Recap of lead up to Communion (I John 3:16-24)
As much as we might like to say that our belief in God is one thing, while our involvement in community is another, the New Testament suggests that the beliefs of an individual are in dynamic relationship with the communal life of that same person. In order to move along the path of human flourishing we need our beliefs to move us to loving actions towards others; our actions within the context of community, refine, and give shape to our beliefs - our actions also solidify our beliefs.
We are often quick to say things like true belief will result in good acts - we think of the passage before us in 1 John and the James passage where James says I’ll show you my faith by my works. But I want us to take things another step and acknowledge to one another that on many occasions what we do with our selves either helps us to know more about God’s love or not. If I have given myself over to self-indulgent behaviour of some sort to the extent that it is sinful, self-destructive and potentially harmful to others I need to recognize that the pattern of what I am doing is pulling me away from knowing more about God’s love. But if I repent and turn from said behavior, I will need something to fill that void. The gospel suggests that often the something we will need to fill that void is to do loving things for each other. Even if you find one night a month to lavish hospitality on someone because of God’s great love to you the promise of the New Testament is that you will be deepened in your experience and understanding of God’s love. If we take time out of our busy schedules to serve the poor, the promise of the gospel is the same - we will be strengthened in our faith. May the physical nature of receiving the sacrament remind us that what we do with our bodies gives shape to our understanding of God’s love - in the case of communion empty hands and bowing forward tells a story to each other and the world that we are dependent upon God’s grace for our life. So we come now with empty hands and hungry hearts to this feast of Grace.
Questions for discussion:
1. Do you imagine that you need to experience love in community in order to think and believe rightly about God? Do you often give that question thought?
2. Do you have a sneaky suspicion that are some things in your life that have you just maybe heading in the wrong direction in terms of self-indulgence? Do you think that self-sacrificial practices might help you regain your balance?
Homily Recap
Acts 4:5-12
This week we continued to reflect upon the earliest ministry of the Christian church as the story is told to us by the apostle Luke in the book of Acts. We noted last week that the earliest preaching after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension happens in Jerusalem, the place where Jesus was deserted and denied by those closest to him, and rejected and crucified by the leaders of Israel. In the text before us this Sunday we find Peter and early leaders in the church being arrested and interrogated by the same religious leadership that led Pilate to murder Jesus. Peter and his cohort have just healed someone and the religious leadership is alarmed. We mentioned last week that it is really very important to hear these sermons in Jerusalem in the context of Peter proclaiming the gospel to the very people who were responsible for Jesus’ death and who were witnesses to it, proclaiming to them that they were all wrong about Jesus, but at the same time insisting that Jesus’ mission to bring God’s love to them could not be stopped by murdering the truth. As we said last week, one way of talking about the the resurrection is to recognize in it the staggering gospel truth that God would not take the no of those who nailed Jesus to the cross as their final answer, that Jesus’ resurrection is to point out that it is yet another example of God’s love not giving up on people. If people, in the end, do not experience God’s love it will not be because of God giving up on them. Miroslav Volf puts it this way regarding God's love: "If God does not find what is pleasing in an object - if human beings have become ungodly - God does not abandon the object in disgust until it changes its character. Instead, God seeks to re-create it to become lovable again... God is not just generous even to the unrighteous; God also forgives their unrighteousness so as to lead them through repentance back to the good they have abandoned."
So, it is in the context of God’s love revealed to the very ones who put Jesus on the cross that we should hear the memorable words: there is no other name by which we can be saved. The religious leaders who put Jesus on the cross are now called by God to be reconciled to him through the Jesus they hated. It is important to note this context for what it is because it helps us, when we ponder the sense in which Jesus' mission is God's unique and final word on his love to the world, to avoid, (a) equating narrow with unique and (b) short supply with eschatological finality. As Rowan Williams puts it, "belief in the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ – for all the assaults made upon it in the modern age – remains for the Christian a way of speaking about hope for the entire human family. And because it's that, we are bound to say something about it. We are very rightly suspicious of proselytism, of manipulative, bullying, insensitive approaches to people of other faith which treat them as if they knew nothing, as if we had nothing to learn and as if the tradition of their reflection and imagination were of no interest to us or God. God save us from that kind of approach. But God save us also from the nervousness about our own conviction which doesn't allow us to say that we speak about Jesus because we believe he matters. We believe he matters because we believe that in him human beings find their peace. Their destinies converge and their dignities are fully honoured. And all the work that we as Christians want to do for the sake of convergent human destiny and fullness of human dignity has its root in that conviction that there is no boundary around Jesus – that what he is and does andsays and suffers is in principle liberatingly relevant to every human being; past, present and future."
The preaching of the early church, including the sermon we have just considered, happens in the context of the Spirit's calling forth and creating a new humanity formed around the risen Jesus Christ. According to the gospel, the inbreaking of the world to come, a new historical epoch, has begun with the church. God’s people now have stories to tell of reconciliation with God and examples to give of how their relationship with Jesus has enabled them to have a part in the divine self-giving love shared between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So when we come to the phrase, no other name, we should not first be thinking of the uniqueness and singularity of Jesus’s revelation of God in the abstract; what we should be able to say is that the same experience of God’s love that we have is what God wants for the whole world. I worry, though, that in some quarters people obsess about these verses in the abstract and don’t worry enough about whether they can offer concrete examples of events in their lives which have come about by no other name but Jesus (e.g. no other name but Jesus enabled me to make a sacrifice for my spouse or friend; no other name but Jesus made me able to serve the poor, or give more of my money away; no other name but Jesus gives me confidence before God when I confess my sins, etc.)
Questions for discussion:
1. Rowan Williams urges that we see Jesus' mission as opening up a new phase of human history - not just the history of one people of one place and of one time. He argues, "questions that
2. If someone were to ask you what difference does it make in your life that you are a Christian? - what "no other name story" could you tell them in response?
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