Easter 6 + Acts 10:44-48; 1 John 5:1-6 + John 15: 9-17
Observe children, and it is clear how difficult it can be to obey. Heck, observe me on a regular basis, and you can understand how difficult it is to obey. And I'm not speaking this morning about human laws and regulations only. Sure, I manage to observe the big ones most of the time. Just don't pay too much attention to the wide turn into the far lane, or the e-mail I forgot to respond to, or the little bit of gossip I engaged in around someone who is just clearly wrong...
It's really hard to obey. It's a little easier to observe in kids sometimes because they have less human freedom than I do. And because they are still learning to hide their disobedience more fully. Stop poking your sister... and the outstretched finger stops in midair. I look at the poke-recipient. A look at the parent whose voice has spoken... a moment of decision is at hand. We may not have a human parent watching over us as adults, but the moment is the same. Don't roll your eyes at him... don't judge... don't point out the fault in the person who keeps finding nothing but fault in you... (groan) but it would feel really, really good... just this once... seriously, it might even be worth having someone point out my disobedience for the satisfaction of that moment of transgression. That delicious, delightful moment of transgression...
Now, it's certainly true that we behave this way with regard to God's commandments as well. But seriously, and this is why so many of us keep our Bibles safely shut, God has a lot of commandments. That book is chock-full of stuff I should be doing but don't, and warnings about doing the stuff I do and should stop, right? Some of those commandments even seem to contradict one another.
We are the baptized, God's people marked with wondrous love that we cannot possibly deserve. And we are called to welcome those God brings to the community and receive them with water and thanksgiving. Peter is teaching this in Acts when he asks: Can anyone withhold baptism from these folks, even and especially the really different-ones according to my standards and experience? The answer of course is no, no one can withhold baptism from those the Spirit calls to proclamation, service, and community. And so this morning, we wash and mark little Max as another whom God's Spirit has adopted. Ours is simply to not gum up the works of God, proclaim the word, wash, and welcome.
So we get that, in our heads if not our hearts, that we belong to God and nothing can change the intensity of the love that God has for us. We say it even when we can't believe it, and seek this kind of community to keep reminding us: You belong to Christ in whom you have been baptized. I belong to Christ, I belong to Christ...
But then, how shall we live? How shall you and Max and I and all the followers of Jesus of every time and place live out our belonging? What will that feel like, look like? How will I know if I, and we, are living fully in that promise, that covenant of baptism?
The community of John's gospel, who are being addressed in 1 John and in the gospel of the same name, wants to know the same thing. They want to obey God's commands, but then as now, aren't sure how to know what God is commanding and what obedience would look like.
The problem, then as now, is that when we start with ourselves and even our good intentions to obey God's commands (and we're usually pretty sure WE know what those commands are), we are doomed to hopelessness. We will devour one another in accusation and infighting, we will despair our own inability to get it right and love purely and completely, we will, in that moment of decision, choose to satisfy our need to poke our sister or brother and be right, or at least win. We defy our own values and our own calling in baptism so often, that obedience becomes a catch-22. We may even come to wish we had never encountered those baptismal waters so at least we would not have to feel so guilty about not living up to who we have been named and claimed to be.
Good thing we don't choose God. Jesus reminds his disciples that they have been chosen by him, and by human standards, his choices seem suspect if satisfaction and winning are the goal. Jesus chose sinners and tax-collectors, persecutors and haters, the meek, the mild, the poor. Jesus chooses as disciples babies like Max, and cheeky kids, sarcastic and cynical and self-righteous adults, YOU, and God bless us, even me.
And it is from that love, that love that is so powerful we can scarcely believe it, that our love for one another and obedience to the command to love can flow: like water from a rock, like blood from a pierced side, like a chalice poured while bread is broken...
Jesus' love for his disciples, and for us, is not pure because he in unaware of our brokenness and disobedient tendencies. Jesus love for us flows out of God's love for him... As the Father has loved me, so I love you, he tells them. And it is this pattern of love that makes us bold in God's grace to be vulnerable enough to love one another. This commandment is not burdensome, this command to love; it frees us to love and fail and love and betray and love and love and try and love again. Because the love we have for one another comes from the Source of perfect love, from God through Jesus; whose victory is in failure, whose life emerges from death, whose invitation to the font and the table is for every child of earth...
Out-stretched finger, poke-ready and all... God's love must and will bear fruit, even in branches like us. You did not choose God, God chose you. All of you, scars and flaws and sins and all. All of you. That together we might lay down our lives for one another and be formed into God's reign and witness. Here are water, bread, and cup. Let's wash, eat, and drink... amazed again by a grace that makes us more than we can ever choose to be. To the glory of God. Amen.
