Sermon for Easter 6A – RCL
May 21, 2017
Jesus
said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him
nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
”I
will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world
will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.
On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those
who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself
to them.”
The Reading today is
more from Jesus’ “farewell discourse”.
Jesus has just washed the feet of the disciples, Judas Iscariot has left
to betray him and Jesus has given us a new commandment – to love one another as
Jesus loves us. Jesus then goes on to
say that if we keep his commandments then he will send another Advocate to be
with us for all time. And that advocate
is the Spirit of truth.
Notice that Jesus
says that we will receive another advocate – “another” because Jesus has been
the advocate while he walked in human form among us. Jesus was the advocate who came to show us
that God’s dream is one where we do love one another. Jesus came and showed us that God’s love for
humankind will not end – not ever. Even
when mankind tried to kill that love on a cross the love of God refused to
die. And even goes so far as to promise
the third person of the trinity – the Holy Spirit – will walk among us forever
and remind us that we are never alone.
The Spirit of God’s
truth – that same spirit that hovered over the waters at the time of creation
will be with us at all times. That is
the promise in this gospel. And all we have
to do is to keep Jesus commandments. We
are to love God and love our neighbor.
Simple enough – or is it.
Sometimes it is not too easy to love our neighbor. Sometimes our neighbors do things that make
them very unlovable. Sometimes our
society seems to be so out of whack that it makes it impossible to love our
neighbors.
And sometimes because
of all the turmoil in our lives we feel abandoned and alone. The good news is that even when we feel
abandoned by society and those around us we have the Spirit with us. And I admit the promise of this nebulous
thing we call the Advocate of truth is not easy to grasp. We would rather have the embodied God, Jesus,
to walk along side us. We can understand
a companion in flesh and blood.
But the spirit? How is that comforting? I for one have a strong theology of the
spirit. I believe that the spirit is manifested
in many forms. Sometime it is in the
form of the friend who is always your companion. The friend who will tell you when something
is not right. The friend that loves you
no matter what you do. The friend that
knows when to just walk by your side in silence – the friend you know you can
reach out to no matter what.
At times we feel like
we have no one – that the world has abandoned us but if we sit still and open
our hearts to the presence of the God we will discover that the Holy Spirit is
there. And sometimes we discover that
she has been trying to get our attention for years. Because she is nothing if not persistent in
trying to break through our barriers to show us that we are loved.
I have has some very
strong experiences of the Holy Spirit moving in my life. In one instance – when I was a lay preacher –
I was scheduled to preach during the summer.
The Gospel was the feeding of the five thousand. I spent the week before preparing for that
sermon and had an outline all ready to go.
And then the Holy Spirit showed up and everything was turned on its
head.
On that Friday I came
home and in the mail was “The Missionary” – the former monthly newsletter of
the diocese. The cover story was titled
“A voice for the Voiceless.“ It was the
account of a young man who committed suicide because he was gay. The article was written by his friends who
had not known the despair that this young man had entered into. I was moved to tears when I read the article.
The next morning I
sat down with my outline to write my sermon on the feeding of the five thousand
and instead a very different sermon came out.
I sat down and in under 30 minutes I wrote a sermon on the sin of
exclusion. How words indeed hurt and can
even kill. As I wrote that sermon I
reached for reference books and opened them to the exact page that had quotes
that fit perfectly.
When I was done I
read the sermon and thought – who wrote this?
It wasn’t me. It was certainly a
powerful expression of God’s love to all of us.
A sermon on keeping the commandment to love God and Love our
neighbor. It was a sermon written with
the Holy Spirit pouring through me. It
was one of the most powerful feelings of God being present in my life that I
have ever felt. God the Spirit – the
Advocate – flowing though me and being present to add another voice to the
voiceless. The promise that no matter
what happens – whatever horrors society presents the advocate will be with us.
Catherine Keller – a
theologian and professor wrote in her book “On the Mystery” that “Whatever
horrors we as a species perpetrate against the earth and all its populations,
the spirit in process continues to call us towards the “new heaven and earth”:
the renewal of creation.”[i] The Spirit moves though each of us when we Love
God and Love our neighbors pushing us to bring God’s dream of Love to this
earth.
The Advocate is with
so that we are not alone. The Advocate
is with us to push us to express God’s Love to all of creation. The Advocate is with us so that we can be
ensured of the promise that we are never alone.
That we are never un-loved. That
is the promise Jesus made to his disciples before he was crucified. That is the promise that God makes to us.
Oh – and just a
cautionary note. When we open our hearts
and bodies to the Sprit of God please remember to have your crash helmets ready
and hold on tight. Because the Advocate
will show us God’s love and will push us to show God’s love to a society in ways
that we may never have dreamed of. The
Sprit will move us to go out and bring God’s dream of Love to this earth in
ways we never expected.
May the Holy Sprit be
with each of us and move us to show that we are never alone. To show the world that God so loves all of
God’s creation so much that he sent the Spirit of Truth, the advocate to be
with us always.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
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