A Sermon preached on Easter V, May 15, 2022, at St. Augustine’s
Acts 11:1-18, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35
And God said, “See, I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5) All three readings today are about new things: A new understanding of the law and a new definition of who belongs in Acts, John of Patmos’ vision of God making a new heaven and a new earth in Revelation, and Jesus’ new commandment in John,
Do we always like new things? New sounds like potential and opportunity, but also like change and the unknown. New could threaten my position, new means I must learn new things, new means that my skills may no longer be needed. It’s no wonder therefore that many people react to new things, new ideas, new technologies, and yes also new people with scepticism or resistance. And no, new is not necessarily always good.
We’re seeing some of that reaction in Acts. The “circumcised believers” - Jewish Christians – criticise Peter for his innovation of sharing a meal with gentiles, of eating food that was not kosher with people who were considered ritually unclean. This threw everything they had believed into question; it was very troubling. Sure, we are willing to accept new people, but only on our terms! Peter’s vision, and this is clearly something very important, as this is the second time that we hear this recounted within just a few pages, shows that it was not his clever idea, but that he was completely guided by God. It was not his new thing, but God’s new thing: “Who was I that I could hinder God?” he says.
This new thing was definitely a good thing. God removes the barriers that had been put in the way of a relationship with God and with one another. All you have to do is to desire to be in relationship with God and to believe. In this Peter was also just following Jesus’ lead, look at the company he kept, look at the people he was willing to consort with, converse with and eat with! Sinners, tax collectors, gentiles and even women!
From Peter’s vision of a better present, we turn to John of Patmos’ vision of a better future. Is this new thing a good thing? Is the current world so bad? It’s also God’s creation and according to Genesis, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) It is, but it is still finite and tainted by the effects of human sin. Much of the suffering and death in the world is caused by us, as we are seeing right now in Ukraine. And so, God promises a new creation and it sounds very good. “God will dwell with his peoples; Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” (Rev. 21:3-4)
But John’s vision is not just of a better future, it is a vision of the present. We believe that God already dwelt among us as Jesus. We believe that God dwells in the world and in as the Holy Spirit. Heaven and earth have been reconnected on the Cross. We believe that death already has been overcome in the resurrection. And we have already begun to create that new heaven and new earth or the kingdom of heaven, as it is sometimes called, even since Jesus lived among us. It won’t be perfect and complete until the end that John describes, but death has already lost its sting.
What connects Peter’s and John’s vision is Jesus’ new commandment at the last supper: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) The commandment to love – God, your neighbour and yourself – is not new of course. In the other gospels Jesus refers to it as the Great Commandment and it is based on passages in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The new element here is the depth and type of love: “As I have loved you.” That means it is unconditional, unlimited, unrestricted and profoundly sacrificial.
There’s a lovely song based on this passage – not in our hymn books sadly:
We Are One In The Spirit
We Are One In The Lord
And We Pray That All Unity
May One Day Be Restored
And They’ll Know We Are
Christians By Our Love, By Our Love;
Yes, They’ll Know We Are Christians
By Our Love!
There’s the problem of course, there’s one reason why we are still a long way from the new heaven and new earth. Tom Wright writes: “As we read verse 35, we are bound to cringe with shame at the way in which professing Christians have treated each other down the years. We have turned the gospel into a weapon …. We have defined the ‘one another’ so tightly’ that it means ‘love the people who reinforce your own sense of who you are.’”[1] Or put more simply, love the people who are just like you. Just like the circumcised believers in Acts. Just like Patriarch Kyrill who seems to limit his Christianity solely to members of his own Russian Orthodox church. Just like those who limit their duty to love to those of the same colour, political belief, or sexual orientation.
Yet Jesus’ new commandment is not impossible. In the early church people really did know that “We Are Christians By Our Love.” Tertullian, a Roman theologian and Church Father from Carthage who lived ca AD 160–225 wrote that pagans were struck by the witness of Christian love. “See how they love one another!” they would remark. It is not impossible. Sure, we can’t do it alone. We need God and we need one another, as the song goes on to say:
“We Will Walk With Each Other. We Will Walk Hand In Hand. And Together We Will Spread The News, That God Is In Our Land” and “We Will Work With Each Other. We Will Work Side By Side.”
Everything follows from love, agape, the love of God for us and of us for God, a universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. Nothing matters as much as loving people in real, tangible, self-sacrificing ways. They can be very small, calling people who live alone, really listening when people speak to you, expressing condolences when someone is grieving, helping those in need, especially those now fleeing from war, conflict and extreme poverty. If you do this, you are as much a martyr – which originally just meant witness – as those who gave their lives. A lifetime of little acts of love reflects the life of God. The people we touch will have a much easier time believing that God will wipe away every tear if they’ve felt God’s love through us. Yes, They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love!
Amen.
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