A homily on John 15. 9 - 17. The Great Commandment.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Today is the 6th Sunday of Easter, called Rogation Sunday, since it precedes the three Rogation Days, the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension. These days, "days of asking," were introduced by a French bishop late in the fifth century, as days of prayer for protection from earthquakes and other disasters. The Gospel for this day used to be read from John chapter 16, in which Jesus says, "Ask and you will receive." The Rogation days were observed by fasting as well. Farmers had their crops blessed, and, in later times in England, clergy and choir would make the rounds of a parish to pray for God's protection through the coming year. This also harks back to the time when the calendar year began in the spring, at the begining of April. This circuit of the parish, along its boundaries, was called "beating the bounds." I remember seeing photos of one such event, in which, at each of the four corners of the parish, the priest held a small boy upside down by his feet, and touched his head to the earth, to mark the boundary. I don't know the origin of this custom, which is probably pre-Christian, but, in any case, I am fairly sure that we are not going to be dangling small boys by their feet, when we ask for God's blessing on the parish, and the parish garden, today! And, living as we do in a very large urban area, inhabited by millions of people, this reminder of our rootedness in the earth is essential, as is our need to ask for God's guidance and blessing as we cope with the coming changes to our climate and way of life.
Today's lectionary presents us with a very rich selection of readings: a short piece from Acts chapter 10, in which the Holy Spirit "falls upon" the Gentiles as Peter is speaking; another short selection from the First Letter of John, which the editor of the New Revised Standard Version (which we have in our pews) has titled, "Faith Conquers the World!" and, lastly, today's Gospel, from a section which the editor calls "Jesus the True Vine." Each of the readings can be the starting point for a series of talks, but I will restrict mysel to just one short talk on the Gospel for today.
"You are my friends if you do what I command you." This teaching of our Lord sounds alarmingly like what we sometimes hear from a dependent, needy person: "If you really love me, you'll do x, or you won't do y!" Probably every one of us has heard someone say something like this to us, or to someone else. Perhaps we have even said something like this ourselves.
But of course there is no petulance here, no narcissism, no manipulative, abusive remark of any kind. Rather, if we follow carefully what our Lord is saying in today's Gospel, line by line, what he is getting at will become clear. What is clear throughout, is that the love our Lord is talking about, is NOT conditional love, to be withheld if certain conditions are not met. Verse 9 in this chapter (15) says it all: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love." Recently, Fr John mentioned a 7-day retreat he endured, in which the sole topic of the retreat was the one word "abide!" I promise that I am not going to dwell on this word for that long! But I do say that this love of the Father for the Son, and the love of the Son for us, abides. It is constant, unchanging, permanent, fixed, dependable, always there, always available, ultimately eternal, whether we think that we are conscious of it or not. Somewhat oddly, I think, we are commanded (!) to abide in this love. "To abide" in this context means "to remain stable or fixed in a a state" or "to continue in place." That is, to maintain ourselves in our relationship to our Lord, to make it possible both to receive and to give the love which he is making available to us.
Jesus tells us immediately how to do this. Here is the true meaning of abiding in his love: "If you keep my commandements, you will abide in my love."
"If you keep my commandments." An old, wise archbishop, who was my first teacher in homiletics, the art of preaching, said to me, "We must never give people the idea that they haven't done enough for God!" The idea of keeping commandments, a whole, long list of them, is a great way to trip ourselves up, and to think that maybe we haven't done enough. But our Lord says, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." The other commandments, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and so on, and the implied commandments, which we can derive from the Beatitudes and other texts, all flow from this one command of our Lord. There is no notion of quantity here, no time limit, no checklist that we have to fill out to make sure that we meet all the conditions. In fact, the other commandments can be understood as preparations for the one great commandment, as steps on the way to its fulfilment.
There is an early Orthodox saint, named John, who was a spiritual guide and elder. He wrote a book called "The Ladder of Perfection," and so we know him as John of the Ladder. He tells us that love is the last, the thirty-third, step on the ladder of perfection. We can be confident that we will reach this 33rd step, this love in which we are commanded to abide, because we know that in baptism and the eucharistic life, we have been taken into this love, and are given the means to achieve it. We love because God loves us. We don't need to earn it. We do need to believe it, and to let it lead us. As today's Gospel says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last." God has taken the initiative. Jesus shows us the way; all we need to do is follow him.
And so, today, when we ask God to continue to bless our parish, our home, our good earth, our God-protected country, we can do so, confident of our Lord's friendship, since today's Gospel says, "You are my friends if you do what I command you...I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."
Alleluia. Christ is risen!
Today is the 6th Sunday of Easter, called Rogation Sunday, since it precedes the three Rogation Days, the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension. These days, "days of asking," were introduced by a French bishop late in the fifth century, as days of prayer for protection from earthquakes and other disasters. The Gospel for this day used to be read from John chapter 16, in which Jesus says, "Ask and you will receive." The Rogation days were observed by fasting as well. Farmers had their crops blessed, and, in later times in England, clergy and choir would make the rounds of a parish to pray for God's protection through the coming year. This also harks back to the time when the calendar year began in the spring, at the begining of April. This circuit of the parish, along its boundaries, was called "beating the bounds." I remember seeing photos of one such event, in which, at each of the four corners of the parish, the priest held a small boy upside down by his feet, and touched his head to the earth, to mark the boundary. I don't know the origin of this custom, which is probably pre-Christian, but, in any case, I am fairly sure that we are not going to be dangling small boys by their feet, when we ask for God's blessing on the parish, and the parish garden, today! And, living as we do in a very large urban area, inhabited by millions of people, this reminder of our rootedness in the earth is essential, as is our need to ask for God's guidance and blessing as we cope with the coming changes to our climate and way of life.
Today's lectionary presents us with a very rich selection of readings: a short piece from Acts chapter 10, in which the Holy Spirit "falls upon" the Gentiles as Peter is speaking; another short selection from the First Letter of John, which the editor of the New Revised Standard Version (which we have in our pews) has titled, "Faith Conquers the World!" and, lastly, today's Gospel, from a section which the editor calls "Jesus the True Vine." Each of the readings can be the starting point for a series of talks, but I will restrict mysel to just one short talk on the Gospel for today.
"You are my friends if you do what I command you." This teaching of our Lord sounds alarmingly like what we sometimes hear from a dependent, needy person: "If you really love me, you'll do x, or you won't do y!" Probably every one of us has heard someone say something like this to us, or to someone else. Perhaps we have even said something like this ourselves.
But of course there is no petulance here, no narcissism, no manipulative, abusive remark of any kind. Rather, if we follow carefully what our Lord is saying in today's Gospel, line by line, what he is getting at will become clear. What is clear throughout, is that the love our Lord is talking about, is NOT conditional love, to be withheld if certain conditions are not met. Verse 9 in this chapter (15) says it all: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love." Recently, Fr John mentioned a 7-day retreat he endured, in which the sole topic of the retreat was the one word "abide!" I promise that I am not going to dwell on this word for that long! But I do say that this love of the Father for the Son, and the love of the Son for us, abides. It is constant, unchanging, permanent, fixed, dependable, always there, always available, ultimately eternal, whether we think that we are conscious of it or not. Somewhat oddly, I think, we are commanded (!) to abide in this love. "To abide" in this context means "to remain stable or fixed in a a state" or "to continue in place." That is, to maintain ourselves in our relationship to our Lord, to make it possible both to receive and to give the love which he is making available to us.
Jesus tells us immediately how to do this. Here is the true meaning of abiding in his love: "If you keep my commandements, you will abide in my love."
"If you keep my commandments." An old, wise archbishop, who was my first teacher in homiletics, the art of preaching, said to me, "We must never give people the idea that they haven't done enough for God!" The idea of keeping commandments, a whole, long list of them, is a great way to trip ourselves up, and to think that maybe we haven't done enough. But our Lord says, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." The other commandments, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and so on, and the implied commandments, which we can derive from the Beatitudes and other texts, all flow from this one command of our Lord. There is no notion of quantity here, no time limit, no checklist that we have to fill out to make sure that we meet all the conditions. In fact, the other commandments can be understood as preparations for the one great commandment, as steps on the way to its fulfilment.
There is an early Orthodox saint, named John, who was a spiritual guide and elder. He wrote a book called "The Ladder of Perfection," and so we know him as John of the Ladder. He tells us that love is the last, the thirty-third, step on the ladder of perfection. We can be confident that we will reach this 33rd step, this love in which we are commanded to abide, because we know that in baptism and the eucharistic life, we have been taken into this love, and are given the means to achieve it. We love because God loves us. We don't need to earn it. We do need to believe it, and to let it lead us. As today's Gospel says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last." God has taken the initiative. Jesus shows us the way; all we need to do is follow him.
And so, today, when we ask God to continue to bless our parish, our home, our good earth, our God-protected country, we can do so, confident of our Lord's friendship, since today's Gospel says, "You are my friends if you do what I command you...I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."
Alleluia. Christ is risen!
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