St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
Church of the
Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
May 10, 2015
Year B: The Sixth
Sunday of Easter
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Stretching
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Sometimes
when people ask me how I’m doing, as a little joke I answer something like,
“Well, I go to church a lot.”
It
usually gets a smile – and, yes, usually quickly changes the subject!
But,
it’s true – I do go to church a lot.
There’s
Sunday, of course, and there’s also the weekday services – the three services
we have at St. Paul’s every week plus the occasional feast day.
I’ve
mentioned before how much I believe in the importance of weekday worship.
Part
of the reason I like it so much is we get to say and hear such great prayers
from the Prayer Book – prayers that seldom or even never get said on Sunday.
For
example, one of my favorites is one that is often said at Morning Prayer:
“Lord
Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross
that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace…”
Isn’t
that a powerful image?
Jesus
stretching out his arms of love – stretching out his arms on the cross, stretching out his arms to love and
embrace the whole world.
Stretching.
But,
there’s more – and it’s about us.
The
prayer continues:
“So
clothe us in your Spirit that we,
reaching forth our hands in love, may
bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you…”
Stretching.
In
today’s gospel passage, Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved you.”
And
if we’re going to obey Jesus’ great love commandment then we’re going to have
to let God stretch us.
We
heard some stretching in today’s first lesson, from the Acts of the Apostles.
This
requires a little back-story.
We
know that all of Jesus’ first followers were Jews. They were Jews who believed
that Jesus was the Jewish messiah.
But,
very early on, thanks to St. Paul and others, non-Jews (gentiles) begin to get
attracted to Jesus, become drawn to very early Christianity.
And,
this caused the first really big crisis in the early Church: what to do about
these gentiles? Were they welcome in the Christian community? Did they have to
become Jews first, following the commands that men be circumcised and obeying
the Jewish dietary and other rules?
Those
first Christians were being called to stretch.
Anyway,
in the Acts of the Apostles just before today’s passage, Peter has a vision of
a giant sheet containing many different creatures, including those a good Jew
wasn’t supposed to eat.
Peter
hears a voice say, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.”
But,
Peter knows the rules and refuses.
And
then the voice says, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
Then
Peter gets summoned by a gentile, a Roman soldier named Cornelius, who wants to
learn about Jesus.
Peter
lets God stretch him
And
so where we pick up today, Peter is still preaching to this Roman soldier and
other gentiles when the Holy Spirit falls on everybody – falls on Cornelius and
all the other non-Jews who were there – God’s love stretches over all of them.
And,
Peter, well, he keeps right on letting God stretch him.
He
says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have
received the Holy Spirit as we have?”
And
they were all baptized.
If
we’re going to obey Jesus’ great love commandment then we’re going to have to let
God stretch us.
Of
course, mothers know all about how love requires stretching.
Their
– your – own bodies literally get stretched as new life – as new love – is
brought into the world.
And
often the marks remain as a reminder that love requires stretching.
Moms
and Dads are called on to stretch – to stretch to love more than they ever
thought they could love – to stretch and sacrifice their own needs and wants –
to stretch and invest in the future so that their children can have a better
life than they themselves have.
But,
it’s not just moms and dads who are called to stretch.
If
we’re going to obey Jesus’ great love commandment then we’re all going to have
to let God stretch us.
At
St. Paul’s over the past couple of years we’ve been letting God stretch us more
and more – taking on new ministries, opening our doors to the community,
getting more involved in the life of our diocese.
(At
Incarnation there’s been a lot of stretching going on – developing a new vision
for how to do church – moving to the afternoon - some people are still having
trouble stretching that far! – taking the choir on the road – and now thinking
about a future somewhere other than here on Storms Avenue.)
But,
the truth is we’re going to have to let God stretch us some more.
We’re
going to have to stretch and welcome people to our churches who may not look or
sound like us – people we may not like or even trust – people we might, out in
the world, look the other way or cross the street to avoid.
If
we’re going to obey Jesus’ great love commandment then we’re going to have to let
God stretch us.
We’re
going to have stretch and, finally, take the Good News outside our doors
and off our church grounds and into our neighborhoods where the modern day
equivalent of Cornelius the Centurion and the Ethiopian eunuch we heard about
last week are so very hungry for the Gospel.
If
we’re going to obey Jesus’ great love commandment then we’re going to have to let
God stretch us.
We’re
going to have to stretch and bring the love of Jesus to our neighbors who so
often are living lives of quiet or not so quiet desperation with no idea that
anyone, let alone God, loves them.
Like
Peter, we’re going to have to let God stretch us.
It’s
not going to be easy. It’s going to hurt.
And
we may even be left with some spiritual stretch marks.
But,
as Peter knew and as mothers probably know best, the reward of stretching is
bringing new life and new love into the world.
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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