I do love a good story. I love stories because they set our imagination free. I love stories because they allow us to conceive the impossible. Better yet, I love stories because they make the impossible, possible.
For centuries people have dreamt dreams and wrote of fantastical journeys. They write of the impossible. They write of flying cars, time travel and traveling at the speed of light. Michael Riley writes; ““Science fiction is sometimes talked about as the literature of ideas. How better to illustrate that than William Gibson using the term ‘cyberspace’ in his debut novel, Neuromancer. As Gibson described how his protagonist, Case, ‘jacked into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix,’ a new way of looking at and experiencing information was visualized. In a year that shared its date with the title of George Orwell’s 1984, a science fiction author writing on a manual typewriter allowed us to name and visualize what would later become the internet.”[1]
The Gospel can be the same and I would even venture to say that it is for us. One of our great preachers and teachers, Fred Craddock, shares stories of the everyday that seem to illustrate gospel living.
“There is a little community in southwest Oklahoma, near the Washita creek, where the Native American Black Kettle and most of the women and children of his tribe were massacred by General Custer as he and his troops swept down in the early morning hours. The community is named for the general, Custer City. (Fred and his wife) Nettie and I ministered there about three years; the population was 450 on a good day. There were four churches: a Methodist church, a Baptist church, a Nazarene church and a Christian church. Each had its share of the population on Wednesday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday evening. Each had a small collection of young people, and the attendance rose and fell according to the weather and whether it was time to harvest the wheat and all of that.
But the most consistent attendance in town was at the little café where all the pickup trucks were parked, and all the men were inside discussing the weather, and the cattle, and the wheat bugs, and the hail, and the wind, and are we going to have a crop. All their wives and sons and daughters were in one of those four churches. The churches had good attendance and poor attendance, but the café had consistently good attendance, better attendance than some of the churches. They were always there. Once in a while they would lose a member there at the café, because their wives finally got to them or their kids did, and you’d see them go sheepishly, off to one of the churches. But the men at the café still felt strong. “We are still the best, the biggest, and strongest group intown.” And so, they went on Wednesdays and Sundays and every other day, discussing weather and crops-not bad men, but good men, family men, hardworking men.
The patron saint of the group that met at the café was named Frank. Frank was seventy-seven when (Fred)I met him. He was a good, strong man; a pioneer, a rancher and farmer, and a prospering cattle man too. He was born in a sod house; he had his credentials, and all men there at the café’ considered him a saint. “Ha! Ol’ Frank will never go to church.” (Fred)I met Frank on the street one time. He knew I was a preacher (Fred explains), but it has never been my custom to accost people in the name of Jesus, so I just was shaking his hands and visiting with him, but he took the offensive. He was not offensive, but he took the offensive. He said, “I work hard, I take care of my family, and I mind my own business. Far as I’m concerned, everything else is fluff.” You see what he told me? “Leave me alone, I’m not a prospect.” I didn’t bother Frank. That’s why I, the entire church, and the whole town were surprised, and the men at the café church were absolutely bumfuzzled when old frank, seventy-seven years old, presented himself before me one Sunday morning for baptism. I baptized Frank. Some of the talk in the community was, “Frank must be sick. Guess he’s scared to meet his maker. They say he’s got heart trouble. Going up there and being baptized, well, I never thought ol’ Frank would do that, but I guess when you get scared…” All kind of stories.
But this is the way frank told it to me. We were talking the next day after his baptism, and I said, “Uh, Frank, you remember that little saying you used to give me so much: ‘I work hard, I take care of my family, and I mind my own business’?”
He said, “Yeah, I remember. I said that a lot.”
I said, “You still say that?”
He said, “Yeah.”
I said, “Then what’s the difference?”
He said, “I didn’t know then what my business was.” He discovered what his business was-to serve human need. And so I baptized Frank. I raised my hand and I said, “In the presence of those who gather, upon your confession of faith in Jesus Christ, and in obedience to his command I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son the Holy Spirit. Amen.”[2]
Now that is a fairly long story but it is important why? Because it is today’s gospel message.
This message comes near Jesus death and the disciples are faced with the impossibility of following Jesus at his departure. “I give you a new commandment That you love one another” Not just the way you have cared for each other but the way that I have loved you.
This, in John is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse. You see John’s gospel is very different from the other three. John Crossan and Marcus Borg remind us that “First the dating is different. In the other Gospels the meal Jesus shares with his friends is the Passover meal, in John it is not. “Rather it is the Thursday before Passover, and the lambs to be eaten at the Passover meal on Friday evening will be killed on Friday afternoon, at about the same hour that Jesus dies on the cross. The reason for John’s dating seems to be theological: Jesus is the new Passover lamb. Second, the amount of space devoted to Jesus’s last gathering with his disciples is different: in Mark nine verses (14:17-25) in John, five chapters…”[3]
It is also interesting to note that the other three gospels have the words we use at the Eucharist or “the words of institution, this is my Body, this is my blood..” in John we do not see this, “instead John has the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples (13:3-11), a ritual often incorporated into Christian observance of Holy Thursday. Finally, we note that calling this day “Maundy Thursday” is based on Johns story: “Maundy” derives for the Latin word for “mandate” – the new commandment – that Jesus gives his followers in John 13:34: “I give you a new commandment, that you Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another.”[4]
There is a saying that Jesus said I love you this much and then he stretched out his arms and died on the cross. I would add that he loved us so much that he stretched out his arms, died on the cross and then broke the binds of death forever!
That is done…there is nothing more we can do. We could not love anyone that much. But we can love each other as Christ loved and taught.
In the reading for acts today Peter had a dream that allowed Gentiles into the Jesus movement. “the Holy Spirit, the great boundary crosser, the irresistible force of God’s transformative presence, reaching out and baptizing those outside. And Peter draws the conclusion: “God has given…to Gentiles (the unclean ones) the repentance that leads to life.” These gentiles are invited into God’s new life. God makes a way out of no way, when they had no way to come into new life, God makes possible what I had crossed off as impossible….”[5]
This is what Jesus does. Jesus stands against Empire and tradition. He stands in the face of categories that separates us and challenges us to Love one another. And That love is so great it should be troubling us and challenging us every day…
We thought that when the turmoil of the 60’s was over that the race issues had been resolved and yet today African American men and people of color are incarcerated 5 times more than white Americans. Today the united states make up about 5% of the world’s population and has 21%of the world’s prisoners.[6]
Is this how we love one another?
We believed that women’s rights and gender issues were settled and yet there is an attack on women’s health and still large disparity in pay rates.
Is this how we love one another?
There are still places in our own congregations when it comes to the LGBTQ community that believe hate the sinner, love the sin, is ok language and or good theology.
Is this how we love one another?
The way we are caring for people who are fleeing hunger, hate, war and poverty at our borders is a sin! Literally it defines sin on so many levels!
Is this how we love one another?
How do we Love one another…so many of those issues seem so far and beyond our influence or capabilities?
We can clothe each other, we can feed each other, we can pray for each other, we can seek out the marginalized, the poor, the hungry and feed and care and do our best. We may never feed 5000…then again how many meals have we served? We may never raise the dead but, how many times has this congregation been the source for comfort and care?
Do we do enough, no. Sorry we don’t because, well we can never do enough. Can we do more? I don’t know that is for you to decide. Can we dream into new ministries? Can we dream our current ministries bigger? Broader?
We know our business is to serve human need. What are the needs of our community and the people around us? Have they shifted and moved? I am asking these questions because I do not know. If you know tell me. If there is a better way or a different way let’s pray into it and see where God maybe taking us. Let us Somehow shift ourselves more boldly into this new commandment. Let us walk with each other and pray with each other for the Lord to reveal to us where we are called to serve.
Remember this is about mission and service and growing our ministries. This is about being the face of Christ to the community around us. Now here is a scary thought…and money is not an issue. There is no mission no dream that is too big. If we cannot do it alone let us seek out partners in the community, seek out grants from anywhere and everywhere. Seek out our family in the churches to our north south east and west and partner to make bigger brighter things happen.
Now I have some high and mighty, fancy, even huge ideas. But those are mine. And I will ask the questions but what are yours? Where do your passions lay? Where is the spirit troubling the waters in your heart?
I have heard if I had a million dollars, I would like to see this ministry happen. There is a spiritual practice that says let’s step boldly and blindly in faith and God will provide and if we fail…Dust ourselves off and try again. I give you a new commandment love one another as I have loved you.” Let us get excited and revved up in Christ like love and see where it may take us.
The commandment to love each other is new because Jesus is the way and the power of that love. And Jesus can be those for us, all we need to do is pray, look and listen for the movement of Spirit.
I pray that we will move together into the new commandment. There are glories of Christ to be seen here, glories that we have never seen before. And there is love to be lived here that some have never tasted before. This is our time to rediscover what it means to be the hands, feet, eyes and body of Christ to the world around us. Amen.
[1]https://electricliterature.com/8-pieces-of-modern-technology-that-science-fiction-predictedor-invented/
[2]Craddock, Fred B., and Mike Graves. Craddock Stories. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001. Pg. 67-69
[3]Borg, Marcus J., and John Dominic Crossan. The Last Week: What Gospels Really Teach about Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem: Marcus J Borg and John Dominic Crossan. San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 2006. Pg. 110
[4]Ditto
[5]Brueggemann, Walter, and Thomas A. Long. Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015. Pg.140
[6]NAACP.ORG
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