BUT I CHOSE YOU
A sermon by George R. Pasley
Acts 10:44-48; John 15:9-17
A week ago Friday Bob Eubanks went to Carrs to pick up food for our fresh food pantry- only Carrs had nothing to give us that week.
Bob goes to Carrs for us nearly every week of the year. That’s an act of love, and Carrs has given us something every single week for more years than I have been here- that’s an act of love.
But when they had nothing for us on May 8, I called Grace and she went to Lighthouse Market and Ward Cove markets- that was an act of love on her part- and each of those markets gave us a little something. That was love on their part.
When Grace got here we cleaned out our cupboards and freezers and fridge, and we even raided the Love INC box here in the sanctuary, and when we put all that together with the box of fruit that Full Circle farms left us that week- well, we had something for the hungry people who knocked on our door at noon, just hoping to find a little something to supplement their own grocery shopping.
That was the fruit of love.
This past week- two days ago- Bob went to Carrs again, and again they had nothing for us. But this time we had already cleaned our pantries and Grace couldn’t quite show up begging at Lighthouse and Ward Cove markets again, and this past week
Four cans of canned salmon. Most food pantry donations are a little more mundane- lots of green beans and corn, bought on sale. Lots of strange varieties of soup, left in the cupboard so long we just long to give them away. Last night I took a year old can of sauerkraut to the Alaska Logging show. Many years ago, when I led a youth group out into the neighborhood soliciting donations of canned food door-to-door, someone gave us a jar of peanut butter which we threw out when we discovered it was half eaten. But someone gave US canned salmon last week- that was an act of thoughtfulness, doing for someone else exactly what you would do for your own family, whoever you were.
The book that I’m reading as we study the possibilities of doing a weekend of compassionate service in our community- the book that Robin recommended to me- tells of a church in
Members of that church have been known to show up at downtown businesses, offering to clean their toilets, too.
As far as I’m concerned, whenever you clean someone else’s toilet, it’s an act of love.
Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, In Los Angeles, has a community garden. Volunteers tend the garden. It’s a very tiny garden, but last year they raised 600 pounds of vegetables for their food pantry.
Now, not every one likes to tend gardens, and even those who do admit that tending garden is a lot of work. So here’s a maxim: Love is not always easy, not matter how much in love you are. Sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s impossible.
But Jesus told us twice within a short space, “Love each other,” and both the English and the Greek texts call it a commandment.
That reminds me of the young man, gritting his teeth and talking to an enemy, “Jesus told me I have to love you, so I’m going to do it no matter how hard it is, but I’m not going to like it.”
So here’s the first of a few hints to help us love when love is hard, and hopefully learn to like it: The scholars of ancient Jewish culture tell us that the context of that phrase, in its original Aramaic tongue, would still have been a commandment- but in a kinder, gentler way- “Keep my teaching, and my teaching is this: Love each other.”
Okay, so Jesus is not standing over us with a whip, telling us to kiss and make up. But no matter how he says it, love can still be hard.
Yesterday I spent five hours crawling under my house, in the mud, trying to do some home repairs. It was not fun and I certainly didn’t love doing it, but if I want to go on loving my house I HAD to do it.
So let’s look at what else Jesus said: “As the Father loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love.”
Love gets passed on. Jesus knew love from the Father, Jesus loves us. But listen especially to our first instruction in love: “Remain in my love.”
Some translations use “Abide in my love,” and that’s the one I prefer. But either way, it says something pretty special. Our first instruction is not to go out and love each other no matter how hard it is. No- our FIRST instruction is to remain in Jesus’ love. That is, soak it up. Savor it. Indulge yourself in it the way I indulged myself in a hot shower yesterday after I climbed out from under my house.
If you do, this is the consequence that will follow: you will keep his commandments, especially those that have to do with generous, merciful, justice making love.
Friday afternoon I helped chaperone a class trip to the swimming pool and on the way back one of the boys was picking salmonberry flowers. He stopped picking them just long enough to ask me what they were and I told him that in a few weeks those flowers would have produced some berries, if he had let them remain on the bush.
Remain in Jesus love, abide their, and before long that flower you are indulging yourself with will start to produce fruit.
Here’s a tiny little example. Yesterday, when I was putting that can of sauerkraut in my bag to take to the Lumberjack show, I spied two cans of canned salmon in MY pantry and I REMEMBERED the salmon somebody put in out Love INC box- so I took the salmon from my pantry along with the sauerkraut.
Hopefully whoever gets them won’t serve them both in the same meal.
But godly love, if it is real, begets more of the same. So let me remind you: we are joyously loved by God.
When the Holy Spirit came upon everyone who was in Cornelius’ house, that was an act of godly love and it was instantly recognized as such by the circumcised believers.
Today’s gospel lesson began with Jesus telling his disciples that he loved them.
He went on to say that his love for them was joyful, and then he followed up the command to love each other with a reminder: “I have loved you.”
He followed that with a description of the fruit his love was going to produce- he was going to lay down his life for them, and us, because we are his friends.
Finally, he said that the disciples were chosen BY him, and not vice versa.
According to my count, that’s five different ways that Jesus told us we are loved.
Now, as I think of that I feel a need to pray for some mercy, because even though I think I’ve produced my share of godly fruit, it hasn’t always come easily, and there’s been a healthy portion of rotten fruit that came out of my garden.
So the thing for me to do- and the thing for you, if you’re feeling the same way- is to remain in the love of Jesus- to sink down into that hot soapy bubble bath of love, and let it wash me clean.
While we‘re there, let’s think about those salmon berries, and blueberries, and strawberries, and whatever kind of berry is your personal favorite.
Berries are sweet, and juicy, and nutritious. More than being a staple of life, they are also life’s sweet pleasures.
But the berries don’t do any of the work that makes them that way! The plant’s other parts- the roots, the leaves, the vines- they do all the work.
So let the love of God do its work in us, and let our will and our imagination and our abilities, whatever they are, join in the work to produce some loving fruit that is sweet and merciful and justice making.
After all, we are planted by God and from what I hear, God’s a pretty good gardener. So if God planted us, there HAS to be something sweet and nutritious on its way.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
