May 13, 2012, Sixth of Easter

Every year, I seem to discover more of my parent’s traits in me.

Does that happen to you?

If someone had told me 30 years ago that I ramble on like my mother, I would have denied it.

The older I get, though, the more frequently I hear myself provide long-winded descriptions when a sentence or two would suffice.

That’s quite a confession for a preacher!

If you had told me that I can be stubborn like my father was, I would have been offended.

Alas, I know that I can be too!

As they say, the apple does not fall far from the tree.

The gospel writer is trying to describe the relationship between God, Jesus, and God’s people in the same way.

As it is written in John’s gospel, Jesus says to his followers ‘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.’

As a teenager, my response to the responsibility of keeping anyone’s commandments (God or parent) would have been a negative one.

Obedience was not valued in the 1970′s.

Yet here I am Sunday after Sunday preaching the importance of loving God and others as Jesus commanded.

Even though I fail regularly, my life’s purpose is to embody that teaching.

Of course as a teen I would hear the words ‘If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love’ to mean ‘I’ll love you if you do what I tell you to do.’

Whether God or parent, I thought love was given as a response to obedience.

Decades later, I see that God and parent are trying to communicate something else.

Their love does not depend on good behaviour, but their commandments exist so that we might share in the goodness that comes from living within God’s ways.

Parents try to protect their children with their guidelines just as Jesus tries to draw us into God’s kingdom through his commandments.

God loves us even though we fail, but we miss the opportunity to experience grace when we turn away from God’s leading.

This is how the post-resurrection communities begin.

They want to follow Jesus.

They try to recall and understand all that he said and did as they live his ways.

This is God’s commandment to us as well.

We are to live as a resurrection community loving God and neighbour in all we proclaim and offer.

We are participants in God’s purposes here and now.

In this way, God’s love is branching out in our own generation.

A disciple once said to a rabbi, ‘God took six days to create the world and it is not perfect.  How is that possible?’

The rabbi asks, ‘Could you have done better?’

‘Yes, I think I could have,’ the disciple responds.

‘Then what are you waiting for?’ the rabbi said, ‘Go ahead.  Start working.’

Our lives have purpose.

Individually, we discover our abilities, the things that bring us joy.

We also come to see what it is that we have inherited from our parents and others who have been part of our formation.

Working with and through all of this is our Creator, guiding us into relationship.

‘Love one another’ God commands, ‘and you will discover the love we share’.

It is as if we lean into the life of Christ when we follow Jesus’ ways.

We find ourselves within him, abiding in him and this brings us joy, makes our joy complete.

Complete.

I think that is every parent’s prayer for their children, that their joy is complete, their lives are complete, that they are complete as human beings.

Jesus tells us that it is within God that this happens.  When we let God lead us, when we follow God’s commandment to love, we find ourselves within the love that completes us.

Is that not where we want to be?

 - Within that love?

- Within a relationship that reveals to us who we are, guiding us into our fullness? 

Jesus beckons us into relationship with the One in whom he found fulfilment, the One who completed him.

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is all about drawing us into this relationship that we too will know God, abide in God.

Because communities of believers immersed themselves in lives of prayer and loving service, we find ourselves here in this resurrection community two thousand years later.

The branches of the vine are ancient and life-giving.

Lean into the life of Christ.

Abide in Christ. 

May others discover God’s love in this resurrection community.

                   Walkin’ with the Lord

The Lord is my Shepherd.

These words, Psalm 23, are attributed to David, the shepherd boy who grows up to become King of Israel.

This intimate biblical poem describes a deep trust in God, Lord of all.

Read the words,  page 731 of your green prayer books.

God as Shepherd provides us with refuge, rest, refreshment, calm, strength, protection, and guidance.

Isn’t that a life worth living?

The stories of the Hebrews’ faith in Yahweh, the Lord, give testimony to their trust in God’s shepherding presence through times of wilderness and into the promised land.

A thousand years or so later, Jesus’ followers discover the Good Shepherd in him.

Who did you think of when I said, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’?

Exactly.  Jesus.

To be sure, not everyone shares the resurrection communities’ trust in Jesus.

Who wants a shepherd in a culture that values individualism?

Who wants to be a follower when the world is looking for leaders?

Who wants to challenge the status quo like Jesus does?

The psalmist says, ‘I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever’.

We live in neighbourhoods that know nothing of ‘the house of the Lord’.

Personal success at all costs is the goal for many rather than the balance of a life that embraces love of God and neighbour.

With humility the psalmist is saying, ‘I shall live with God forever’.

He promises to live a faithful life.

Through baptism, we have too!

Today we will promise once again to love God, expressing that love through worship, prayer, and proclamation.

Loving God, we also love neighbour.

We cannot do one without the other.

We commit to strive for just ways rather than accepting things as they are.

We commit to seek and serve Christ in all people, not just those we happen to like.

Sometimes the tough ethic of the schoolyard continues to inform our adult ways of being.

We wonder why children bully, but too many families do not allow the self-giving ways of the Shepherd into their homes.

With God’s help, we welcome Alier and MacKenzie into the life of faith.

They are very young, so our role in their formation is significant.

We know that children learn more from what they see us do and hear us say than from what we intentionally try to teach them.

We promise to teach them to know and love Jesus.

This morning, we commit to these two little children, that we will live lives that are examples of the good news of God in Christ!

Parents, Sponsors, Beloved Church hear what it is you promise in the name of the Lord.

Instead of embodying the rampant individualism and all that divides us and creates fear rather than faith, may we walk with the Lord.

Let us proclaim love for God loudly and regularly!

Let us make known who it is that creates, redeems, and sustains us through our life’s journey!

Dwelling in the house of the Lord means much, much more than coming to church from time to time.

Dwelling in the house of the Lord means abiding in the Lord, living in his heart, as he lives in ours.

Sounds perhaps like a spiritual state, but it is a spirituality with flesh, bones, and blood like the one who revealed the Way to us in the first place.

Simply said, we love Jesus and live his ways.

The gift of all of this is that we’re not alone.

Easter reveals that he is still with us.

We’re walkin’ with the Lord.

God will guide us day in and day out.

After all faithfulness is not a test, it is a response to God’s steadfast love.

All we have to do is tune in.

Even the electronic gizmos that demand so much of our attention must be tuned into their network to be helpful.

Pay attention because there is so much of the world that draws us away from God’s love.

I read somewhere this week that it is what we love rather than what we do that makes us holy.

Where is your heart these days?

For our children’s sake, for MacKenzie and Alier, let us allow God to fill our hearts with love.

Let us walk with the Lord today and always!

Alleluia!

I wonder who I might meet today?  Who will God put in my path this sunny Monday morning?  I pray that I will not be overly distracted by tasks and will notice them, greeting them with a smile, taking the time to pause and share the blessing of this day with them. 

I wonder how many human exchanges are lost because we said hello as we kept walking by.  Reminds me of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, ‘I’m late, I’m late for a very important date!’  How much, O Lord, of you do we miss?

I pray that I will calmly breathe in the wonder of creation blowing through the trees outside my office window.  I pray that I will take time to walk along the river later today, hopefully before the sun hides behind the promised clouds.  I pray that the people I meet today will experience in me the respect, care, and concern God wants us to share with one another.

What is your prayer this day?