Fifth Sunday in Easter
John 14:1-14
Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
1 Peter 2:2-10
Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:
“See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner”,
and
“A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.
Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
One of the true gifts that we’re given in the lectionary in these weeks following our celebration of the resurrection of our Lord are incredible stories of the early church and the issues with which the early church was wrestling – and the common threads through all the readings of fear, anxiety and uncertainty.
We’ve seen a lot in these last few weeks about how the early church is struggling to make itself known, to understand its identity, to come out of hiding, to go and do the work that God has called the church to do.
And so we have to understand something about this community that is the early church. We have Jewish converts to the faith, we have Gentile converts, and all these folks now have to come together to live together in some meaningful way. And to understand that whatever may have happened to them before, and however they may have hurt one another before, and however they may have wronged one another before, now they are called into a new existence as people of God united together.
Today we have among our lessons one of the best examples of pastoral letter writing that can be found anywhere in the New Testament - which is from 1 Peter. Some scholars think it’s Simon Peter, others question that and think the author is someone else. But regardless, this author is writing to a community that is coming to know itself very, very differently. For the Jewish converts that had believed forever that the Messiah was coming for them and them alone having understood that Jesus that walked among them come to everyone – Jew and Gentile, clean and unclean. This Jesus had come to everyone.
So their sincerely held understanding about being the chosen people and their relationship with the Messiah. Well now they are having to understand that in a new way.
And for the Gentiles, who have never been a chosen people, it’s coming to understand that maybe, just maybe, the arms of God are big enough to wrap around them also. That’s a lot for folks to come to live with in those days when they’re still struggling with the Messiah was here and now the Messiah is gone.
So we have this marvelous text that is written to young, fledgling Christian communities, to try to say to them – this is what you’re really about, this is who you really are. And the way the text is structured we might think that this is written to the Jewish converts. Because he’s quoting from the law of Deuteronomy, from the Psalter, from the Exodus story to help them understand what it means to be a chosen people. These are familiar words to the Jewish converts to the faith. They’ve heard these words form the scrolls forever.
But what about the Gentiles? Have these words ever been used to help them understand that yes, God’s love includes to you too? What a powerful tool we have here! The very words that may have been used to marginalize, the very words that may have been used to exclude, the world that have been used somewhere, sometime to put someone down – these are the words that are being brought back to say we are redefining this world.
Because this world in which Christ is the cornerstone, this world that God has redefined to say that all are within the reach and love of God. This world includes you. You who have been outcast you, too now, are now part of the Chosen People. You are part of the nation that is God’s nation. You, too, are beloved of God.
But there’s more to it than just the privileged saying “we are the chosen ones.” Because that is not the story. We are chosen, the letter writer says, for a reason, for a purpose. We’re chosen so that we can go out proclaim the goodness of God. To be called out of darkness and into light, means that there is a responsibility not just to bask in the light but to draw others to the light as well. And understanding that privilege with the responsibility that is attached to it is meaningful and powerful. And that’s the good news today.
So what does it mean to us today to hear today that we are the chosen of God? How do we begin to contextualize that in our own existence?
I want to share a story with you, something from history. It’s about a woman named Irena Zendler. In early 20th century Poland, a young woman, Christian and daughter of a physician and musician mother, raised in privilege in Poland. And then her world turns upside down. When in 1939 her country was occupied by destructive forces.
She has been raised in a family that has taught her always what it means to be committed to people and to be committed to God. Her own father dies caring for patients with typhus. So the example has already been set for her: we live for much more than ourselves and our own pleasure and our own comfort.
In 1939 when her country has been occupied, she sees what’s happening around her. By this time she has been trained as a social worker. She asks for permission to go in and out of the Warsaw ghetto. As a social worker, she’s able to see to the welfare of Jewish people who are trapped in the ghetto.
Time passes and she watches people being deported to death camps. And she realizes that as a social worker, she has the opportunity to do something that not many others have a chance to do. So she and others organize an underground network. And she goes into homes of Jewish families in that ghetto and says to them “you need to give me your children.”
Now imagine hearing that. Imagine being a mother or father and having someone say “you need to give me your children if you want them to live.” Imagine all the emotions running through your mind and your biggest question for her – “how do I even know that I can trust you.”
One by one, she begins smuggling children out of the ghetto however she can. In tote bags, in boxes in carts, however she can get them out, she begins smuggling children out of the ghetto. All told she and her compatriots smuggled 2500 children out of the Warsaw ghetto. At great personal risk. She was captured, threatened and beaten. She was undeterred. 2500 children later, she had written her legacy.
Now what – we would ask – would cause any rational person to do what Irena Zendler did? What would cause her to take that kind of risk? Who would put themselves in that kind of danger for one person they didn’t know, much less 2500 strangers? With the only tie being the tie of human connection. What would make anyone do that?
Maybe it was the belief that we live our lives for something bigger and greater than ourselves. To claim ourselves as the chosen, to claim ourselves as the royal priesthood bears with it incredible responsibility. And it’s not a light undertaking. It’s a little unnerving. It is to say that we live our life with Christ as our cornerstone. It is to say that we walk to path that Christ walked first. And we pattern our lives as much as we can after one who loved us enough to give his life for us.
It is to say that when we see others, who have been pushed to the margins and the fringes we know inside of ourselves that we are called to pull them out and not to leave them there. Because loving as God loves, loving as Jesus loves means we put ourselves in harm’s way – as we saw this in our Acts lesson today - by loving the way that God loves.
Yet, to be God’s chosen people means exactly that. And we put ourselves on the line even for those we don’t know, that don’t look like us, or talk like us, or love like us or agree with us. We put ourselves on the line even for those we don’t know because what is important and valuable and good is to be able to show the love of God to everyone we meet. It’s not enough for us to say that we have been called out of the darkness into the light if we not trying to bring others into the light with us.
So we who are called, we who are chosen – we who are God’s beloved. Our path is to show the way, to show others how much they are beloved by God. It is a mighty calling. And we are up to the challenge. Each and every one of us, each and every day. Amen.