The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Trinity Episcopal Church
Towson, MD
RCL Year B - Easter 6 - May 13, 2012
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” We could say that is an extremely strong statement for Jesus after he has time and time again assured us of his unconditional love. Why does this sound like He is “all of a sudden” changing his mind and giving us a condition to His love?
Does this mean that every time we sin, every time we don’t love one another… we don’t love Jesus? Many of us would say yes. But I don’t think that Jesus is imposing a condition on His love… I feel that he is calling our love into Action… Although we love Jesus, every time we commit sin, we are showing that we love something more than we love Jesus.
If we loved Jesus more than anything else, then we would keep ourselves free from sin for Jesus. Wouldn’t we? If we love Jesus, we would strive to give ourselves totally to him. When we sin we are giving ourselves over to something else… something other than Jesus. And when we love Jesus with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength we will not want to put anything, no matter how small, between ourselves and Jesus.
Again the words of Jesus in our Gospel, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Sometimes we hear people make statements, or we have even made statements ourselves like, “Jesus understands that I am human, He will forgive me.” This is very true… Jesus forgives, and none of us doubt his abundant grace and mercy and the redemption that we feel in our life. But if we loved Jesus more than anything – we would put Jesus before whatever it is that is tempting us whatever is trying to separate us from God.
So, Jesus is teaching us that loving Him is not just some emotion… Loving Jesus means changing lives. And this doesn’t happen over-night. It is a process of growth, formation, and transformation… In the process, we are informed and reform our lives… we work on our personalities and our characteristics, we overcome our sinful habits, and stretch ourselves to love as Jesus loved.
Loving Jesus means thinking about ourselves and others as Jesus thinks. If we get our ideas about love and life from TV, movies, the internet and other sources that our materialistic western culture dishes out, we run the risk of not understanding the difference between our freedom from sin and the freedom to simply do what is right. Our minds would be cluttered with false images of ourselves, of others and of the world…. If we cloud or minds with the self-reliance and self-salvation that some of these things teach we are NOT putting Jesus first.
But if we truly want to love Jesus, we will should strive to fill our minds with his thoughts and His way of looking at the world. We can fill our minds with Jesus’ thoughts by studying scripture in our community of faith, reading for spiritual enrichment and by adopting a discipline of prayer in our daily life.
If we fill our minds with the clutter from some portions of our society, and let it direct our path... What does that say about our love of Jesus? It would be impossible… impossible to keep the commandments of Jesus. So, let us take a minute right here, right now in the middle of this service, in this place to fill our minds with the thoughts of Jesus, so that we may keep his commandments and abide in his love.
Again the words of Jesus are, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Truly loving Jesus leads us to give up whatever in our lives draws us away from Jesus. Truly loving Jesus leads us to making changes in the way we live and think and act. Do we live as Jesus asks? Do we love one another with the radical love of Jesus. Do we live as Jesus asks as it was taught to us through the Apostles, and through the Church’s teaching? If we do, then we know that we love Jesus Because Jesus says that then we will abide in his love.
But if we just say we love Jesus and continue to think or act in a way that is the opposite of the way Jesus teaches us, then we are not putting Jesus in first place, when we do this, we do not abide in Jesus’ love... because we do not keep his commandments. And, if we truly desire to love Jesus our love of Jesus will prompt us to probe and learn until we understand how to keep his commandments... how to love one another... how to be a true friend of Jesus. So for some, loving Jesus may mean walking a humble way of trust until a clearer understanding comes.
When we keep the commandments not only do we abide in the love of Jesus but we also have Jesus’ love in us. We in him… He in us…
At the end of our Gospel excerpt today we heard, Jesus says that the chosen… Those that love one another and abide in his love… will bear good fruit… Good fruit that will last. Good fruit that will sustain… and good fruit that will provide…
So loving Jesus and keeping his commandments fills us with the love of Jesus and the love of the Father, and in our hearts we see Jesus. When we love Jesus and keep his commandments, we have Jesus in our hearts. And we are capable of doing things that are far beyond our wildest dreams…
But as we all know, sin kills the life of God in us, and serious sin kills the life of God in us in a serious way. It is like rotten fruit that spoils the whole bunch… Sin within us is NOT good fruit that will last… Whenever the life of God is lacking in us it is not God’s fault, it is ours. It’s our hardness of heart and our inability to love one another, and a failure to abide in Jesus’ love.
When we have it right... When we keep commandments and abide in Jesus’ love; miraculous things happen. Miraculous things that show the love of Jesus in a real way. Things that restore the world to God.
This has been a difficult week for the Episcopal Church in Maryland. This week we laid to rest those that were killed in the tragedy at St. Peter’s in Ellicott City. In the midst of that tragedy there were 3 deaths, a priest, a parish administrator, and a homeless man.
It was so easy in the midst of the horrible violence to crawl into our fear and lash out and condemn, and accuse and cry out for justice. The diocese of Maryland reached out in a real and concrete way The Churches in Ellicott City and throughout the diocese offered a place to decompress, and focus. It made me proud to be part of the diocese to reach out in love to our neighbors. To model keeping the commandment of Jesus to love one another.
It made me proud to be part of the diocese that stretched beyond what was comfortable and offered forgiveness to the man that took those lives and then offered to give him a proper burial. To offer the love of Jesus to the world – to each other is an amazing and transforming thing…
It models the love that we have experienced when we have been truly loved - Truly loved by God...
How much does Jesus love us? This much - He stretched out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross and died for us, so that we might come within the reach of his saving embrace. Let us never ever be afraid to turn to Jesus for mercy after we sin, he is always waiting to forgive us and restore us...
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” We could say that is an extremely strong statement for Jesus after he has time and time again assured us of his unconditional love. Why does this sound like He is “all of a sudden” changing his mind and giving us a condition to His love?
Does this mean that every time we sin, every time we don’t love one another… we don’t love Jesus? Many of us would say yes. But I don’t think that Jesus is imposing a condition on His love… I feel that he is calling our love into Action… Although we love Jesus, every time we commit sin, we are showing that we love something more than we love Jesus.
If we loved Jesus more than anything else, then we would keep ourselves free from sin for Jesus. Wouldn’t we? If we love Jesus, we would strive to give ourselves totally to him. When we sin we are giving ourselves over to something else… something other than Jesus. And when we love Jesus with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength we will not want to put anything, no matter how small, between ourselves and Jesus.
Again the words of Jesus in our Gospel, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Sometimes we hear people make statements, or we have even made statements ourselves like, “Jesus understands that I am human, He will forgive me.” This is very true… Jesus forgives, and none of us doubt his abundant grace and mercy and the redemption that we feel in our life. But if we loved Jesus more than anything – we would put Jesus before whatever it is that is tempting us whatever is trying to separate us from God.
So, Jesus is teaching us that loving Him is not just some emotion… Loving Jesus means changing lives. And this doesn’t happen over-night. It is a process of growth, formation, and transformation… In the process, we are informed and reform our lives… we work on our personalities and our characteristics, we overcome our sinful habits, and stretch ourselves to love as Jesus loved.
Loving Jesus means thinking about ourselves and others as Jesus thinks. If we get our ideas about love and life from TV, movies, the internet and other sources that our materialistic western culture dishes out, we run the risk of not understanding the difference between our freedom from sin and the freedom to simply do what is right. Our minds would be cluttered with false images of ourselves, of others and of the world…. If we cloud or minds with the self-reliance and self-salvation that some of these things teach we are NOT putting Jesus first.
But if we truly want to love Jesus, we will should strive to fill our minds with his thoughts and His way of looking at the world. We can fill our minds with Jesus’ thoughts by studying scripture in our community of faith, reading for spiritual enrichment and by adopting a discipline of prayer in our daily life.
If we fill our minds with the clutter from some portions of our society, and let it direct our path... What does that say about our love of Jesus? It would be impossible… impossible to keep the commandments of Jesus. So, let us take a minute right here, right now in the middle of this service, in this place to fill our minds with the thoughts of Jesus, so that we may keep his commandments and abide in his love.
Again the words of Jesus are, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Truly loving Jesus leads us to give up whatever in our lives draws us away from Jesus. Truly loving Jesus leads us to making changes in the way we live and think and act. Do we live as Jesus asks? Do we love one another with the radical love of Jesus. Do we live as Jesus asks as it was taught to us through the Apostles, and through the Church’s teaching? If we do, then we know that we love Jesus Because Jesus says that then we will abide in his love.
But if we just say we love Jesus and continue to think or act in a way that is the opposite of the way Jesus teaches us, then we are not putting Jesus in first place, when we do this, we do not abide in Jesus’ love... because we do not keep his commandments. And, if we truly desire to love Jesus our love of Jesus will prompt us to probe and learn until we understand how to keep his commandments... how to love one another... how to be a true friend of Jesus. So for some, loving Jesus may mean walking a humble way of trust until a clearer understanding comes.
When we keep the commandments not only do we abide in the love of Jesus but we also have Jesus’ love in us. We in him… He in us…
At the end of our Gospel excerpt today we heard, Jesus says that the chosen… Those that love one another and abide in his love… will bear good fruit… Good fruit that will last. Good fruit that will sustain… and good fruit that will provide…
So loving Jesus and keeping his commandments fills us with the love of Jesus and the love of the Father, and in our hearts we see Jesus. When we love Jesus and keep his commandments, we have Jesus in our hearts. And we are capable of doing things that are far beyond our wildest dreams…
But as we all know, sin kills the life of God in us, and serious sin kills the life of God in us in a serious way. It is like rotten fruit that spoils the whole bunch… Sin within us is NOT good fruit that will last… Whenever the life of God is lacking in us it is not God’s fault, it is ours. It’s our hardness of heart and our inability to love one another, and a failure to abide in Jesus’ love.
When we have it right... When we keep commandments and abide in Jesus’ love; miraculous things happen. Miraculous things that show the love of Jesus in a real way. Things that restore the world to God.
This has been a difficult week for the Episcopal Church in Maryland. This week we laid to rest those that were killed in the tragedy at St. Peter’s in Ellicott City. In the midst of that tragedy there were 3 deaths, a priest, a parish administrator, and a homeless man.
It was so easy in the midst of the horrible violence to crawl into our fear and lash out and condemn, and accuse and cry out for justice. The diocese of Maryland reached out in a real and concrete way The Churches in Ellicott City and throughout the diocese offered a place to decompress, and focus. It made me proud to be part of the diocese to reach out in love to our neighbors. To model keeping the commandment of Jesus to love one another.
It made me proud to be part of the diocese that stretched beyond what was comfortable and offered forgiveness to the man that took those lives and then offered to give him a proper burial. To offer the love of Jesus to the world – to each other is an amazing and transforming thing…
It models the love that we have experienced when we have been truly loved - Truly loved by God...
How much does Jesus love us? This much - He stretched out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross and died for us, so that we might come within the reach of his saving embrace. Let us never ever be afraid to turn to Jesus for mercy after we sin, he is always waiting to forgive us and restore us...
Let us never ever be afraid to turn to Jesus for comfort after a tragedy. He is waiting there to heal us and re-create us… Let us resolve right here and right now to love Jesus by keeping his commandments…. so that the love of Jesus and the Father and the Spirit may be in our hearts always.
