Lectionary Thoughts for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 10:44-48

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

   How embarassing! An interruption, just when the guest preacher was really getting warmed up!What's going on here?
   Clearly, we are walking in on something. Let's fill in some background. Peter has received a vision, telling him that three men are looking for him, and telling him not to call things unclean which God has made clean. (This is the famous vision of a sheet being lowered from heaven, with all kinds of un-koscher critters in it. Peter is aghast when a voice tells him to "kill and eat", but the voice insists Peter leave behind the old categories of clean and unclean.)  Meanwhile a man named Cornelius has had a vision in which he has been instructed to send for Peter, and listen to what he had to say. Cornelius is a gentile. In fact, as a Roman centurion, he is about as gentile as you can get! Both men are faithful to their visions. Peter and some Jewish friends come to Cornelius' house. Peter proclaims the good news of Jesus, and that's where we walk in: Peter's carefully crafted proclamation is interrupted by a totally unexpected outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
   But Peter is ready for this. He has been thinking of the prophecy of Joel: "It will come to pass that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions." He sees the interruption for what it really is: the Holy Spirit accomplishing what has been promised. God's great rescue mission, to bring all peoples back into relationship with him, is being accomplished, through Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the lives of these gentiles. Peter knows better, now, than to call unclean things or people which God has made clean. He baptizes them into the body of Christ.
   As Episcopalians, we appreciate order and predictability in our times together. And these things  are important. But are there things we can learn from Peter, about being open to the unexpected leading of the Holy Spirit? How can order and openness to the Spirit live together? How can we prepare ourselves to recognize the Spirit's unexpected visits?



1 John 5:1-6

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.

The desire to conquer the world is not exactly a new idea. People have been trying for a very long time, and some have actually gotten quite close. St. John’s immediate audience would have been a people who were quite familiar with conquerors: the Ephesians. The Persians, Greeks, and Roman had all had a hand in the Ephesians’ history and they knew how conquerors ruled: fear.

Fear is the easiest way to gain dominion over another and finds its origin as a result of the first sin. God was walking in the Garden after the man and woman had eaten the forbidden fruit and unable to find them, God called out, “Where are you?” The man responded: “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid…” (Gen 3:10). To be ruled by fear is an unnatural thing, but it is something we all have to engage.

The excerpt from John’s epistle for this Sunday begins to tie the past few weeks together together. Three weeks ago, we learned that we can know what love is by the example of Jesus laying down his life, and last week we read that “God is love” and that “perfect love casts our fear” (1 John 3:16, 4:8, 18). Here we have hope for the remedy of the fear caused by the original sin. God’s love made manifest to us in Jesus Christ casts out all fear. It is our faith in this, John writes, that conquers the world.

The world will not just be restored, but it will be conquered by love. We will no longer be prisoners to fear, shame, or guilt: compassion, mercy, and charity will be the instruments that rule God’s people. The Christians in Ephesus were invited into a life of conquering the world through love, something they had never experienced before in their history. Today, so many of our neighbors are ruled by fear of insecurity. Let us receive the same invitation from John to go and conquer that fear with Christ’s love.

Scott D. Parnell

Director of Youth Ministries

John 15:9-17

Jesus said to his disciples, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another."

   English pop singer Elvis Costello asked the musical question, "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?" Maybe we've been around too long and seen too much, but exhoratations to love, pleas that we all"just get along", often seem silly, naive, and, well, funny.
   Whatever Jesus might have been, he was certainly not naive. He knew the limits of human goodness. He knew, better than anyone, the human capacity for cruelty. And yet he commands us to love. He doesn't wish we would try to love. He doesn't urge us to do our best to love. He commands us to love. Clearly something deeper is going on here.
   In regular talk, we use the word 'love' in lots of different ways, but most often we are talking about a feeling, a pleasurable set of emotions we experience in the presence of another person. We talk a lot about how unpredictable it is; we mention things like "chemistry" or even "fireworks"! We don't often talk about choosing to love, or deciding to love. We talk about falling in love, like love is an open manhole we didn't see in front of us. This isn't what Jesus is talking about. His love is  a deliberate commitment to treat the true well being of another person as equally important to our own. It is a decision to commit ourselves to a common future with a fellow disciple. Warm feelings aren't a big part of the equation: discipline and commitment are.
    The funny thing is, when we practice this kind of love, we get better at it. We learn to accept people for who they are, rather than demand that they provoke nice feelings in us. We put common ministry ahead of private feelings, and often we end up feeling very close to one another. Think of people you've worked with on something really meaningful, something bigger than yourselves, something demanding. Chances are you feel a bond with that person, a connection which goes deeper than feelings. I call this 'vocational' love. Not a very inspiring name. I'd be grateful if someone could suggest something better!
   Vocational love requires practice. What are some of the ways we can deliberately choose a path of vocational love? How can we get better at it?