter

Acts 10:44-48; John 15:9-17

“I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”  John 15:17

What does our Lord mean by saying His commands are given “so [we] may love one another”?  Does He suggest that without these commands, we are incapable of love?  Or that without His commands we may lack a willingness to love “as He has loved us”?  Does it even matter whether we are willing just so long as we do it … which is, of course, another way of asking if it matters whether our hearts are really in it?

Attitude is everything, of course, and a good attitude makes any task bearable, no matter how mundane or difficult the task – like loving someone we don’t even like.  The trick is to understand and appreciate every task in a positive light as something needed, something that serves a greater purpose beyond the task itself, as something that matters not to ourselves but to others.  Because this cannot be emphasized enough: the kind of love Jesus is referring to is not subject to how we may be feeling at any given time, and it is absolutely not subject to our cultural standards.

There is even more to what Jesus is talking about.  Doing for the sake of doing because the work needs to be done is important, but often our challenge is in finding real joy in what we do – not only for the sake of personal satisfaction in the “abundant life” Jesus offers but for the joy of knowing we enhance our Holy Father’s reputation among those who may question His goodness, His mercy.  Just as importantly, so we may experience Divine Love ourselves because we all need that affirmation.

There are too many quests for “personal” in religion anymore to the point of rendering the Church meaningless, truly irrelevant, and only an afterthought.  We often miss altogether our need to live, to work, and to love in community with one another.  Too much “personal”, too much “me first, me only”, too much in expectations of joy falling into our laps rather than seeking it out is all very subjective.  We miss the universal element, meaning love for one (even for oneself) must be love for all – or it cannot be said to have come from The Lord.

The “circumcised believers” who were with Peter (probably meaning the Jews) were “astounded” to learn that The Holy Spirit visited even the Gentiles (Acts 10:45). Peter himself was equally astounded about the vision he had experienced prior to his meeting with Cornelius and the other Gentiles.  The killing and eating of that which is, by The Word, “unclean” was reprehensible to him only because he thought the vision was about “food”, about what is applicable only to himself and what he can or cannot do, what he can or cannot eat.

Yet when Peter put together the experience of the vision and the Gentiles who would summon him to preach the Good News, suddenly what Peter had experienced in the vision was not at all about food, not at all about himself.  “I understand now that our Lord does not show partiality”.  That is, He does not love one more than another, He does not favor any group over another, and He does not recognize our “personal” sense of religion or faith, our sense of right and wrong, our sense of good vs. evil, our sense of “love” outside of His “commands”.

Our feelings, our moods, how we choose to experience and express “love” are all subjective outside the “commands” of The Lord.  We may say aloud how much we love Jesus, but we overlook Jesus’ “commands” within the context of the kind of love He is referring to; loving one another when we don’t even like them.  Expressing to them the depth of the sacred value The Lord attaches to them even when we cannot find that value ourselves.  And in so doing, finding within ourselves that very Love coming from the One who perfected love at Calvary.

It is not always easy, but I think there is an element of understanding what Jesus means when He teaches us to avoid the “easy path”, the path of least resistance, the path with fewer challenges, fewer obstacles – because the Truth is that “easy path” is far more dangerous than we can possibly realize, comfortable though it may seem. 

The danger lies in the deception that the abundant life found only in Christ, that abundant life hijacked by the so-called “prosperity gospel”, is marked by material wealth and feel-good notions of faith that are incompatible with Scripture.  Living in ignorance of what the Scriptures teach is not the answer nor can the answers be found when we choose to interpret the Scriptures independent of over 2000 years of apostolic revelation and interpretation.

If we are going to be “all up, all in” for the sake of Divine Love within the context of Divine “commands”, it must first begin with trust; trusting The Lord not only for the sake of “going to heaven” but also trusting that our Lord knows what He’s talking about in the here-and-now.  If we withhold The Lord’s love from anyone for any reason, we are effectively stating we do not trust Jesus, we do not trust The Word.  We trust only our instincts and our own feelings.

What if our Lord had not been “all up, all in”?  What if our Shepherd had trusted His own feelings, His own fears, and simply walked away rather than to allow Himself to be arrested, beaten to within an inch of His life, and hung on a cross until dead?  What if our Lord had said, “I’m just not feelin’ it today for these jerks who are just going to abandon Me anyway”?  What if our Lord had embraced the cheap notion of religion we have created for ourselves – that if our God loved us, really loved us, He would not ask so much of us?

But He didn’t.  “I am giving you these commands so you may love one another … as I have loved you”.  It is the depth of Love He has even for those we cannot stand, the very ones for whom Christ died, the very ones upon whom the Holy Spirit fell.

“Christ has died.  Christ has risen, and Christ will come again”.  For you, for me, and even for them.  To the glory of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Must We Really?

Today is the nationally designated Day of Prayer (established in 1952 by President Truman, not the Holy Scriptures), and I've been asked before why I don't actively participate. While I don't go out of my way to avoid NDP, I have a hard time fully embracing it.

Every Sabbath (Saturday) is a day of prayer. Every Day of The Lord (Sunday) is a day of prayer; these days established by The Lord and by the early Church, respectively, to devote to worship, prayer, The Word, and the Sacraments. Each of these is devoted to the community of faith coming together to give thanks for the past week and to pray and to prepare for the week ahead.

As I continue to develop into my role in the Church as a pastor as well as a disciple of Christ and seek to become more actively engaged in The Way (as we all must), I become less concerned about gathering for prayer only because the president or the governor has declared it. I agree the nation must always seek ways to come together, but the faithful must first find it within themselves to worship The Lord deliberately, purposefully, and with holy intentions.

I do not discourage NDP. Any opportunity to engage the secular within the holy narrative is a worthwhile endeavor - until "what is holy is thrown to the dogs" and eventually loses any real meaning.

I do pray The Lord will deliver this nation, but the "leadership" from Washington DC cannot ask for or expect a national day of prayer to have any real impact while they actively seek ways to destroy those with whom they disagree and continue to deceive those whom they claim to represent. This unholy conduct, unfortunately, is not limited to Washington DC.

It bleeds into the Church which, in too many instances, has become more concerned with political action and social justice than with Her standing before The Lord. Not to impugn social justice, but often it seems to be that our sense of social justice is highly subjective, with no real shared value, and not based strictly on The Word which requires we look out for one another. Social justice, then, becomes a "god" unto itself, and prayer becomes self-serving only to that end.

Will The Lord hear a collective prayer nationally designated? Only The Lord knows. Prayer is never a wasted effort nor an empty gesture - unless we are seeking "our will be done" rather than His. Then, as The Word seems to infer, will our prayers fall on deaf Ears.

It is often said, "As the Church goes, so goes the nation". I might ask, then, how're we doin' so far? Until the Church finds Her way according to The Way, until the Church takes its role as spiritual leader to the nation seriously, we will continue to be lead by the nose according to the whims of "Caesar".

Looking at the state of this nation, I suggest we "seek The Lord while He may be found". Then may we expect our prayers to be heard ... and answered.