sermon
third
sunday of easter – year b
“we
will be like him”
1
john 3:1-7 / april 19, 2015
Let us
pray: May the words of my mouth and the
mediations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and
our redeemer. Amen.
Twenty-one years ago this month, a campaign of vicious genocidal
slaughter began in Rwanda Africa .”
Churches, seminaries, schools and benevolent organizations were
scattered all over the country. Ninety
percent of Rwandans claimed to be Christians.
“And yet,” Gushee writes, “all of that Christianity did not prevent
genocide, a genocide church officials did little to resist, in which a large
number of Christians participated”. Pondering the failure of the church and Christians
to prevent Rwandan genocide, Gushee also reminds us that Germany
Gushee could likewise have noted that white South African Christians
were the architects of apartheid, that most American slaveholders were Christians,
and that, during the crusades, Christian soldiers, marching behind the banner
of the cross, killed thousands of Muslims and Jews. And, of course, we can examine our own complicity
as a denomination in the colonization of indigenous peoples – and in particular
the establishment of residential schools as part of the government plan to take
the “Indian out of the child.”
Who knows how much damage has been done by Christians who have failed to
live by the ways of Jesus? Priests
abusing children committed to their care; ministers committing adultery with
congregants; church officials embezzling church funds; angry demonstrators
waving placards that blaspheme a God of love by claiming that God hates. And what of the damage we do to our own
hearts and minds when we are driven by greed more than humility, by competition
more than mutuality, by selfishness more than service?
Reflecting on Rwanda
All of the clerical garb and regalia, all of the structures of religious
accountability, all of the Christian vocabulary and books, all of the schools
and seminaries and parish houses and bible studies, all of the religious titles
and educational degrees -- they
guarantee nothing.”
And we have to ask, why is that?
Well, not everyone who claims to be a Christian has faithfully carried
out Jesus’ command that “we love our neighbours as ourselves” and has not
understood the lesson of the story of the Good Samaritan: everyone is my neighbour.
And Christian people are influenced, not just by Jesus Christ, but by
social, economic and political systems and by assumptions, ideas, loyalties and
feelings that are at odds with the gospel.
In other words, it cannot be assumed that Christians are actually
following Jesus. and yet, I would
argue, that it is urgent, for the sake of the church, and of the whole world,
that we become people who are unswervingly committed to the will and way of Jesus
– people who commit their lives to being more like him, agents of
reconciliation and understanding, of healing and hope, of love and mercy. God wants to make us like Jesus. That is the clear message of our text from
the first letter of john:
“When Christ is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he
is.” God intends to work in us, and on
us until we finally reflect the spirit and character of Jesus.
In her autobiography, Gertrude stein described an exchange she had with Pablo
Picasso. Even though he had painted a
portrait of her, he did not immediately recognize her. She wrote:
“I murmured to Picasso that I liked the portrait of Gertrude Stein. Yes, he said, somebody said that she does
not look like it, but that doesn’t make any difference, she will.” You and I are to grow into the image of Jesus;
and even though there are days when we do not seem to be very much like him, we
will be one day. In the end, as Carroll
Simcox beautifully put it, “you and I shall be our real, complete selves for
the first time ever. We think of
ourselves now as human beings. We really
aren’t that – not yet. We are becoming
human beings.....if you are living in Christ, believing in him, and trying to follow him as the master of your life, you
are by his grace, becoming ever more and more like him.”
Now, to say that god is in the process of making us like Jesus Christ
does not mean that god is cloning us into exact replicas of Jesus of Nazareth.
In fact, a wonderful and gracious paradox at the heart of the gospel is
that the more we become like Jesus, the more we become our truest selves. Don Wardlaw once said, “to be yoked to Christ
is to be a soul companion with the authentic self god intends for us to
be.” As we discover deeper dimensions
of Christ-likeness, we uncover more and more of our honest-to-God selves.
Jesus is the pattern and the power, the model and the source, of
authentic human life. We are meant to
have what he has:
A radical and liberating faith in god;
A child-like trust in the grace of god;
A trembling wonder before the mystery of life;
A durable hope that, because we are in god’s hands, death and sorrow and
pain and tears are not the end, but joy and wholeness and laughter are;
an astonishing confidence that we and the world are headed, not toward
midnight, but toward sunrise; and
an undimmed awareness that at the heart of all things is unconditional
and compassionate love.
How can we become as human as Jesus?
Genuine transformation is not a self-help exercise or a do-it-yourself
project. It is God’s work. Transformation happens as God convinces us
that we are loved – that, like Jesus, we are God’s beloved children.
The writer of first John could not contain his wonder at that
truth: “see what love God has given us,
that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.” The words God spoke to Jesus at his baptism
are words God speaks also to us: “you
are my beloved child. With you I am well
pleased.” We are invited to experience a
relationship with God that embraces and transcends our fondest experiences of
both father and mother. God’s love for
us is tender and strong, reassuring and challenging, nurturing and
empowering. God’s arms of welcome and
affirmation are always open to us. We
are God’s children. We are loved.
That deep down assurance that we are loved empowers us to join Jesus in
his compassion for our broken planet, his passion for peace, his hunger and
thirst for justice, his welcoming embrace of the excluded and his tender mercy
toward sinners. Preacher Charles Spurgeon
put it this way: “practical godliness
is the soul of godliness; that it is not talking religion, but walking religion
which proves one to be sincere; it is not having a religious tongue, but a
religious heart; it is not a religious mouth, but a religious foot.”
and the writer of first john makes it clear that being religious in this
way, being children of God and followers of Christ means the world will not
know us or understand us.
If we let the love of god make us into children of God; if we become
more and more like Christ, then we really should expect that many people will
have trouble understanding our values and our strange sense of identity. In a culture of individualism, we belong to
a community, the body of Christ. In an
age that seeks security through violence, we seek solidarity, forgiveness, and
peace. In a society that finds personal
identity through social networking, we find our true name in baptism and in
following Christ. We are odd, we are
odd --- and we smooth over our oddities at our peril. When we feel right at home in the world, we
should wonder whether we have traded the joy of divine love for the comfort of
social acceptance. The source of our
oddness is the love of god that makes us into God’s children. Knowing that we are loved by such a love,
confessing it, and consenting to it, we agree to be made different, to be more
and more like Christ.
Beloved children of God, we are to remember those whom the rest of the
world forgets, keep company with the fallen and downtrodden, work to turn
strangers into friends, and labour for reconciliation among enemies. The writer of first john declares,
“beloved, we are God’s children now, what we will be has not yet been
revealed. What we do know is this: when Christ is revealed, we will be like him,
for we will see him as he is.
And, beloved, what the world will be has not yet been revealed
either. But when it is, it will, at
last, be as God always intended; a place of unmarred beauty, unbroken peace,
unquenchable joy and unending love. May
we be among those, who by God’s power and in partnership with God, make
it so. Amen.
Major
Sources:
April
30, 2006.
2001 -
Phillip R. Johnson.
“Theological
Perspective” by Ronald Cole-Turner in Feasting on the Word, Year B,
Volume 2,
pp.
418-422. David L. Bartlett and Barbara
Brown Taylor, editors. Westminster
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