St Michael's Church TilehurstThought for the Day
Sunday 5 May 2024
6th Sunday of Easter
The Revd Amy Sykes, Curate
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First Reading – Acts (chapter 10 v44-end)
Gentiles Receive the Holy Spirit
While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.
Second Reading – 1 John (chapter 5 v1-6)
Faith Conquers the World
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Testimony concerning the Son of God
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.
Gospel Reading – John (chapter 15 v9-17)
Jesus the True Vine
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
A Reflection
In the latest episode that I’ve watched, a really sweet, not terribly competitive, mother-and-daughter team arrived last to the checkpoint, and were therefore kicked out of the race. Despite their disappointment, the daughter had a peace and inner glow as she talked about how special it had been to spend precious time with her mother. Their love for one another was so evident and, as another mother/daughter team looked on, I can only describe the other daughter’s look as wistful. In comparison, hers was a fractious relationship with her mother, and they were most definitely getting on each other’s nerves. She went on to explain that she would have loved to have been enjoying her relationship with her mum, as the others enjoyed theirs. I really felt for her, because isn’t that something we all feel? – wistful for that sense of being utterly relaxed and known in a loving relationship?
But in our complicated world, love doesn’t always work out as we would like it to. And I wonder what draws us to church today? Is there any sense of wistful longing to know Love, the source of love, in a way that brings us a similar sense of enduring peace and deep joy, through the bitter disappointments of life? Or perhaps we feel like an outsider, excluded from that kind of relationship with God? Maybe our failures and disappointments feel more real to us than the God of love?
In our gospel reading today, John invites us to listen in on Jesus’ final words to his disciples before He is betrayed and goes to the cross. What important subject would Jesus choose to talk about in his very last conversation with them? Well, given that this is Jesus, of course, it’s got to be love. He says,
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” (John 15 v9)
How can we grasp this? Jesus is saying that all, all the love that God the Father shares with Jesus, His Son, is ours. Not, as we might imagine, a stingy little portion of reluctant tolerance – nor is it for a brief moment. But Jesus tells us that we are loved abundantly, with all of God’s love, today and forever. It’s to be the water we swim in, the air that we breathe, the whole of our lives that we live.
Last week, I went to Django’s birthday party in Greenwich Park. Django is seven, the son of our closest friends, and he’s bananas about trains. I brought along a lovely, and perfectly respectable, birthday present of a game. But I was there just in time to see him open Leo’s present. Leo is another dear family friend. Django unpacked Leo’s present and I’ve never seen the like – he was SO excited, shouting, ‘It’s a train, it’s a train!’ It wasn’t just any old train – it was a Hornby train. I have never seen such joy in one small child. He asked, ‘does it light up?’ and immediately yelled to Greenwich Park, ‘It lights up!!’ and went running round to show everybody his new train, ‘Have you seen my train??!!!’
As I went and slid my lovely and perfectly respectable present unnoticed, into an overflowing bag of presents, I felt joyful too. Not at the Hornby train, nor even by Django’s excitement, but by Leo’s generous heart. Leo had given Django his precious Hornby train set, that he had loved when he was a child. And as joyful as Django was about the train, it is Leo’s generous and no-holds-barred love that Django was really receiving.
Perhaps when we come to church, we come ready to receive a religious kind of gift from God. The sacraments, the singing, the liturgy, the people, even the building – all add up to a lovely gift – the kind of gift that we know how to receive, thank you very much, the sort of love that we can return with appropriate devotion.
But Jesus isn’t offering us a neat, packaged, containable kind of love. These good gifts that we enjoy are given to help us glimpse the heart of the giver. With unending generosity, He’s offering us the same, intimate love that is shared in the life of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. An abundant gift of pure grace. We’ll never know the end of it. He wants to enjoy us, and for us to enjoy Him. ‘The Message’ bible translation puts Jesus’ words like this:
“I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love.” (John 15 v9)
We are invited to kick our shoes off, and make ourselves at home in God’s love. And Jesus says that the way we stay at home in His love, is by keeping His commands, which are yet another gift to us. As our Epistle reading from 1 John puts it, “His commandments are not burdensome.” Rather, God’s commandments are like the banks of a river, giving us boundaries that enable the joyful and free flow of our lives by grace.
The command that Jesus gave to us the night before He died, is that we should love one another (John 15 v13). When we look across the spectrum of the church of Jesus Christ, with all of its division and disunity, this command is a deep, heart-wrenching challenge to each one of us. Nothing matters more to Jesus than that we love one another.
I remember well the weekly humiliation during school sports classes – of having to stand in a line, painfully waiting to be picked for a team, knowing full well that I wouldn’t be. Rather, that I would be left till the final two – and even then, the pretty, popular, sporty girls would be having an excruciating dilemma about the fact that they had to choose one of us from the absolute dregs at all.
The opposite is true when we think about God. We, sophisticated and modern folk, might think we are autonomous captains of our fate; but the night before He died, Jesus shockingly said,
“You did not choose me, but I chose you.” (John 15 v16)
We are chosen by Christ to share in the love of the Father: a gift given to us through the in‑dwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. God chooses us in Christ. And as our Acts reading reminds us, this free-range love is completely beyond our control – it’s uninitiated by us – it’s unearned by us – we don’t have to be a certain kind of religious person – we don’t need to be a member of a particular group, or to do anything special at all to make us worthy. Absolutely not. Before we make a move towards Him, God comes to us in Christ. It’s grace alone.
If we have a job, it is to make ourselves at home with Jesus, whose heart is always with those who don’t know Him yet. Through our living and our loving, we share His love with the world: especially with the excluded, the suffering, the ones who feel wistful for more.
What a comfort Jesus’ words must have been to the disciples, when the very next day everything seemingly went desperately wrong and they scattered, terrified. What a comfort to the community of Christians (for which this letter of John was written) when, at the end of the first century, they were experiencing persecution and even death because they were following in the way of Jesus. And what a comfort for us, when things in our lives seem to unravel beyond our control, when suffering hits us full pelt. Yet we know that, no matter what, we are held in the eternal embrace of God. God chooses us to be His friends.
As profound as these last words to his friends were, it is Jesus’ actions that seal the deal and give us the confidence to trust Him. Love is as love does. Jesus said,
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (v13)
And that’s exactly what He did for them, and for us, the very next day. Jesus loved us, not only when He chose us, but when He willingly chose to die for us. It is through His death and resurrection, that God shows His love for us.
We might ask ‘why?’ Why does God go to these extreme lengths to be friends with us? Why does the Creator of the whole universe, the Alpha and Omega, invite us right into the intimate life of God? In one sense, we can’t really answer that – although we know enough of grace to know it’s not because of anything we deserve – that much is glaringly obvious. But Jesus gives us a clue when He says,
“I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15 v10)
This is the gospel within the gospel – Jesus, our friend, wants us to share His joy.
Back in Greenwich park, I see Leo laughing, enjoying Django’s joy at his extravagant gift. And I glimpse a picture of God’s heart for us.
Our inheritance in Christ isn’t to be wistfully on the sidelines, regretful for all that isn’t as we would love it to be. But trusting in His word, we take our suffering to the Saviour who suffered for us, our faithful friend Jesus; and in return, we receive His abundant gift: the joy of sharing in His love. A Love that bears all things, endures all things and never comes to an end (1 Cor 13 v7,8). Amen.
The Collect Prayer
Risen Christ,
by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples:
help your Church to obey your command
and draw the nations to the fire of your love,
to the glory of God the Father. Amen.