Easter
5 Homily By The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbriydge, GA, 24 April 2016
RCL
Year C: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6 ; John 13:31-35
At
the last supper Judas goes out to betray Jesus,
& Jesus gives us
the command, the essential ingredient to nourish life in here &
beyond our red doors:
“Love one another.”
Beloved
Brothers & Sisters, you & I know the love we share in this
“happening community where we live God's love”. We subtly promote
this love by wearing our distinctive T-shirt, as
you see modeled here by one of my helpers.
What
do you think of seeing purple & gold with a cat's pawprint? Of course Bainbridge
High. Check the back! We see a different reality than our home team! Things aren't always as they look.
Thank you T-shirt models!
What
does this shirt say about life? When life gets “Abby Normal” it's
helpful to have a good laugh. [It's from a line in the Mel Brooks spoof "Young Frankenstein.] Laughter is a good medicine, a gift of
love from God that can bring peace – peace the world cannot give.
Love is the stabilizing force God gives us to make peace possible.
In
our Gospel today, Jesus
knows life will destabilized quickly. He gives us the simple rule:
“love one another”.
How do we love when the chaos of change surrounds us? How do we
respond in love when no T-shirt is funny enough to give us peace?
Remember: The Rev. Charles Hoskins of Savannah drilled this into us almost
every time he preached here [say it with me if you remember]
“God is good all the time. All the
time God is good.
But God is never easy.”
It
is not easy for Peter to swallow the invitation in his vision in our
1st
lesson: eat what is unclean. Peter says nothing profane has entered
his mouth. We know the profane words that came out of his mouth not
long before this when he denied knowing Jesus. The very night Jesus
gives this new command to love each other: Judas betrays Jesus
the
disciples desert him
& Peter denies him.
Everything's in chaos!
Suddenly
everything changes with Jesus' resurrection & the Holy Spirit's
coming to live in the disciples.
Even we, the unclean Gentiles, receive the
Holy Spirit & are welcomed into the community that loves.
Suddenly people criticizing Peter see with new eyes & praise God,
who makes all things new, who lives among us & wipes away tears
even in chaos. God is good all the time. All the time God is good.
But God is never easy.
Chaos
is never easy, yet it is integral to positive transformation. It's
like what Paul tells us & the Corinthians about the body: One
body has many
members, yet is one body.
Each part is important & cannot
say to another part, “I don't need you.”
Chaos
is part of the wholeness of life. Chaos
scientists see order in chaos. As Dr. Margaret Wheatley says in a keynote address1:
“A system in chaos is defined as a system that, from moment to
moment, is totally unpredictable. You cannot predict where it is
going next. [Yet with]...three-dimensional space on high speed
computers, scientists... plot the movement of a system in chaos. When
plotted on a two-dimensional scale, it looked totally
unpredictable... biserk ...converted into multidimensional space, you could track many variables at once. The system, from moment to
moment, zoomed from one part of the screen to another. You couldn't
predict what would happen next. But over time, you...realize...the
system conformed to a boundary. It had an inherent shape that it did
not violate. It would not move out of this boundary...
“You
cannot see the order in chaos if you are looking moment
to moment...if you are managing individual behaviors. These strange
attractors draw attention to one of the great paradoxes of chaos
science...you get order without predictability.”2
We
like predictability. We associate it with peace. We have rules to
help us have predictability at home, school, work,3
rules from our doctors, the city, the county, the Internal Revenue
Service, rules to help secure peace for us. We know some
rule
enforcers wear distinctive uniforms to help keep the peace at home &
abroad. We also see how often we break away from peace, from the love
God intends for each of us & all of us.
How
ready are we to live into the chaotic reality of new life with the
risen Jesus,4
who welcomes us unclean, unpredictable Gentiles? To
embrace God's “love that overcomes death in all its forms, we
[must] be aware of [God's] power that enables us to love in a way
that is active,
not re-active,”
as
The Rev. David Somerville of our diocese says.
God's
Love increases peace – the peace only God can give. Embrace peace.
It's all around you even in chaos. It's in unexpected places....
You
can see peace symbols hanging on a tree on Boxwood Drive.
How
do we help enhance the peace that
only God can give?
Ted, please “model” this answer & sing “Let There Be Peace on Earth”4.
Butterworth, Susan. “By This Everyone Will Know That You Are My Disciples, Easter 5 (C) -2016”. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/04/05/by-this-everyone-will-know-that-you-are-my-disciples-easter-5-c-2016/ . Accessed: 21 April 2016.
Somerville,
The Rev. David. “Childish Love, Human Love, Divine Love: A
Reflection on the Gospel, John 13:31-35, The New Commandment to Love
One Another for 24 April. The Fifth Sunday of Easter.”
Wheatley,
Margaret, EdD. “Chaos
and Complexity: What Can Science Teach?”
http://margaretwheatley.com/articles/Wheatley-Chaos-and-Complexity.pdf
Accessed 23 April 2016.
1
Wheatley,
Margaret, EdD. “Chaos and
Complexity: What Can Science Teach?”
http://margaretwheatley.com/articles/Wheatley-Chaos-and-Complexity.pdf
Accessed 23 April 2016.
2
Ibid.
4 "Let There Be Peace on Earth" Jill and Sy Miller
No comments:
Post a Comment