A Sermon preached on Easter VI, May 9, 2021 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden and St. Christoph, Mainz
Acts 10:44-48, 1 John 5:1-6, John 15:9-17
Some years ago, there was a UK TV comedy series called “men behaving badly.” And Church history has sometimes also been described as the story of Christians behaving badly. That is a comedic oversimplification of course. Church history is full of good people and behaviour, of self-sacrifice, of acts of love, of people inspired by their faith to fight for peace and justice: abolishing slavery and child labour to name two examples. But bad things have happened too. The crusades, Christians persecuting other Christians, or forced conversions by the sword and mass baptisms such as those that followed some of Charlemagne's early campaigns are just some examples. They are the reason one of the Solemn Collects on Good Friday is a prayer for “all who have not received the Gospel of Christ” that includes “those who in the name of Christ have persecuted others.” Because if they received the Gospel, they sure did not show it!
But what we heard in this and in last week’s readings from Acts is a very different kind of forced baptism. No one forced the Ethiopian Eunuch we heard about in last week’s Acts’ episode to be baptised, no one forced Cornelius and his household to be baptised in today’s extract. If anything, they almost had to force or at least persuade the church leaders to baptise them. Our friend from Ethiopia is recorded as saying: “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” And this week Peter says, "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people - who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" Why would anyone want to prevent or withhold? Well, “these people” were gentiles, Cornelius was even a Roman centurion, and the very early church was still strictly focused on the people of Israel, which is why “the circumcised (i.e., Jewish) believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.” (Acts 10:45) They might even have been a bit upset or annoyed. But as Jesus said to Nicodemus (John 3:8) “The wind or spirit blows where it chooses,” which is not always where the established leadership thinks the spirit should go. And the Holy Spirit was active in both cases. It “fell upon all who heard the word” (Acts 10:44) and it worked through Philip inspiring him, when he explained and expounded scripture to the Ethiopian Eunuch. What compelled them all to be baptised was not human force but the Holy Spirit and a compelling faith story.
The original sin of the Church has always been force and power, whether we used them to try and exclude people on the basis of their ethnicity, nationality, gender or sexual orientation, or whether we used them to forcibly include people or to make them believe the “right thing.” Both are wrong. We may pray to God that “the whole earth also worship you, all nations obey you, all tongues confess and bless you, and men and women everywhere love you and serve you in peace,”[1] but we do not achieve that by any form of compulsion, only by spreading God’s word and by the example we set and show.
If that is the case, why is Jesus commanding love? In George Orwell’s book 1984, Big Brother orders his subjects to love him, and it is the “Ministry of Love” that identifies, monitors, arrests and converts real and imagined dissidents until love for Big Brother and the Party replaces dissension. Sadly, in far too many countries around the world this model is still being practiced today. But it is not our model.
In our Gospel extract Jesus tells his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) Yes, Jesus commands them to love, but you will note, not him. His commandment is that they, the disciples, should love one another following Jesus’ example. And his example is that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (15:13) He will do the greatest thing that love can do and allow himself to be executed for his friends, and for us all. This is what the John of the today’s Epistle means when he says that Jesus came by water – when the Spirit descended on him at his Baptism – and blood – the crucifixion. As Paul writes to the Corinthians: “We proclaim Christ crucified.” (1 Cor. 1:23)
Jesus creates a context in which loving him, loving God is unavoidable, because it is a compelling vision. Jesus’ “command to love is given by one who has himself done everything that love can do.”[2] “I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father,” (John 15:15) Jesus says. And all of his teaching about God, about how God loves him, about how God “so loved the world that he gave his only son,” (John 3:16) is backed up by his behaviour, by his actions. He heals, he feeds, he serves, he gives life, he gives up his own life for us. No one has greater love than this. In the words of our Collect today, he pours love into our hearts. Jesus does not command us to love him, you cannot command an emotion, but to abide in his love. “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” (John 15:10) To abide means to dwell in, to rest in, by sharing in his love and in his life. By doing so, we conform our lives to the very pattern of God's own life, just as Jesus did. It will feel compelling, because it is what we were created for.
We have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit – remember at the very beginning of this chapter Jesus had described himself as the true vine and us as the branches. Jesus is saying we have been chosen and appointed to go and manifest the life of God. God is love and so the main expression of this fruit is the love we show, within the Christian community and to the world into which the disciples were sent and we are being sent. God’s love came into the world in Jesus, it remained in the world in the community of his friends when they abided in his love. If we really want the whole earth to worship and obey God, and all tongues to confess and bless the Lord, and all people to love God and one another, then we need to present a compelling vision of love and an authentic life lived in love as a witness to God’s love.
Amen.
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