How Shall We Sing the Lord's Song? (RCL Easter 5C, 19 May 2019)

How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song?

Reflections on Acts 11.1-18 and John 13.31-35

RCL Easter 5C

19 May 2019

Holy Trinity Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Notes for an Unfinished Sermon

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 19th.

(1)  Every once and a while I come upon a Sunday where I can only prepare what I might describe as being ‘from text to sermon --- almost’. This is just such a Sunday.  My goal is to leave you with a question that will lead you to live your own sermon in the week ahead.

(2)  “Why’d you choose such a backward time in such a strange land?”  Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar by Webber and Rice.

(a) John’s Gospel stresses the love the disciples of Jesus are to have for one another.

(b) It’s a small circle because it’s a community feeling under attack from their own Jewish families, friends and neighbours.

(c) In such a situation it becomes very much an environment of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ where solidarity within the community of disciples is more important than generosity towards those who are ‘outside’.

(3)  “Draw the circle wide.  Draw it wider still.”  Draw the Circle Wide by Gordon Light.

(a) Peter has returned to the Jerusalem community with a remarkable story:  Non-Jews are being called by God to become disciples of Jesus.

(b) It is a development that is beyond their imagination and presents them with the challenge of expanding their vision of God’s mission.

(c) They thought God’s mission of reconciliation and renewal revealed in Jesus of Nazareth was limited to the Jewish people.  Now they know God’s dream is bigger and will involve new ways of being disciples of Jesus. It will bring that most dreaded of human experiences:  CHANGE.

(4)  “Since Love is lord of heaven and dearth, how can I keep from singing?”  My Life Flows on in Endless Song by Robert Lowry.

(a) In every generation the disciples of Jesus are faced with the challenge of knowing how and whom to love.

(b) Even though it’s not as easy path, we do know how to love:  We are to love in the same way that God has loved us in Jesus. Although the principle is clear, the details of working this out in daily life take a lifetime to come even close to learning or, if we are particularly gifted, to mastering.

(c) It is even more difficult to know whom we are to love.

(i) Family and friends are, for the most part, a given.

(ii) People who are like-minded, who belong to ‘our group’ and who share our tastes are not always easy to love, but we can love them most of the time without too much effort.

(iii) But what about ‘those other folk’?  You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones whose stories are so very different from our own, who don’t share our understanding of how things ought to be done, who challenge the status quoand ask questions we’d prefer were left unasked.

(iv) This is the difficult question because the love God offers to us in Jesus is a love that washes feet, touches the ‘unclean’ and reaches out to those some consider to be ‘beyond the pale’. It is a love that expects action and that opens us to risk CHANGE.

(5)  “My song is love unknown, my Saviour’s love to me; love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.”  My Song Is Love Unknown by Samuel Crossman.

(a) The song that God sang to Peter led him away from the smaller circle envisioned by the evangelist John to a wider circle.

(b) The song that God sang to those who came before us in this congregation led them to a world embraced by a Love that is lord of heaven and earth.

(c) The song that God sings to us leads us to seek those who feel ‘loveless’, whether sitting next to us in the pew or beyond our walls or perhaps within our very selves, so that we might ‘lovely be’.

(d) Where do you think God’s song is beckoning you this week?