Sixth Sunday of Easter

 

 

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

By Ron Allen

May 10, 2015

 

Acts 10:44-48

Luke’s Jesus is an end-time prophet who announced that the transition from the old age to the Realm is underway. The Realm can be partially realized in the present, especially through the eschatological community of the church, but will be fully manifest only after the apocalypse

A key contrast between the ages is the experience of community. In the old age, communities are fragmented and fractious whereas the Realm of God is a great reunion of the human family. The church in Acts anticipates the solidarity of Jewish and gentile peoples. The preacher could bring Luke’s perspective into conversation with the multiple ruptures of human community today—among nations, among and within races and ethnic communities, and even within congregations.

The first Pentecost took place among Jews (Acts 2:1-36). At Pentecost, God poured out the eschatological Spirit to empower people to experience and manifest the Realm. However, gentiles were not included. Today’s text demonstrates that the great reunion is now underway.

God brings together Cornelius and Peter (Acts 10:1-33). Peter declares, “God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34). Given the multiple concerns for inclusivity that burn at the center of so much ecclesial life today, we should note the particular context of this remark. Peter means that God will now make available to gentile believers the same experience of the Spirit and the same life in community that God earlier made available to Jewish believers. Moreover, the message is one of peace—shalom, that is, of mutually supportive community (Acts 10:36). Peter gives a summary of Jesus’ ministry that is shot-through with Lukan themes (Acts 10:37-43).

While Peter was preaching, the Spirit fell on all who heard the sermon. Bible students sometimes refer to Acts 10:44-48 as the “gentile Pentecost” because the same things happen to gentiles as occurred to Jewish believers on Pentecost. When people are filled by the Spirit or when the Spirit falls on people in Acts, the experience usually includes an ecstatic, high-voltage component. But it goes beyond emotion. The gentiles speak in tongues, i.e. they speak in multiple languages, but each believer hears in her or his own language (Acts 10:46; Acts 2:4, 11).

Acts 2:1-13 and Acts 10:44-48 give a narrative picture of the essential work of the Spirit: to bring people together in communities of mutual respect, understanding and support. The preacher could use this concept as a norm by which to help the congregation think about where the Spirit might be at work today

Luke is dealing with inclusivity in the church and not with inclusivity in broader culture. Unfortunately, today’s church is as fractious as the larger culture. Indeed, the church sometimes promotes fractures in the larger world. The preacher may need to help the congregation recognize how the Spirit seeks to help the church become a community of respect and reunion. In addition since the church shares with Israel the vocation of being a light in the old age, the preacher might help the church imagine how it can help the larger culture recognize possibilities for become a more truly inclusive community.

Psalm 98

Psalm 98 is an enthronement psalm, a hymn that celebrates God’s sovereignty over the universe.

This psalm contains some language that was prominent at the time of the exile and the return from exile, and the universal theology of the psalm is similar to that of Second Isaiah and other writers in that general school about the time of the exile or shortly thereafter.

If so, the writer intended the psalm not as a general statement of divine sovereignty but as a pastoral assurance to exiles or to those recently returned home: they could trust their God. God cared for them in exile and would bring (or had brought) them home. However, the infrastructure of the homeland was in ruins and they were in conflict with the people who had not gone into exile. The psalm assured them that they could continue to trust God in the uncertain years of rebuilding.

The hymn-psalms often have a common form. These elements are visible in Psalm 98: call to worship (Psalm 98:1a); motives for praise recollecting what God does that evokes praise (Psalm 98:1b-6); recapitulation that echoes motifs from the call to worship (Psalm 98:7-9). A preacher could use this three-part outline as the three-parts of the movement of a sermon on Psalm 98.

The call to worship invites the congregation to sing “a new song.” The “new song” may refer to God working through Cyrus, the ruler of Persia, to liberate the people from exile. Cyrus did not worship the God of Israel, but God worked through Cyrus to accomplish God’s purposes. A sermon might explore where God is working in liberating ways today through people, institutions, and movements that do not operate in the name of God. What is our “new song?”

God has done “marvelous things” that have won “victory” and vindicated God and Israel in the sight of the “nations” (Babylonians and Persians). In this, God demonstrated divine faithfulness to Israel (Psalm 98:1b-3). These lines seem to refer to God delivering the people from exile. Where do we respond to God’s invitations to end exiles and to work towards homecoming?

Congregations sometimes use Psalm 98:4-6 as a call to worship today. However, the material is usually used generically, without reference to its historical context. The congregation’s depth of participation in the psalm might be deepened with just a few words on the part of the worship leader that evoke the memory God working through Cyrus to release the exiles.

With regard to the recapitulation (Psalm 98:7-8), every seminary student remembers that many theologians in Israel and in other ancient peoples associated the sea and the floods with the threat of chaos. Moreover, the Babylonian conquest of Judah and the exile were sometimes described as chaos. The psalmist here invites chaos itself to join the movement towards liberation.

Nature, including the potential for chaos represented by the sea and the floods, rejoices because God comes to judge the world with righteousness and equity. That is, God will keep the divine promises to Israel, which are ultimately promises to bless all human families through Israel (Genesis 12:1-3), and God will dethrone the powers and peoples (like the Babylonians) who serve themselves and thereby stand in the way of blessing for all.

1 John 5:1-6

1 John 5:1-6 depends on the Johannine two-story universe (Easter Day, April 5, 2015) and on John’s aim to reassure the members of a congregation who have remained loyal even though many people left in the wake of a rupture. This passage, like others in the Gospel and Letters of John, is beset by exclusivism that troubles many preachers, especially in progressive circles.

John begins with a clear definition. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ [as interpreted by John] has been born of God” (1 John 5:1a). Those who do not believe in Jesus as interpreted by John are not born of God.

Jesus is paradigm of what it means to be “born of God.” Jesus descended from heaven into the world and to reveal the possibility of heaven in the world (John 1:1-18). Those who believe in Jesus are similarly born (e.g. John 3:3-8; 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7). They are no longer determined by the values and practices of the world (e.g. darkness, death, fractiousness, falsehood) but live in a sphere of heaven (e.g. light, life, community, truth) while they are still located in the world.

“Everyone who loves the parent [God] loves the child” (1 John 5:2b). In the Johannine context, “children of God” is typically a sectarian designation for those who believe in God through Jesus (e.g. John 1:12; 12:36; 13:333; 21:5; 1 John 2:1, 12, 14, 18, 28; 3:1, 2, 7, 10, 18; 4:4; 5:19, 21).

1 John 5:2 confirms the preceding view. Those who see God as John does will do what the Johannine Jesus says: love the other members of the congregation. To love God is to do what God commands through Jesus. The principle commandment of Jesus is for community members to love one another, e.g. John 13:31-35; 14:15, 21-24; 15:9-17; 1 John 3:10-11; 3:14; 4:7ff).

The commandments are one of the hallmarks of Judaism. By referring to Jesus’ instructions as “commandments,” John wants the congregation to believe that Jesus’ directives supersede the authority of the commandments of Moses

Those who are born of God, i.e. who believe in God through Jesus and who love as Jesus commands, conquer the world (1 John 5:4a). Believers become victorious over the world through faith (1 John 5:4). For 1 John, “faith” is believing that Jesus reveals God and loving in the way that Jesus commands. For the believer to conquer, to have victory, over the world is to exist in the world but to do so within a sphere of heaven

This passage could help the church underscore the importance of those who believe in Jesus acting in kind. One test of the degree to which a community truly believes in Jesus, as interpreted by John, is the degree to which the members of the congregation actively love one another.

Nevertheless, the sectarian quality of 1 John is troubling. John does not directly say the members of the congregation should onlylove one another, but there is little imperative to love those outside the community. It is not only more consistent with the internal logic of John to exercise love towards those outside the community (God loves the world) but it is also more consistent broader Jewish tradition in which the Johannine tradition flows. Indeed, a foundational purpose of that tradition is to make possibilities for blessing known among all (e.g. Genesis 12:1-3).

John 15:9-17

Not surprisingly, the themes in the Gospel of John correlate with themes in the Letters of John. That is especially true in John 15:9-17 and 1 John 5:1-6.

John 15:9-17 continues the Johannine Jesus’ expansion on the image of the mutual indwelling of Jesus as the vine and the disciples. The disciples are to bear fruit by following Jesus commandment: they are to love one another, that is, the members of the Johannine community are to love one another. The sectarian dimensions of this notion are discussed above in connection with 1 John 5:1-6.

When Jesus declares that the disciples are no longer servants but friends (John 15:15), he implies a significant shift in relationship. The typical master-servant relationship was a one-way pattern of interaction. The master gave directions to the servant. In the ancient world, “friendship” implied deep mutual commitment. Friends were materially committed. They share common purpose. Indeed, according to Aristotle, friends sacrificed themselves for one another, even to the point of death (Nichomachian Ethics, tr. H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934] 1168B).

Jesus now relates to the disciples as friends. Indeed, in John 15:13 Jesus both exhibits the deepest qualities of friendship and gives the meaning of love by pointing to “laying down one’s life for one’s friends.” To love—to be a friend—is to give oneself for the good of the community. Yet, Johannine friendship is more than a copy of Greek and Roman ideals. The distinctive character of Johannine friendship is that it centers in mutual abiding among God, Jesus, and disciples. This friendship is not simply egalitarian. God and Jesus have a larger initiating, role, but the disciples now have a deeper level of participation, per above. Moreover, this friendship continues actively into the present day because Jesus is present with the church through the Spirit.

John ends the discourse with the words, much abused by preachers, God “will give you whatever you ask in my name” (John 15:17). Jesus does not mean God will give any old thing, e.g. a bicycle. God will be present in the congregation to do what God can do to help the community bear fruit. For those who believe God is always present and that God’s power is limited this means praying to be open to the lure to be fruitful so the community can do its part.

The ultimate point of the discourse comes in John 15:16. The disciples are to bear fruit. The fruit is love. This fruit “will last.” It will nourish them into eternal life.

The writer(s) of the Johannine literature did not know the contemporary discussion of practice that surmises that when we engage in an activity that is central to the life of a community, we also become more deeply aware of that centrality. In optimum circumstances, the practice becomes second-nature, intuitive. In Johannine literature, God is love (1 John 4:16). God through Jesus commands disciples to love. When we love, we become more loving; we then discover more of what it means to believe that God is love, and we become more aware of God’s love in the world, which then makes us better able to love. The preacher might tell a story from the congregation (or a story with which the congregation can identify) in which a person or a group had this kind of circular experience.