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6 Easter B—May 10, 2015
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 9 8
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
The Rev. David R. Wilt
I am called to preach the Good News. So, it only follows that
on any week I have to find the Good News. This week I thought
that I would intentionally go looking for this Good News I was
going to preach about.
First, I went to some of the Cable News Channels which
pump news at you 24 hours a day. And, when they don’t have any
news, good or bad, they try to become the news. Surely some of
this must be good news.
We all have our favorite one of these channels, and
whichever one that is goes a great deal further than we may
imagine defining what it even is that we call Good News. When
we think about it we all know that’s true. Good News to someone
who watches Fox is probably going to be quite different from the
Good News of someone who watches CNN.
So, I watched some of these news channels and it didn’t take
me very long to get the feeling that I could sit there all week and
not hear any good news. Now, Sunday is sneaking up on me now
so I need to find some Good News.
Aha I thought let me spend some time absorbing some of the
more popular televangelists. Well let me tell you, it didn’t take
very long until I was beginning to think that anything on the cable
news channels would be better news than what I was hearing on
the televangelist’s channels.
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I don’t know what happened. I guess I just forgot how
many evil, evil I tell you, sinners there are out there in the world,
horrible people. People who are facing a long, long hot eternity if
they don’t shape up and toe the televangelist’s line. I mean on
these channels some people are going to spend an eternity in hell
simply for being whom God created them to be. Now, how’s that
for a Catch 22.
Somehow I had forgotten, or suppressed the fact, that
people who aren’t like “me” have no chance when they arrive at
St. Peters gate. But these televangelists were very quick to
remind me of just that.
Now, I’m really not feeling any Good News and the week is
slipping away. So, when all else fails look to the Gospel.
Now those were some comforting words.
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in
my love.”
Now that is Good News. But wait… Jesus goes on.
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.
Commandments! That sounds a bit like what I was hearing
on the televangelist channels and watching people get beaten
around the block on the news channels.
I see where people might think Jesus was laying down all
these rules and regulations for eternal life, especially if they are
different than me. So, other than the rule makers, how many
people are going to really find Good News in that? With jobs and
children and money worries and families and on and on who
needs more rules and regulations?
It’s just all so overwhelming, isn’t it?
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Then I looked at today.
First, it’s Mother’s Day. Now I am fully aware that for some
Mother’s Day may not spring forth in our minds totally pleasant
and heart-warming thoughts, perhaps it brings even sadness or
loss. In any situation, imperfection is always something to be
reckoned with. And yet, there is that ideal, that need for
nurturing that each of us has, perhaps represented most aptly by
the Mother Mary herself, who certainly loved her son as deeply as
God the Father loved the son.
So this day is a reminder to us, through our Mothers, of that
abiding love that is out there. And, if we did not receive it as we
had hoped then Christ’s abiding love empowers us to do it
differently.
Next I saw the children were singing and by any stretch of
the imagination that is Good News. When those voices ring out
there is God’s love echoing throughout the building.
And then finally, on this day Angela Dawn and Caleb Francis
are going to be baptized. What better news can there be than to
welcome someone into the family of God.
What better news can we hear than when we hear ourselves
repeat our own Baptismal vows; to seek and serve Christ in all
persons, loving your neighbor as yourself, and also, striving for
justice and peace among all people, and respecting the dignity of
every human being.
What better news is there than knowing that the power is
right here, within us because of Christ’s abiding love, to share
that love with everyone that we come in contact with. Anyone
who can come within the reach of our arms we have the power to
be Good News to them. And, that unconditional love gives us the
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will not to beat them up for their differences but the power to
bear them up in their needs.
So, all I had to do to find the Good News I wanted to share
with you was to look right here at Christ at work.
And that led me to one more realization. (Ya’ll aren’t in a big
hurry are you?)
This Good News we search for and make so complicated
surrounds us. It is so close that often we look right past it for
something glitzier or more specific.
And how do we know that?
In our reading from 1st John it is written, “And his
commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God
conquers the world.
When our faith assures us of that everything else, social
injustice, inequality, prejudice, hatred, misunderstanding and
stubbornness, all the discoloration of the world, become mere
obstacles that we can overcome by the Good News of the Love of
Christ.
Jesus left us with only one commandment, that we love one
another as he has loved us.
And why did he tell us these things?
So we would walk in fear? So we would marginalize others?
So we could lord our faith over others?
Not at all.
“I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in
you, and that your joy may be complete.
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Isn’t it so interesting that this thing that we take so
seriously, this community of faith, at the end of the day is simply
so that Christ joy may be in us and our joy may be complete.
This savior who knew no stranger, who could allow no one to
go hungry or be dispossessed, this savior who ate and hung out
with those looked down upon in society and who empowered the
lame to be whole again, this savior who died upon the cross for
our salvation had one purpose in mind. This Jesus found his joy
making other’s lives better or at the very least feeling better
about themselves as equal children of God, and that is the joy he
shares with us.
There is no better Good News than that. May your joy be
complete.