There is a lot of talk about love these days, both in religious circles and the wider culture. As Christians, should we be following the world or Jesus Christ when it comes to love? Fr. Andy Cruz Lillegard explores this question in a beautiful sermon. Continue reading, or click here to go right to the sermon.
If you would like to listen to the readings and the sermon on YouTube, click here.
Year B, Fifth Sunday of Easter
The Collect
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus
Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that
leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the
unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Acts 8:26-40
An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from
Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian
eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He
had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the
prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to
it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside
him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”
The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or
about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to
him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the
eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the
chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip
baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the
eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as
he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to
Caesarea.
Psalm 22:24-30
Deus, Deus meus
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the LORD shall praise him: *
“May your heart live for ever!”
26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, *
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.
27 For kingship belongs to the LORD; *
he rules over the nations.
28 To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; *
all who go down to the dust fall before him.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him; *
they shall be known as the LORD’s for ever.
30 They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn *
the saving deeds that he has done.
1 John 4:7-21
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and
knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed
among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this
is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our
sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen
God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we
have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in
those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and
believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been
perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so
are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with
punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.
Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a
brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The
commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters
also.
Gospel: John 15:1-8
Jesus said to his disciples, ”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every
branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in
you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless
you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear
much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown
away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you
abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My
Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
Sermon by Fr. Andy Cruz Lillegard:
The phrase; “a dog with a bone,” comes to mind after our latest excerpt from the First Letter of John.
As it seems, the Evangelist is simply not going to let go of this particular bone. Nor is he going to be content with stashing it away somewhere for safe keeping; lest it end up buried beneath anything that might muffle the message he has been sent to proclaim: that “whoever does not love, does not know God; for God is love.”
Now, we already spent some time last week talking about the inherent problem of allowing the world to define “love” for us. So, maybe all I need to do now is reinforce that message by pointing-out, the biggest problem with doing so comes when we understand the quote I have just given you within the larger context of this letter. A context that might be summed up here in the author’s own words;
“The reason the world does not know us, is that it did not know Him.”
So, if “God is love,” as John has just told us – that is to say: the nature of God is love; and the nature of love is God – and therefore, God Himself alone defines what love actually is by what He is and does then it would be foolish to allow a world that has never known the One who is the very definition of love, to tell us what that word means.
We would not let the world define a God it doesn’t know; and as such, we cannot let it define love. Since “God” and “love” are one in the same. Yes, the world has an incredibly important role to play in this most important matter of love. It’s just not the role of giving definition to what it means to be engaged in God’s self-defining work of love.
No, the world in which we live will have to be satisfied with being an object of this love. A love demonstrated for, and in us, by the redeeming work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, a Lord and a love which the world has not yet known. So, we can’t expect the world to know the particulars of love, any more than we can expect someone living in first century Palestine to know that in English, a preposition is something we never end a sentence with.
If the world is to know love, it must know the Lord; and if it is going to come to know Him, it will have to be through us.
That being said, Christian love for the world rarely looks like our approval of that world and its ways.
In fact, a few chapters back in this same letter, John goes out of his way to say,
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world.”
Now, this statement is not, as it may seem, a prohibition of sharing God’s love with those who need it most. Yet, John is saying by employing a kind of hyperbole: that we cannot actually love the world on the world’s terms, or according to its own definition of love; while still engaging in the radical kind of love to which you and I have been called.
However, those who love God above all things – those who actively participate in His love, will necessarily love the world – not because of what it is and does, but in spite of it.
That is to say, we are called to love the world not necessarily how it might want to be loved, as it doggedly insists upon its own way. But instead, we are called to truly love it out of a recognition of the world’s genuine need for the love of God.
To that end, John gives us an uncomfortable, but foolproof litmus test, to determine whether or not we actually possess the love of God:
“Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
So, John is sharing with us the very same truth that Jesus shared with him: that we cannot share what we do not have; and if we’re not sharing it, we don’t have it. In other words, the abundant fruit expected of those who claim discipleship of Christ – those who cling for their very lives, to the true vine – will be found in the lives of those they love. Those we love, out of simple obedience to the One who first loved us.
Meaning, we, who cling to that vine, do so not merely for our own lives, but for the life of this world. A life near and dear to the heart of God.
For the heart that lives to love God, and to share God’s own love with brother and sister, is a heart that necessarily abides in the one and only heart that gets to define “love.” And therefore, only the heart that abides in love, by loving others, is bound to live forever.
We cannot look to the world to show us love; but once we have been made witnesses of the love of Christ… God help us should we then choose to turn a blind eye to that world, or to bury away the life-giving marrow of that love.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.