Homily for Sunday, April 24, 2016 Graves Chapel
Lessons:
Acts 11: 1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21: 1-6
John 13: 31-35
In the collect
appointed for today, this 5th Sunday in the Easter season, we pray,
“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…” The prayer makes
reference to things Jesus said to his disciples at the Last Supper. Reflect on
these words from John 14: ‘Thomas asked Jesus, “Lord, we do not know where you
are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the
truth, and the life. If you know me, you will know my father also…Whoever has
seen me has seen the Father…Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father
is in me…In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see
me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in
my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”’ (John 14: 5-7, 9, 19-20).
To know Jesus is
to know God. To follow the Way of Jesus is to become one with God, as Jesus is
one with God. Since we are unavoidably imperfect in our humanness, how can we
imagine ourselves as the embodiment of Jesus, part and parcel with God the Father.
What would it really mean to
follow the steps of Our Savior, to walk in his Way?
A few years ago, a
movie called The Way was released. In
the movie, Martin Sheen enacts the role of a father who travels to Spain in
search of his son. He embarks on the walking pilgrimage his son had begun, the
Camino de Santiago or the Way of St. James. This pilgrimage covers 800 kilometers
(or about 500 miles), from Spain’s western border with France in the Pyrenees
to the eastern coast, to Santiago de Compostela, home of the great cathedral where
the remains of the apostle James are entombed. Records of pilgrims making their
way by foot to the cathedral date back to the 9th century, the
Middle Ages, and succeeding generations of pilgrims
continue to follow the Camino de Santiago.
Why would so many
people, so many generations of pilgrims, suffer the hardships of such a long
cross-country walk? As Thomas Avery (the Martin Sheen character) discovers,
each pilgrim has his or her own personal reason. Ultimately, for us, the
pilgrim’s way can be seen as a metaphor for the journey each one of us makes,
the spiritual, inward journey we travel as we seek a closer union with God. As
with the pilgrims who tread the Camino de Santiago, our spiritual journey
requires focus and sacrifice.
The question then
becomes, what are the things we cling to but must sacrifice if we want to
achieve the goal of our spiritual journey? What needs to be discarded from our
metaphorical backpack so that our load can be lightened? A difficult choice indeed…I
think we are much better at sacrificing things that we don’t mind giving
up. I am reminded of episodes of
spring cleaning—of things I take to Goodwill and things that are still in my
closets, year after year, even though I never use them. I just can’t give them up, even though
my attachment to them may keep me stuck in some unhealthy emotional place.
Our souls need
that kind of spring-cleaning, a dedicated time when we discard our treasured
defects of character, the shields we erect that separate us from God. Maybe a
500-mile pilgrimage is indeed the perfect metaphor for the difficult,
time-consuming task of becoming more like God in our thinking, speaking, and
behavior. This is the challenge of the Way.
On the evening of
the Easter Vigil, our last service here, I reflected on the biographical
details of the life of Jesus.
Poor. Homeless. A refugee. A political prisoner. A martyr. Jesus was all
these things. To follow
steadfastly the way that Jesus walked, we are certainly called to great
sacrifice. We are called, in fact, to self-sacrificing love. In today’s lesson from John 13, Jesus
tells the disciples as he prepares them for his death, “I give you a new
commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also
should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
If we really want
to live according to His way, our task is to make Christianity visible in the
world by how we show love. “They will know you by your love,” Jesus says to us,
his 21st century disciples. Unfortunately, the images of
Christianity that many in the world see these days are false images. Someone
who calls himself Christian and speaks words of hate and intolerance is not
making Jesus visible by his love. We do not make Christ known when we who call
ourselves Christians turn our backs on anyone who is suffering, or show
indifference to any injured Samaritan lying by the side of the road.
If we followed the
way of Jesus in our encounters with others, we would express unconditional love
for everyone, even those some consider unclean sinners or unwelcome outsiders.
Think of how often the Pharisees condemned Jesus for socializing with people
they considered unworthy. In today’s lesson from Acts, Peter tells of a vision
in which the voice of God declares, “What God has made clean, you must not call
profane.” Peter concludes the Lord
is informing him that everyone, even the Gentiles—people like us, not born into
the family of the children of Israel—are beloved by God and worthy to be called
brothers and sisters in Christ.
If we walked in
the Way, we would remember how often Jesus said, “Do not judge, unless you
yourself want to be judged in the same way.” Remembering His words, we would
refrain from finding fault with others.
We would also refrain from finding fault with ourselves since we are
asked to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
If we followed the
Way, we would remember what Jesus said when asked how many times we should
forgive our brother. The answer was “Seventy times seven.” Anger, resentment, and the need to be
right are all barriers we are asked to tear down if we want true union with
Jesus.
If we followed the
Way, we would want to be God’s hands and feet and loving face in the world. This
is to be what Jesus was to the poor, the unclean, the sick, and the
outcast: the embodiment of hope.
The hope Jesus offers is a hope of belonging when belonging has always
been denied. The hope is a hope of healing when healing in this world seems
impossible. The hope is a hope of
peace when war of every kind rages without and within. If we are to be pilgrims who carry the
Jesus hope, we must expect to follow a difficult path, to bear a heavy burden. Then, we will find that the hope is our
hope, too, and we discover the ultimate peace of true union with God.
Yes, the Way is
not an easy way. The earliest Christians found what generations have discovered
here in Graves Mill—that following the way of Jesus is easier when we live in a
like-minded community, when we share in fellowship and mutual support. On the
Camino de Santiago, pilgrims travel alone or in small groups, and as they walk,
they pray and reflect. But in the evenings, all along the route, they stop for
rest and communal meals. Inns,
hostels, and private homes open their doors to the pilgrims, invite them to sit
down and converse at family tables, and give them a bed (or simple cot) on
which to sleep. They find comfort, rest, and strength in community.
In Jesus’s life,
we can see fragments of our own lives—or of the lives of the most desperate
people around us. In his death, we confront our own deaths. But in his
resurrection, we experience the promise of a new life in God, a life that
becomes available to us now as we walk in His Way. The church, the body of Christ, exists because Christians can
only demonstrate their faith in relationship with others—in the way we make
Jesus known in the breaking of bread and in the way we love one another.
May the way of the
Lord, a way that leads to greater love and stronger community, always be the
Way we seek to follow. And may this little chapel always remain as a haven of
rest, refreshment, and reinvigoration for those who travel in search of greater
union with God.
AMEN.
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