By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector"What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul? What wondrous love is this, O my soul? What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss, to lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul, to lay aside his crown for my soul?"
This hymn is one of haunting beauty and draws us into the mystery of God. It is a wondrous love that calls us and embraces us. A wondrous love that inspires us and strengthens us to discern and then follow God's call.
During the season of Easter our first lesson is generally taken from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. This book tells of the early struggles and discoveries of the fledgling Christian church. The writer never identifies himself by name, but clearly continues the narrative of the Gospel we ascribe to Luke. It's clear that he worked with both Peter and Paul and his chronicle is concerned, not so much with them as with the gospel being proclaimed. In fact the culmination of the book is the preaching of the Gospel in Rome by Paul. The triumph does not belong to the apostles, but God in this work. Peter and Paul are not the stars of this story, but supporting cast. It is always God at the center.
Our first lesson is taken from the Book of Acts and begins to describe the first crisis the church faced. It was to become the definitive problem over the centuries and continues today. It manifests itself differently, but at root is the same issue, namely -- who is in and who is out.
In this lesson, Peter was brought before the other apostles to explain his actions. Ever the impetuous one, Peter acted without consulting the others and what he did, crossed the line in their eyes. He did the unthinkable. He baptized Gentiles. I'll give you a moment to recover.
It seems laughable to us today, but at that time, the apostles understood Jesus to have been the Messiah to the Jews. If you were outside the Jewish community the Messiah had no relevance, since the purpose of the Messiah was to restore the nation of Israel. If a Gentile wanted to convert to Judaism, that would be a different story, but even then the process of conversion was long and required deep commitment to learn the laws, the traditions, and the scriptures.
In baptizing the Gentiles without any of this preparation, Peter undermined the purity of the faith and the Apostles needed to hear his explanation. In response Peter told them about his dream in which God told him to call nothing unclean. The unfolding of the dream and subsequent events led Peter to believe that this new community of faith called into being by Jesus was going to transcend everything they knew, and that included their old traditions and understanding. It was, to use a contemporary phrase, a "radical welcome" into a community that had once excluded others.
The other apostles initially warmed to this idea until it became apparent that the older traditions really were being put aside in favor of creating something totally new and unfamiliar. This argument was to be held again and again. Peter himself waffled on the issue after further debate. Paul comes onto the scene later as the staunchest advocate of the new church which redefined the old ways. Paul himself had been a zealous Pharisee and the most unlikely advocate of change, and yet God called him into this new life and understanding.
But as in all things, time passes. Peter and Paul, all their work and adventures, even their lives had long ended by the time the writer of Revelation took up his pen. From his prison on the island of Patmos, John saw the growth of the Christian church, its struggles from within and its persecution from outside. Imprisoned because of his faith he wrote, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more... the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'..."
One of the reasons these lessons are important because they keep reminding us that the community of faith looks to God for the directions we need to go. Our church and society are full of changes inside out and people often look to the church as a symbol of changelessness in an ever changing world. But that is not reality. The Christian church changes significantly in ways that can be debated to be healthy or not. But at the core of any faith is the conviction that God is present in that change, inspiring, calling, leading and guiding.
Today we don't get bothered at all by baptizing Gentiles. But we have many other issues. There are issues from the shape, look and sound of worship to the most ancient of issues, who's in and who's out? Who can be part of the faith and who can't. We struggle over polity and authority. We fall into the trap of competition for followers. I sometimes wonder if we are spending too much time promoting a particular church -- and not enough time promoting God.
In the Gospel lesson from this morning, we see Jesus at the last supper giving his commandment to love one another. At this point, the reader knows something the disciples don't, namely that Jesus is about to be taken away and the events of Holy Week will unfold. Their lives will shortly change dramatically and totally. But even in the changes that were about to occur, his commandment was what would equip them for the changes about to happen. "Love one another as I have loved you." At that point, the disciples had no idea how wondrous that love was. But they would discover it shortly and the depth of that love would propel them into the world changed and prepared for the struggles and challenges ahead.
Once in a while when I'm feeling nostalgic I'll look at old pictures and year books. Sometimes I'm struck by some of the notes written in by friends from long ago. One well wisher wrote, "don't ever change." While meant with the best intentions, I'm sure, what a terrible thing that would have been! The intervening years have brought much change, some hard but most have been exciting and wonderful. I wouldn't have wanted to miss any of it. I suppose the core of her comment had to do with the quality of friendship we had and the love present in that friendship.
In a world of change, we must change also. Our anchor in the storm is not so much our beloved traditions, as much as our faith that God is still our companion along the way. It's the love, that wondrous love, which stabilizes us -- the love God has for us and the love we have for one another as God has loved us. Too often we react to change with fear and grief of loss. God's call to the early disciples and to us later disciples is to walk boldly into the new heaven and earth created anew and unfolding every day with the joy of possibility and the gratitude of discovery.
Amen.
© 2007 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ
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