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Fifth Sunday in Easter
May 6, 2007 Sermon by The Rev. Bill Van Oss, Rector
Readings

There once was a faithful, church-going woman who was nearing the end of her life. Her health was failing, her mobility was limited, and she needed to move to an assisted living home.

Her church did its best to continue to support and care for her by sending Lay Eucharistic Visitors to bring her communion, and to spend some time visiting with her.

On Sunday, the woman and her visitors were talking about the church. One of the visitors asked what the church meant to her throughout her long life, “what kept you coming back Sunday after Sunday throughout your whole life?” the visitor asked.

The woman paused to consider the question, and then she answered, “Being part of the church has given me the opportunity to love more people than I ever thought was possible.”

“Love one another” is Jesus’ command in today’s Gospel. Jesus commands love – it’s not a request or a suggestion, or one thing among a list of options. “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus says, “that you love one another.”

That’s it! Seemingly so simple on the face of it, and yet so, so difficult to live out.

“Love one another,” - a ‘new’ commandment - new because people were accustomed to thinking about God in terms of the law, “Thou shall not . . .”

Love had failed, and so the law had taken over. Law is a failure of love. And so Jesus gives a new command – the command to love. And then he shows what it means to truly love, to love ones enemies, to love through humiliation and suffering, to love all the way to the cross and beyond.

God’s love is enormous, “unbounded” our closing hymn says – beyond our wildest imagining. God’s love is so big that it constantly bumps up against the limits we humans are so quick to place on it – and that happened early and often.

In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, God’s love bumps up against the limits of human imagination and of the law. Gentiles! God’s love extends even to the Gentiles?!

The rich people described as “devout women of high standing” and the powerful named “leading men of the city” were not comfortable with the boundless expanse of God’s love. The law had given them their earthly riches and it enabled them to exploit power. Love was threatening that system, and so they tossed love’s messengers Paul and Barnabas out. “Take your message of love and get out – we’ll stick with the law.” But Paul and Barnabas were undeterred. Love had set them on fire for God.

Boundless love takes us out of our comfort zone. It is so natural to place limits on God’s love because we are so quick to limit our love for one another. We easily love those who love us, and we love those who are like us, but Christ’s command to love pushes us beyond – way beyond – this easy, comfortable love.

He commands us to love our enemies, to love those who do not love us, to love those who are not like us, who do not like us.

No barriers, no walls, no exceptions, no limits, “love one another.”

And with God’s help it’s possible. Our capacity to love is limitless. It never runs out. As a matter of fact, the more we love, the more capacity we have to love.

And, conversely, the more we keep love to ourselves, and to a select few, the less capacity we have to love, as Christ has commanded us. We have limited time, limited money, limited physical ability, limited energy and vision and insight and knowledge, but our capacity to love is unlimited.

Christ gave Himself for the whole world in his selfless act of love on the cross. And that’s why the love and communion of this table is offered to all. This table stretches and extends to everyone who seeks to know the love of God, and once fed by the life and love of God, we let that love overflow from us to extend to everyone we meet. When we obey Christ’s command to love, the love of Christ grows.

And, perhaps, just perhaps, we might come to the end of our life like the faithful woman in the story. We might come to the end of our life having loved more people than we ever thought was possible.


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