Year B
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The circumcised believers who had come with Peter\u2026 were astounded\u2026 that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out\u2026 even on\u2026 wait for it\u2026 the Gentiles<\/em>\u2026 those within the Inner Circle\u2026 were astounded that the Holy Spirit would dare fall on those outside the circle\u2026 those on the margins\u2026 and the only thing this could mean\u2026 is that those who were set apart\u2026 now included everyone\u2026 it means that God loves everyone\u2026 every single one of God’s children\u2026 the same\u2026 and that God’s love connected everyone\u2026 and when it couldn’t\u2026 when it didn’t\u2026 it certainly wasn’t God’s doing\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n We sort of know what it means\u2026 when we talk about love\u2026 love seems like it is\u2026 or ought to be\u2026 one of those churchy words\u2026 in C.S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves\u2026 Lewis writes about the four types of human love\u2026 affection\u2026 friendship\u2026 erotic love\u2026 and the love of God\u2026 and about friendship he wrote\u2026 we picture lovers face to face\u2026 but friends side by side\u2026 their eyes looking ahead<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But our modern notion of friendship has been polluted\u2026 and that pollution has been accelerated by the fast pace of our modern lives\u2026 which gives us precious little time to discern\u2026 we make friends with people who like us\u2026 and who are like us\u2026 some of these friendships are evaluated by different and unspoken expectations\u2026 and too many of these friendships last only long as they’re convenient\u2026 or their longevity is determined by how easy they are to maintain\u2026 how little time and energy must be expended to nourish them\u2026 and far too many of them… can be unfriended\u2026 far too easily\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of this writing\u2026 I have 658 FaceBook friends\u2026 but honestly\u2026 I really know little to nothing about what makes the vast lot of them tick\u2026 the physical\u2026 emotional\u2026 psychological\u2026 and spiritual challenges they have faced\u2026 or are facing\u2026 the goals they’ve achieved\u2026 or are working towards\u2026 how their understanding and experience of God has evolved over the years\u2026 or how it’s not\u2026 the truth is\u2026 it takes a lot of time to get to know someone as well as you know yourself\u2026 Joel and I have been together for twenty years\u2026 and we’re still learning things about each other\u2026 and sometimes we know the pain of too much tenderness…<\/p>\n\n\n\n St. Aelred of Rievaulx\u2026\u00a0 the English Cistercian Abbot of the twelfth century had… more than any other saint I know… a deep appreciation for friendship…\u00a0 and by that I mean the particular love between two individuals\u2026\u00a0 our tradition teaches us much about universal charity\u2026 \u00a0 the love of all humankind\u2026\u00a0 but we hear far less about the worthy love between two people… as exemplified by the love between Jonathan and David\u2026\u00a0 or Naomi and Ruth… or between Jesus and the beloved disciple John\u2026 \u00a0 of all the gifts Aelred gave the Church…\u00a0 the one most uniquely his\u2026 \u00a0 is the joyous affirmation\u2026 \u00a0 that we move toward God in and through our relationships with other people…\u00a0 not apart from\u2026\u00a0 or in spite of them\u2026\u00a0 Aelred wrote\u2026\u00a0 It is no small consolation in this life\u2026\u00a0 to have someone you can unite with\u2026\u00a0 in an intimate affection and the embrace of a holy love…\u00a0 someone in whom your spirit can rest\u2026\u00a0 to whom you can pour out your soul…\u00a0 to whose pleasant exchanges…\u00a0 as to soothing songs…\u00a0 you can fly in sorrow… with whose spiritual kisses\u2026 \u00a0 as with remedial salves\u2026\u00a0 you may draw out all the weariness of your restless anxieties\u2026 \u00a0 a man who can shed tears with you in your worries\u2026 \u00a0 be happy with you when things go well…\u00a0 search out with you the answers to your problems\u2026 \u00a0 whom with the ties of charity you can lead into the depths of your heart\u2026\u00a0 where the sweetness of the Spirit flows between you\u2026 \u00a0 where you so join yourself and cleave to him\u2026 \u00a0 that soul mingles with soul and two become one<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n What Aelred describes is phileo<\/em>\u2026 though our modern ears may hear it as eros<\/em>\u2026 but then if eros<\/em> is love of the body\u2026 phileo<\/em> is the love of the soul\u2026 and Jesus felt this kind of love for his disciples\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it’s not the same\u2026 not quite the same as the kind of abiding love which Jesus speaks about today\u2026 to abide in Jesus’ love\u2026 is not a mere sentimental remembrance\u2026 it is to be so deeply established in God’s way of being\u2026 that everything one thinks\u2026 says\u2026 and does\u2026 is informed by and reflects God’s will\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus says\u2026 If you keep my commandments\u2026 you will abide in my love\u2026 You are my friends if you do what I command you<\/em>\u2026 in the mystic phraseology of John\u2026 God is said to abide in Christ\u2026 that is\u2026 to dwell\u2026 as it were\u2026 within him\u2026 to be continually operative in Jesus through God’s divine influence and energy\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But commands make love seem conditional\u2026 like conditional friendship\u2026 and too many of us have become concerned that when we share what Aelred described\u2026 our challenges and our vulnerabilities\u2026 that they may come back to bite us\u2026 that someone with whom we have fallen out of favor may use them as ammunition against us\u2026 this is not the kind of response that Jesus means\u2026 what he means is\u2026 when you are able to think\u2026 speak\u2026 and act as I do\u2026 then you will be functioning from the same Ground of Being which I AM\u2026 resonating with the same love that flows from me out into all creation\u2026 which is incapable of causing harm\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus says\u2026 I do not call you servants any longer<\/em>\u2026 and with those words\u2026 there is a quantum leap in his relationship with his disciples\u2026 confounding their religious imaginations and theologies of power\u2026 Jesus will not be their Master\u2026 he’ll not leave behind a community of slaves\u2026 but a community of friends\u2026 and what’s made true in that same moment\u2026 is that God makes us friends\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus says\u2026 You did not choose me\u2026 but I chose you<\/em>\u2026 and Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe wrote\u2026 We have been taken up\u2026 to share in the life of love\u2026 between equals\u2026 which is the Godhead<\/em>\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus says\u2026 I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father<\/em>\u2026 Jesus puts his cards on the table\u2026 makes himself transparent and vulnerable\u2026 he names the seamless and frictionless flow up and down Jacob’s ladder from God’s heart to ours\u2026 when we abide in Jesus’ love\u2026 we are steeped\u2026 like tea\u2026 and once the essence of the tea leaves has become infused into the water\u2026 there’s no getting it out\u2026 there’s no going back to just plain water\u2026 our water has been turned into God’s wine\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruce Cockburn is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist\u2026 in one of his newest songs which was released less than a week ago\u2026 called Orders\u2026 he sings about this abiding love\u2026 let me read the lyrics of one stanza\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n The just, the merciful, the cruel; Jesus says\u2026 No one has greater love than this\u2026 to lay down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s friends<\/em>\u2026 and perhaps\u2026 maybe too quickly\u2026 our minds wonder whether we too must prove our love by a willingness to die\u2026 though many mothers and fathers have been so willing\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Jesus means that we must at least be willing to relinquish the hold our ego has on us\u2026 we must surrender our desires in favor of God’s desires for community\u2026 we must love our neighbor as ourselves\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And as Teilhard de Chardin\u2026 who was a Jesuit\u2026 a scientist\u2026 a scholar\u2026 and a mystic said\u2026 if humanity ever captures the energy of this kind of love\u2026 it will be the second time in the history of the world that we have discovered fire\u2026 and then we will become\u2026 burning bushes\u2026 radiating God’s love\u2026 without being consumed\u2026 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year B Acts 10:44-48 Psalm 98 1 John 5:1-6John 15:9-17 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter\u2026 were astounded\u2026 that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out\u2026 even on\u2026 wait for it\u2026 the Gentiles\u2026 those within the Inner Circle\u2026 were astounded that the Holy Spirit would dare fall on those outside the circle\u2026 those on the margins\u2026 and the only thing this could mean\u2026 is that those who were set apart\u2026 now included everyone\u2026 it means that God loves everyone\u2026 every single one of God’s children\u2026 the same\u2026 and that God’s love connected everyone\u2026 and when it couldn’t\u2026 when it didn’t\u2026 it certainly wasn’t God’s doing\u2026 We sort of know what it means\u2026 when we talk about love\u2026 love seems like it is\u2026 or ought to be\u2026 one of those churchy words\u2026 in C.S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves\u2026 Lewis writes about the four types of human love\u2026 affection\u2026 friendship\u2026 erotic love\u2026 and the love of God\u2026 and about friendship he wrote\u2026 we picture lovers face to face\u2026 but friends side by side\u2026 their eyes looking ahead\u2026 But our modern notion of friendship has been polluted\u2026 and that pollution has been accelerated by the fast pace of our modern lives\u2026 which gives us precious little time to discern\u2026 we make friends with people who like us\u2026 and who are like us\u2026 some of these friendships are evaluated by different and unspoken expectations\u2026 and too many of these friendships last only long as they’re convenient\u2026 or their longevity is determined by how easy they are to maintain\u2026 how little time and energy must be expended to nourish them\u2026 and far too many of them… can be unfriended\u2026 far too easily\u2026 As of this writing\u2026 I have 658 FaceBook friends\u2026 but honestly\u2026 I really know little to nothing about what makes the vast lot of them tick\u2026 the physical\u2026 emotional\u2026 psychological\u2026 and spiritual challenges they have faced\u2026 or are facing\u2026 the goals they’ve achieved\u2026 or are working towards\u2026 how their understanding and experience of God has evolved over the years\u2026 or how it’s not\u2026 the truth is\u2026 it takes a lot of time to get to know someone as well as you know yourself\u2026 Joel and I have been together for twenty years\u2026 and we’re still learning things about each other\u2026 and sometimes we know the pain of too much tenderness… St. Aelred of Rievaulx\u2026\u00a0 the English Cistercian Abbot of the twelfth century had… more than any other saint I know… a deep appreciation for friendship…\u00a0 and by that I mean the particular love between two individuals\u2026\u00a0 our tradition teaches us much about universal charity\u2026 \u00a0 the love of all humankind\u2026\u00a0 but we hear far less about the worthy love between two people… as exemplified by the love between Jonathan and David\u2026\u00a0 or Naomi and Ruth… or between Jesus and the beloved disciple John\u2026 \u00a0 of all the gifts Aelred gave the Church…\u00a0 the one most uniquely his\u2026 \u00a0 is the joyous affirmation\u2026 \u00a0 that we move toward God in and through our relationships with other people…\u00a0 not apart from\u2026\u00a0 or in spite of them\u2026\u00a0 Aelred wrote\u2026\u00a0 It is no small consolation in this life\u2026\u00a0 to have someone you can unite with\u2026\u00a0 in an intimate affection and the embrace of a holy love…\u00a0 someone in whom your spirit can rest\u2026\u00a0 to whom you can pour out your soul…\u00a0 to whose pleasant exchanges…\u00a0 as to soothing songs…\u00a0 you can fly in sorrow… with whose spiritual kisses\u2026 \u00a0 as with remedial salves\u2026\u00a0 you may draw out all the weariness of your restless anxieties\u2026 \u00a0 a man who can shed tears with you in your worries\u2026 \u00a0 be happy with you when things go well…\u00a0 search out with you the answers to your problems\u2026 \u00a0 whom with the ties of charity you can lead into the depths of your heart\u2026\u00a0 where the sweetness of the Spirit flows between you\u2026 \u00a0 where you so join yourself and cleave to him\u2026 \u00a0 that soul mingles with soul and two become one\u2026 What Aelred describes is phileo\u2026 though our modern ears may hear it as eros\u2026 but then if eros is love of the body\u2026 phileo is the love of the soul\u2026 and Jesus felt this kind of love for his disciples\u2026 But it’s not the same\u2026 not quite the same as the kind of abiding love which Jesus speaks about today\u2026 to abide in Jesus’ love\u2026 is not a mere sentimental remembrance\u2026 it is to be so deeply established in God’s way of being\u2026 that everything one thinks\u2026 says\u2026 and does\u2026 is informed by and reflects God’s will\u2026 Jesus says\u2026 If you keep my commandments\u2026 you will abide in my love\u2026 You are my friends if you do what I command you\u2026 in the mystic phraseology of John\u2026 God is said to abide in Christ\u2026 that is\u2026 to dwell\u2026 as it were\u2026 within him\u2026 to be continually operative in Jesus through God’s divine influence and energy\u2026 But commands make love seem conditional\u2026 like conditional friendship\u2026 and too many of us have become concerned that when we share what Aelred described\u2026 our challenges and our vulnerabilities\u2026 that they may come back to bite us\u2026 that someone with whom we have fallen out of favor may use them as ammunition against us\u2026 this is not the kind of response that Jesus means\u2026 what he means is\u2026 when you are able to think\u2026 speak\u2026 and act as I do\u2026 then you will be functioning from the same Ground of Being which I AM\u2026 resonating with the same love that flows from me out into all creation\u2026 which is incapable of causing harm\u2026 Jesus says\u2026 I do not call you servants any longer\u2026 and with those words\u2026 there is a quantum leap in his relationship with his disciples\u2026 confounding their religious imaginations and theologies of power\u2026 Jesus will not be their Master\u2026 he’ll not leave behind a community of slaves\u2026 but a community of friends\u2026 and what’s made true in that same moment\u2026 is that 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The stumbling well-intentioned fool;
The deft, the oaf, the witless pawn;
The golden one life smiles upon;
The squalling infant in mid-squall;
The neighbors fighting down the hall;
The list is long; as I recall;
Our orders said to love them all\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n