May
18, 2025
By
Kristin Berkey-Abbott
Gospel:
John 13:31-35
---
May
the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable to you Oh
Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Christ
is risen.
---
Those
of us paying attention might wonder if we’ve got the correct Gospel—isn’t the
love each other commandment the one we hear on Maundy Thursday, with the fancy
Latin word maundatum, which means command, and why are we hearing it
again today?
Those
of us who have been parents, or teachers, or in relationships of any kind
really—we know that repetition is needed.
This passage is indeed taken from the lesson that we heard on Maundy
Thursday. In the Gospel of John, Jesus
washes the disciples’ feet after the meal, and then he goes back into teacher
mode for several chapters. It’s teacher
at the end of the semester mode—it’s both an overview of the highlights of his
teaching and a reinforcement of the most important concepts.
Many
theologians see today’s Gospel as the key point of Jesus’ life, preaching, and
ministry. That’s not to say that we all
agree on what Jesus meant. I remember a
church council meeting years ago at a Florida church where the paid music
minister argued that we don’t need to do any community outreach or interfaith
work because Jesus instructed only the original disciples to love each other,
that Jesus only meant those original disciples, loving each other, not
expanding the circle outward.
However,
if we look at today’s passage from Acts, we see that the disciples came away
from their discernment with a very different view. In fact, if we go back and read the book of
Acts in its entirety, we see this question consuming them—they’ve heard the
good news, but now they need to answer the question, “Who is the good news
for?”
Some
of those earliest Christians say it’s for Jews.
Peter has this view at first too.
If Jesus is the Messiah and the completion of the covenant that God made
generations ago, then the ministry of the disciples should be to the Jews. Nobody else is eligible, unless they first
become Jews—hence the focus on circumcision.
In
the early days of Christianity, followers of Jesus were seen as a sect of
Judaism. As such, they enjoyed the same
protected class status as the Jews. We
don’t think of the time of Rome as being a time of religious freedom, but in
some ways, for some Romans, it was. If a
religion had been around for centuries and didn’t threaten the empire
politically, the Romans allowed the religion to continue. Followers of the religion didn’t enjoy the
same religious liberty as Romans did, but they had protections. Romans like things that were old, and Judaism
was old, older even than the Greek institutions that the Romans
appropriated.
So
the decision to include Gentiles, and how they were included, had far reaching
ramifications which may not be appreciated today. If Christianity came to be seen as a new
religion, they wouldn’t have protections; it could have meant a difference
between life and death—and in fact, that is what happened.
It’s
not a surprise that the disciples grapple with these ideas of inclusion and
exclusion; the book of Acts is a remarkable insight into the process of how
Christianity emerged in the earliest days.
In our current time, we see a similar conversation on a national
level. Who gets to count as a citizen? Who gets protections and privileges? Who can stay in the country? Where can they stay? Who gets to decide and whose argument makes
sense? To be fair, most groups of humans
return to these questions again and again.
In a time of Lutheran Synod Assemblies heading into the Churchwide
Assembly this summer, as a church we are likely going to be called to answer
similar questions, which are really just one big question: “How expansive do we believe God’s Good News
can be?” As we elect bishops on both the
Southeast Synod level and the national level, I’ll be listening closely for
clues as to how bishop candidates would answer this question—not that I, or
most other people I know, have a vote on these decisions, but since we will be
represented by these decisions, I’ll be paying attention.
When
we look at God’s trajectory across the whole of the Bible, we see God becoming
more and more expansive, becoming ever more available to all of humanity. At first, God is available only to certain
people and by certain ways, through certain kinds of sacrifice and access. By the time Jesus arrives, we see Jesus
wrestling with the question of his mission.
Is he here just for the Jewish people?
Non-Jewish
people come to him, hoping that his healing power will extend to them. The Syro-Phoenician woman challenges his
exclusive approach, and thereafter, we see Jesus in a more receptive and
expansive mode. The longest conversation
that he has is with the Samaritan woman at the well, and as a result, the Good
News of Jesus’ existence is spread beyond the immediate community.
We
celebrate the Feast of Ascension this Thursday; imagine the quandary of the
disciples. What to do now? You lose your savior, he rises from the dead,
he’s taken up from you after giving you information about the Holy Spirit that
you may not understand fully. What to do
next? The book of Acts shows us the process
of expansion of the mission field that Jesus began. The Holy Spirit comes to the disciples and
comes to Saul who will be called Paul, among others. God speaks to them all in
yearnings and dreams and sometimes, with a direct voice. Through these people, God’s good news travels
all the way to the edges of the known world.
The
book of Revelation, some of which we are reading each week in this time after
Easter, shows the end game of our God, who is making all things new. And yet, even in this vision of what God
makes new, we have echoes of the old.
There’s a new Heaven and a new Earth.
Once again, God decides to come and dwell with mortals, as God has done
from the beginning of time, when God went into the Garden to talk to Adam and
Eve, as God did in the person of Jesus Christ, as God continues to do in the
form of the Holy Spirit, moving into new neighborhoods to invite new
populations into life abundant.
Jesus
didn’t rise from the dead to return to life as it had been. Likewise, God
invites us to unwind whatever grave clothes hold us in their smothering grasp—to
love one another, but not to stop there.
Jesus calls us to expand our minds and hearts to the even more demanding
mandatum, to love ALL as Christ loves us.
Martin Luther tells us that we are to fear and love God, to be of help
and service to our neighbors, and in doing so, to be a model to them, and a
help, by urging them to stay the course and fulfill their own responsibilities
to loved ones and the larger community.
When
I think of John of Patmos, in prison and writing his revelation, part of which
we read today, I think of that new Heaven and new Earth that could be, as each
one of us goes out to love as Jesus loved: friend, neighbor, and enemy alike. We know how transformative this love can
be—we saw it in the ancient world as the apostles created new communities close
to home and across the globe. Let us
pray that we, too, can be part of this same transformation that is so needed
today, our love this inspiring others to love similarly, the power of love
rippling across the planet, transforming the world.
---
Christ
is risen.
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