[Propertalk] 6 Easter b

Thu May 10 13:00:32 EDT 2012

Our clergy conference was Monday - Wednesday of this week, and I put 
this down on Monday morning, to revise it later this week, so this is 
very much a draft ... 8 - )

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  	         	             THE 
SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - B
ACTS 10:44-48                            		    	                	13th 
MAY, 2012
1 JOHN 5:1-6		                                                	 
PSALM 98
JOHN 15:9-17

	Gary Trudeau’s been running a short series in his cartoon strip, 
Doonesbury, in which Alex is getting married. Her mother is trying to 
stage-manage the wedding in such a way that would put Disneyland to 
shame. Her daughter will have none of it.

  	A week ago last Friday Alex went to her father, who was seated at the 
breakfast table, reading the newspaper. She said, “Dad, that’s the 
dressmaker on the phone. I know you gave us a budget, but it wasn’t 
remotely realistic for a dress this important. You’re not going to win 
this one, Poppy, so it’ll save us a lot of drama if you just say ‘yes’ 
to the dress right now, okay?”

	Her father looked up from the newspaper and said, “What?”

	To that Alex responded, “Close enough. Good to go, Kim!” To which Kim 
replied, “Great”.

	When did, “What?” become any sort of an affirmation? I prefer things a 
little more clear. Mind you, it doesn’t always work like that, even in 
church.

	Yet the Gospel reading this morning would seem to imply that 
identification as Jesus’ disciples and friends, that a life 
demonstrating that we are followers of Jesus, is fairly easily defined. 
Jesus takes several sentences to say what’s required, but what it boils 
down to is, “Love Me.”

	This DOES SOUND remarkably simple, so simple we hardly need to be 
reminded of it. Yet translating these two words into action for our 
daily lives can be remarkably difficult. For one thing, I doubt if 
there’s anyone here this morning who won’t admit that if you say that 
you love someone, what you’re saying at the same time is that you trust 
them. If you or I admit love, we’re saying that we’re placing our whole 
selves in that other’s hands.

	Dr Peter Marty wrote, “Talking about Jesus as an idea is a far cry from 
trusting your life to Jesus. Believing in the concept of God does not 
begin to compare with you actually knowing God.

	“It's the difference between talking about love and telling someone 
that you actually love him or her. I'll take a kiss any day from someone 
whom I care about, over that same person just reading to me from a 
textbook about love.

	“Emily Dickinson once wrote a poem to a distant and unexpressive lover 
of hers. It began with this line: ‘To love me is one thing; to tell me 
you love me is another.’ That's the kind of difference Jesus seems to be 
hinting at.”

	Peter Marty, referring to the time when the disciple Simon Peter 
blurted out that he thought that Jesus was God’s Messiah, speculated 
that when Peter did this, “It felt to Jesus like Peter was saying 
directly to him, ‘I love you.’ And all Jesus could say in astonishing 
reply was, ‘Blessed are you.’” 1

	I rather like that Emily Dickinson quote. It sounds so much like Eliza 
Doolittle in Shaw’s “Pygmalion” or the musical based on it – “My Fair 
Lady”. “Don’t stand there and talk about how you feel about me. Show 
me!”

	Many of you may know the history of the Anglican Cathedral at Coventry 
in the Midlands of England. There have been three cathedrals on that 
site in the past one thousand years: “the 12th century Priory Church of 
St Mary, the mediaeval Parish Church Cathedral of St Michael and the 
modern Coventry Cathedral, also named for St Michael. Coventry's 
fortunes and story are closely associated to the story of its Cathedrals 
- a story of death and rebirth.” 2

	“The majority of the great ruined churches and cathedrals of England 
are the outcome of the violence of the dissolution in 1539 (at the time 
of the reformation). The ruins of St Michael's are the consequence of 
violence in our own time. On the night of 14 November 1940, the city of 
Coventry was devastated by bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe.”

	Last Monday I looked at the cathedral’s website and received this 
greeting: “Monday 7th May 2012: Good Evening. Welcome to Coventry 
Cathedral. An extraordinary place. A story you can't ignore.”

	One sentence struck me out of the opening paragraphs. Talking about the 
bombing in 1940, the description said, “The Cathedral burned with the 
city, having been hit by several incendiary devices.”

	It may be easy to pass over, but listen again to the power of these 
words: “The Cathedral burned with the city …” I’m pretty sure that the 
Cathedral wasn’t the primary target, yet, in a wonderful, yet painful 
example of identification, the building representing the religious heart 
of the city was devastated, along with all the houses and the 
workplaces. All suffered together. Loving, and living the life of love, 
took on a whole new meaning in a flash of incendiaries.

  	The new Cathedral which was erected at right angles to the shell of 
the old one actually is joined at its Narthex so that one goes from what 
has been devastated into what is now new, bright, shining, filled with 
vibrancy and not recrimination.

	This morning on your insert with the Psalm, you may have noticed the 
picture of the cross of nails placed in the midst of twisted pieces of 
wood. These were nails pulled out of the still smouldering debris on the 
morning after the destruction. They were placed in timbers from the 
gorgeous old Cathedral and are now placed at the new Cathedral’s High 
Altar as a sign of forgiveness and hope. The picture below that is of 
the Baptistery. A huge rock brought from Israel holds water for Baptism 
and behind it stands a massive multi-panelled window absolutely bursting 
with colour that can’t help but raise an external smile and internal joy 
in the hope that fills creation.

	We COULD have run off that page of the bulletin in colour, to try to 
give you a glimpse of what that sacred space is like, but then I thought 
that leaving it in black and white gives us a sense of the longing that 
we all feel. We want hope. We want freedom from acrimony and disruptive 
behaviour. We ache to find love that supports us through every part of 
our day, love that we can share with those who’re close and with those 
who’re far off.

	The picture gives a great sense of the immensity of what happens in 
that space, of God filling all creation with the desire to find 
reconciliation, reconciliation with God and with one another. But the 
blacks, and whites, and greys that appear on your insert page can be a 
reminder that, unless we make an effort – unless, for instance, we go to 
the web-site listed, or find a book with well-printed illustrations, 
we’ll have to forego the pleasure of seeing that whirling spectacle 
which depicts every colour in creation. 3

	YES, of COURSE we’re invited to seek baptism – initiation into the 
family of God. YES, of COURSE God wants us to experience what love is 
really like. But God knows that sometimes we slide into situations 
through what might be described as black, or white, or grey doors, and 
it may take us a while to discover all the colours, and how wonderfully 
enveloping they are, how wonderfully enlivening they can be to our 
souls.

	It’s all the more remarkable to think where that fantastic Baptistery 
stands and what it represents, then. It’s placed right inside the 
clear-glass wall which leads from the old ruins into the new building, 
and it represents the place where new life begins.

	The reading from Acts this morning talked about Peter coming across 
people who’d been filled by God upon hearing the apostle’s talk; people 
motivated to live and act as Christians, to begin their journey as 
disciples. They’d “come in the door”, so to speak. I’m sure we know more 
than a few people like this. They may act in a moral and compassionate 
way. Perhaps what they seek is some sort of sign of assurance, of 
inclusion in a community of people who try to remain faithful to the 
same goals of being loving, of being accepting, or being renewing. 
Perhaps what they seek is some rite like baptism which signifies 
something of the excitement that the early Church members felt when they 
discovered that not only did God hope that they’d engage the world as 
agents of love, but also that God would give them the tools to do just 
that.

	What we’re called on to do – by the example in the Book of the Acts of 
he Apostles and by the Gospel passage – is to take on such a radical 
life style that we’ll bring people to catch their breaths and, just 
possibly, come to make a commitment to follow in Jesus, steps 
themselves, at some point.	

	We’re all called to live lives totally controlled by love – nothing 
else: not self-protection, not preservation of anything save the 
importance of loving, building up, nurturing others, putting their needs 
before anything else. Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was martyred while he 
was, literally, in the act of showing his congregation the love of Jesus 
exemplified in the broken Bread and Wine poured out into the chalice for 
everyone, Romero said, “A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a 
gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under 
anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the 
society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that?” 4

	Jesus’ words to us are THAT dramatic. What He asks of us, as Barbara 
Crafton, Episcopal priest and author wrote, what Jesus asks of us is, 
“Love that holds nothing back. Love that puts all its eggs in one 
basket. Love so total that it looks way too simple, except that it's not 
simple at all. It takes a lifetime to learn
what it takes less than a minute to say.” 5

	There’s no opportunity to fudge, to misinterpret words spoken, to 
wriggle out of or into any situation to escape accepting that all Jesus’ 
followers must love absolutely.

	That’s what has resulted in one of the prime ministries centred at 
Coventry Cathedral. The congregation members and their friends live 
their lives around their ministry of reconciliation, showing people how 
much God loves us all and wishes us to find peace and renewal in that 
effort. Perhaps that’s why the Baptistery there is one of the most 
unforgettable aspects of the new Cathedral, and the Community of the 
Cross and Nails has been working to bring the news of forgiveness and 
reconciliation.

	Surely we can do no less ourselves, beginning with accepting 
forgiveness, experiencing reconciliation and renewal ourselves. Then we 
can take it to the world at our doorstep.

	That’s Jesus’ message of love for us this week. Just like a mother, 
isn’t He!

NOTES:

1 	The Rev. Dr. Peter Marty is senior pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran 
Church in Davenport, IA.

http://e2ma.net/go/10630863286/3839072/108685625/30784/goto:http://day1.org/3046-do_you_love_jesus

2	Coventry Cathedral 
http://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/about-us/our-history.php

3	See a moving visual of the window at 
http://www.360cities.net/image/baptistry-window-coventry-cathedral-england

4	Archbishop Oscar Romero via Sojourners 7th May, 2012

Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)