I said that at Diocesan House and heard a rather weak rejoinder, something like, “happy well I guess its still sort of Easter.”
It is indeed still Easter, the fifth Sunday of Easter. And we are still very much celebrating this month of Sundays.
Each week in the Great 50 Days has its own special character. Doubting Thomas Sunday. Road to Emmaus Sunday. Good Shepherd Sunday. What do these have in common? They are all about the difference the Resurrection makes.
The theme for this Lord’s Day is the way, the truth, and the life, because this fifth Sunday within the Paschal season is about following Christ in the light of the Resurrection.
1. The Way. That is first on the list.
Have you ever noticed how often in all four Gospels Jesus tells people what to do? How often he issues orders: and not politely, not in the subjunctive, not indirectly. Drop those nets and follow me. Pray this way, “Our Father....” Rise, take up your bed, and walk. Sell everything you have if you want to be perfect. Go away and sin no more. Throw the net in that spot over there. Do this in remembrance of me.
He does not “seek consensus,” or call in consultants, or say he hears what we are saying. He tells people what to do. And if you know your Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John, that is what you will call to mind if you think about him.
Now. How often does he tell people what to think? What to believe? Not so easy to answer, is it? He taught a lifestyle. The Creed came later. It took Christians 300 years to develop the Creed we say today; they went into the lifestyle from the very start. That’s why the first Christians called it “The Way.” Jesus first tells us what to do. Then we determine what we think
Today focuses the center of that lifestyle: love.
Jesus says, “I am giving you a new commandment.”
This is one of most misunderstood words he ever uttered. Ancient Romans got it wrong and modern unchurched or semichurched people get it wrong and it is up to us to get it right. Most people including plenty of Christians believe it’s a sentimental, harmless, fantastic bit of nonsense, that may sound nice when one is in the mood but cannot possibly do much real good in a tough world.
Of course it isn’t either of those things. Those are the nonsense. So what is it in fact? What is it really to love one another?
The first thing we have to do is clarify what we actually mean by love. I have to do this regularly–since when I was learning words I was told love means liking very much. And that is wrong.
Picture someone you truly love. Now do you love that person all the time, or only occasionally?
Of course, you always love that person.
Do you always “feel good” about that person?
Of course not. The only persons we feel good about all the time are fantasy ones, fictional ones. By the way this includes God: if you feel good about God all the time either you are a great and unusual saint, or, I’m sorry to suggest, you have a fantasy about God. The people I know who have the most powerful sense of God are always getting upset with God, or angry, or whatever–just as with a real person–which of course God is.
Love one another does not mean feel warm, kindly disposed, attracted to, or sweet toward one another. It certainly does not mean like one another. Love is a relationship, not a feeling. Feelings are supposed to come and go–think of thirst or sleepiness or fear or vigor. The feeling of love is like that–it is very glorious and it is vital, necessary: but it comes and goes.
And it cannot be commanded. Feelings cannot be commanded.
Jesus makes it very clear: love one another “as I have loved you.” How did Jesus love the disciples? By feeling nice about them all the time? No, the Bible shows us Jesus very often angry with them, disappointed, disgusted, amused. But he dies for them.
This is critical in understanding discipleship.
To say Christians are a family is not a pretty figure of speech. We must love one another the way we love family members–for real. I like the way this is put by Basil the Great: this life is a stadium where we train for eternity.
2. Christ is the Truth.
What truth? When the faith first came to earliest England, the historian Bede tells us, when the Angles and the Saxons were still worshiping Thor and Odin, the German Gods, the king called for the priests of Thor and the priests of Christ to present their cases. But a sparrow flew into the lighted hall out of the darkness of winter.
Then one of the priests of Thor said, we should embrace this new faith. That s[parrow flew into the light and warmth. We do not know where she came form or where she went. That is what our lives are like–we only know this brief moment of light, we do not know whence we came and whither we go. The new faith tells us.
They wanted this faith because it held the truth, about the things that mattered to them. This should matter a great deal to us who live in the culture of lies.
But the way the truth and the life means more than that Jesus did not lie, that he told the truth. The claim is that Christ IS the truth.
Today Jesus claims the truth of what he is saying. He calls this a “new” commandment. That means it is added to Scripture.
This is something challenging. It is the thing that made some people hate him, with murderous resentment–as in the first lesson today. It is that word “I.” I give you a new commandment. Who after all issues the commandments? Not Moses—that is like saying my computer wrote this sermon.
When a leader issues a new commandment either the old ones are mistaken, or no longer apply, or they are now insufficient. Since we have not thrown away the ten commandments–in fact we can say them at the start of every Eucharistic service if we like–it must mean they are not enough.
Not enough to follow Jesus. Not enough to be a disciple. Not enough to consider yourself a Christian person.
Imagine this. You rescue someone from drowning this afternoon. You clearly risk your own life in so doing. What do others think? You are heroic. You are esteemed. You are praised. The mayor gets some publicity by meeting you.
But if you pass him by, what commandment have you broken? None of the 613 in Levitical Law. Not one of the Ten. Only that new one Jesus gave the disciples.
Here is the logic. What if the person you save is your father or son or partner or sibling. It is still glorious. But somehow it is not quite so heroic, quite so extraordinary. People still admire you–but they also somehow feel it is something you were bound to do.
Think again of the person you love. Wouldn’t you risk your life for him or her? Wouldn’t you, if you are not the risky type, at least be more likely than for a stranger?
Transfer that, Jesus commands, to one another. This is the part most do not iunderstand at all. It sounds at first when Jesus says love that he is being soft, making things easier, issuing a kinder and gentler sort of commandment.
In fact, he gives today the hardest commandment in all of Scripture. It is far easier to keep all 10 Commandments–and that isn’t easy–than to love.
3. He is the life.
This faith is lively. It isn’t dull. If it is dull, it isn’t Christianity.
Sin, in fact, is dull. That’s another point most people have backwards.
My medievalist colleague on the west coast Anskar Kelley keeps saying he has written the “biography” of Satan. He cannot–because the Devil does not have bios, the kind of life we have, and Christ has, and animals have. Satan can only have a history–not a biography. He has no biology.
This is the life. We are like Jesus in this fundamental way: we are incarnate beings. This is where we live our life just as he did and does. Life that overflows.
The body is not what so many people think, the prison house of the soul. The body is the sacrament of the spirit–the clear, visible place where the spirit is made manifest. Ignatius: Baptism makes the body porous to spirit. Here’s what I mean: Jesus says, “this is how others will know who you are.” Christianity has to be must be conspicuous. It has to be quite vivid. I used to have a good deal of trouble digesting that.
Here is how it is for me. The Metropolitan Museum has just reopened and expanded their classical wing–it’s over twice its former size, and it’s two stories, and hundreds of treasures have been brought out of storage, and they have scraped off the balck paint they used to hide the skylights during World War 2. But the one thing they cannot do is make the statues look the way they really looked. They were painted.
I knew that even when I was young. But what I imagined was a water-color effect, a slight pastel, a tasteful shading. I was used to those pristine whites and greys. And I was wrong. Computers have shown us, by reconstructing the color form the traces that are left. Those colors were vivd, deep, and startling. They would take some getting used to.
To me, that is what by your love they will know you must mean. IT has to be bold and conspicuous and even startling to a world like ours–unused to love.
By your love they will know you are my disciples, my followers. Think of all the ways various Christians try to identify themselves: crosses, slogans, memberships, gigantic buildings, bumper stickers. Those things are helpful–except perhaps for the bumper stickers–but they are not his instructions.
So happy Pascha! (To use its orig9inal name instead of the one we borrowed from those Angles and Saxons). Keep celebrating. As Bp Andrew just pointed out in his letter, even the weather has caught up with the season. Or as Housman said, the trees are wearing white for Eastertide. We have three glorious weeks to go, and two serious festivals to celebrate.
It’s still Eastertide, and we are not going to let it whimper away, as so many have already done! We are building to the grand finale. Ascension Day and the Feast of Pentecost. As we reclaim the Year, this is what happens. Time does not just tick away. It has a shape and it makes sense. Keep time: it’s one of the things he told us to do.
Our understanding in faith, says Clement of Rome, is like those flowers that open when they turn to the sun. Which of course is how it should be for us. For someone has told us the truth, given us the life, and shown us the Way.
