Sermons Online ...
Sermon: The Sixth Sunday of Easter (A) - 29th May 2011
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping 8:30 am
Readings:Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:7-19; 1 Peter 3:8-22; John 14:15-21
Looking back several decades one of the big questions facing our society was the question of “What was a good life?” “How should life be lived?” You might remember there was a TV show with Richard Briars, Felicity Kendall and Penelope Keith and it was called “The Good Life.” Richard had left the rat race and he was farming his back yard with the intention of becoming self-sufficient. This was what he believed would constitute the good life. It was a comedy but it struck a cord in society. People believed a simpler less complicated life would be the ideal – the good life.
Well people don’t think like that any more. Rather, the dream is for financial security. A good set of assets it is hoped, will protect us from the evils of this world and give us the best life possible. Life has an inescapable complexity to it. We might not achieve the good life, but instead, at least we can hope for the ‘good enough’ life. Perhaps we have to settle for that. Financial security seems to be the primary goal. And that in itself is hard enough to achieve, which means it leaves little time for anything else. Most newly-wed couples work long hours to establish their careers so much so there is little time for anything else. Families are delayed and sometimes forgotten altogether. The divorce rate in Australia is quite high and most people who do divorce do so after about 10 years of marriage. After 10 years of trying to achieve everything, they are exhausted and there is no relationship left, often because there was so little time for it while they were married.
This is why I think that when we come across todays readings they can seem strange to us because they place so much emphasis on something that seems no longer important to us. Just like the old TV show, the early church was concerned with the issue of how to live the good life. Having become members of the church people wanted to know how they should live within it. It’s a different sort of goal to today’s goal of financial security. It was more a moral question of what sort of person should I be. This is why Peter is keen to give advice on the subject. He writes “live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Notice here how he puts priority on the community. The needs of the community take priority. So it is les a question of what sort of person will I be but rather, what sort of community am I trying to create. We tend to join communities that suit us. And if we don’t like them then we leave and look for another one. We want the community to serve our needs. But Peter sees our role as serving the needs of the community. Notice he wants us to be sympathetic. By this he doesn’t mean we should feel sorry for those less fortunate than ourselves. Rather sympathy here means an awareness of the needs of the community and a willingness to meet those needs. No doubt we have all heard a symphony orchestra. They work together to produce the right sound. So a sympathetic church member helps to promote the community life of the church.
Then Peter tells us what we shouldn’t do. “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. We can easily recognise that sort of behaviour. In any group it doesn’t take much for the insults to begin to fly. It doesn’t take much for any community to become quite toxic. And that must not be the character of the church. And then Peter does something quite remarkable. He quotes from Psalm 34. His point is that what he is saying is nothing new. Rather, God’s people have known this teaching for almost a thousand years before he ever wrote this letter. According to God’s instruction, this is always how God has expected his people to live. It is also a reminder to us of the value of continually reading the Old Testament and particularly the Psalms. As Jesus was at pains to point out. He didn’t come to replace the Law but to fulfil it. And the message of the Psalm is simple, “Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech.” That has a particularly modern ring to it. One of the bi problems in our schools today is the problem of bullying. But the issue isn’t just physical violence, it is whata being said by students about other students. Using computers and mobile phones bullying can easily run rampant. The power of the word can be a very cruel thing. Some schools require that every student uses a computer while at school. Most homework and communication with their teachers is via the computer. But in order for the system to run correctly those schools have to spend a large amount of time monitoring what the students are saying in their communication with each other, to try to reduce the bullying that goes on among students. But students aren’t a special case. They are no worse than any of us. We all face the same temptation to engage in deceitful speech. It was true in the time of the Psalmist. It was still relevant a thousand years later in the time of Peter. And it is still relevant two thousand years later, in our own time. Its no wonder Peter calls on us to guard against this behaviour by making every effort to live in harmony, being compassionate and humble, because the alternate behaviour is so persistent and prevalent. Human nature has always been like that and we can give up in despair thinking things will never change. But then we come across our gospel reading for today. John 14:15-21. And notice how this reading begins and ends with the same command. “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” The activity of obedience will be a demonstration of our love for Jesus. No doubt Jesus has in mind the same kind of obedience, the same kind of behaviour that Peter commends us to perform. But Jesus adds this extra element. No only should the people of God behave this way, but it will also be a demonstration of our love for Jesus.
But then Jesus takes this teaching even further. Not only does he call on us to obedience, he also empowers us to fulfil this command, by giving us his spirit. He regarded this gift as so significant that he felt no concern with leaving his disciples, because in fact, though he had gone, his spirit would be still with them. We can sometimes underestimate the significance of this gift, but surprisingly we learn most about the spirit from the Old Testament. It was through the Spirit that Adam came to life again. In Ezekiel and the vision of the valley of dry bones, it was by the spirit that the fortunes of Israel would be revived. It was by the empowerment of the spirit that David became such a successful king. It was the Old Testament dream that the whole world would be refreshed and restored by the pouring out of God’s spirit upon all people. And we saw that promise fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. And this is the privilege we all now share. We have received the spirit of God, we have received the spirit of life, this is why Jesus can say, “because I live - you also will live.” But we discover the blessings go even further. God himself lives in a community of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Jesus says he is in the Father, and the Father is in him.” But then he goes further and says “you are in me – and I am in you.” So we are now drawn into that community of the Godhead. We have this new intimate relationship with God himself which results in us being empowered to live the life, to be the people God calls us to be, to demonstrate the obedience that Jesus lived and requires of us. The time of failure has passed. What is expected now is a new, redeemed, restored community of people, empowered by the spirit of God to be sympathetic, to be loving, to be compassionate and to be humble; to repay evil not with evil, but with a blessing. It is a very different goal to the goals we set in this world, but perhaps it is the only goal that will bring any real satisfaction.