Journey's Weekly Homilies
ACTS
10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
I JOHN 4:7-10
JOHN 15:9-17
Regina
used to complain that there’s not enough humor in my homilies.
O.K. this time I’ll begin with a joke!
A
visitor comes to a monastery and is given a tour of by the guest
master. During the
tour the guest master explains that people here get to know each
other so well that they even know their jokes by heart.
For the purpose of brevity they don’t even tell the joke
any more. They just
call out the number of the joke because everybody knows it.
To demonstrate the guest master yells out, “567!”
The halls are immediately filled with the peals of laughter
and the slapping of thighs. The
visitor says, “That’s great, let me try.”
So the guest master agrees.
The visitor yells out, “435!”.
Dead silence. Finally the guest master says, “Some people just don’t
know how to tell a joke.”
There
really is a homily in this!
This
joke is about what Richard Rohrbaugh calls,
“over-lexicalization”. A
group of people share so much over a long period of time that they
develop their own vocabulary about their common life.
They may use the same words as everyone else but the words
mean something else.
We
even over-lexicalize here at Journey.
Two weeks ago we did not have an order of service with the
written music in it. So
we sang four songs by heart.
How many people outside of Journey would know those songs
that well?
The
last song was “I Will Not Die”.
That song actually means more to us that the words
themselves. We could
recite the text and it would not be the same.
And it would be difficult to explain to a newcomer why this
song is so important to us.
The
community of John expressed their faith through a number of words
that were repeated and had a unique meaning for that community.
We can only guess at what those words mean.
In
today’s Gospel Jesus shares a last
meal with his followers and leaves them his only
commandment: “Love
one another as I have loved you and Abba has loved me.”
It would be easy to think that he is talking about personal
affection between friends because that is what we would mean by
love. But the
community of John is not like us and ‘love actually means
something different from what we think.
The
community of John was an odd group of followers tossed from pillar
to post by persecution and beset by factions that split up the
community several times. According
to Rohrbaugh they probably numbered about forty and didn’t
expect to get any bigger. They
were pessimistic about relationships with non-community members
since their faith had already been firmly rejected by others.
This
was a ‘circle-the-wagons kind of community, mainly concerned
about survival. The
Gospel was written to bolster their faith and foster unity in hard
times. The central message of Jesus to this community is:
Love one another.
‘Love
is repeated in various settings throughout this Gospel.
Early in the Gospel Nicodemus, a visitor, is told that the
love of God is like a father who gives his only son to the world
so that all people may have life.
Two weeks ago Nancy related to us the image of a shepherd
who gives life to the flock and receives life from them.
And last week Tom described how the love of God meshes us
together like a vine and branches.
The
most powerful image for love in this Gospel is resurrection.
Like the vine and branches, father and son, shepherd and
sheep God’s love for Jesus is so great that they are
inseparable. God does
not abandon Jesus in death but shares eternal life with him.
Today Jesus offers that same kind of love to all who
believe in him.
Based
on the Gospel of John I would suggest three meanings of love that
you might not have thought about before.
These are ways of love that you may not have thought of
before.
First,
love means showing up. A
father does not abandon his son, a vine is not separated from its
branches, a shepherd always attends to the sheep.
Two
weeks ago many of us showed up in force numerous times throughout
the week. We had
lectures, liturgy preparation, choir rehearsal, and performances
of the Gospel of Mark. All
of these things showed an intense commitment to our shared life. Alcoholics Anonymous describes love very simply.
At the end of each meeting members all say together,
“Keep coming back, it works!”
Secondly
love means learning the stories and singing the songs until they
are as familiar to us as the shepherd’s voice is to the sheep.
We must all learn the history of this community, the songs,
the scriptures, and the important texts.
I
had a friend who as a small child used to sing Church songs in
Latin at the bus stop. Bystanders
thought he was crazy. Actually
he was in love with his faith.
We are called to that kind of love.
Finally
love means giving completely to those around you. In the first reading Cornelius, a soldier and a
Gentile, receives the Holy Spirit to everyone’s amazement. Peter says this is accomplished because he fears God and does
what is right. What
did he do that was righteous?
According to the book of Acts he gave generously to the
poor.
I
can count three times during the last two months that people of
Journey gave to the Mercy Corps:
in the donation of health kits, the collection at the Pax
Christi talk, and in “Bowling for Baghdad”.
We
are not persecuted as the community of John was. But we hold a shared commitmentto faith and justice that
those around us, even our own families may not understand.
This
spring the Pew Center asked Americans three questions.
Take a minute and answer them for yourselves.
Has
the war in Iraq been mentioned in your congregation?
Has
your pastor or minister taken a position on the war?
Has
your religion or personal faith affected your position on the war?
If
you answered all of those questions, “Yes”, you are unlike
nine out of ten Americans. Only
one in ten people said that their faith had anything to do with
how they felt about the war.
In
the name of our God and the memory of Jesus we have committed
ourselves to justice, bread, and peace for all people.
And we are as strange to others as that child singing in
Latin at the bus stop. They
don’t know the song.
We
are surrounded by people who do not share our faith or our sense
of justice. How can
we continue to do what must be done?
We are simply told to love.
Show up. Tell
the stories and sing the songs. Give to others as God has given to
us. Greater love has
no one than this.