Sixth Sunday after Easter, Year B, May 6, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

This morning we are celebrating the baptism of a little boy with a big name. Samuel Dennis Warren, VII, also known as Micah. Maybe you recall that Micah is the name of the Biblical prophet, who famously reminded the people that what is required of us is only to do justice and to love kindness and to walk modestly or humbly with the Holy One. That might be the best description of what it looks like to love one another and love God in all of scripture.

As usual, I’m hoping people take lots of pictures today to help Micah learn and grow in the knowledge of his deep belonging, which is celebrated this day by so many people, some relatives and friends but mostly a crowd of complete strangers, who promise to support him in his life in the redeeming love of God – also known as the Christ. This is one more day that a church full of people at 15 Newbury Street in Boston will assert our faith in Micah’s inherent dignity and in our own inherent dignity and renew our commitment to take loving actions in response to that dignity. Micah will need evidence of this day, because he won’t always be in touch with his own inherent dignity or the dignity of every other human being (because some days are easier than others, as I like to say). There will be days when he might not feel like the marvelously made child of God that he is, loved through and through by the Author of Life itself. He will need reminders of his belovedness.

If you don’t have a camera, then take mental pictures. But many of you have cell phones that double as cameras. Today I want to do something unusual and ask those of you who have cell phones to turn them on during the baptism. (Please silence the ringers.) During the ceremony of baptism, I want you to take pictures for yourselves of this church full of people declaring our belief in the dignity of every human being and our renewed vows to take loving actions in response. You, too, will need evidence, because you won’t always be in touch with your own inherent dignity or the dignity of every other human being. There will be days when you do not feel like the marvelously made child of God that you are, loved through and through by the Author of Life. For some of you, today might even be one of those days, and if so, I’m especially glad you’re here. Today we want to help you remember your belovedness, your inherent dignity as a marvelously made, beloved child of the Author of Life. Many of us have gotten scratched and dented, wherever we have been on our spiritual journey. Maybe we are a little lumpy or wrinkled and some (or all) of our fur has been rubbed off. But that just makes us more real, according to the story of The Velveteen Rabbit. Micah Warren is here this morning to remind you — to remind us all — of what Jesus implored of his followers: love God and love one another, abide in love.

I want to offer you some additional words in translating our Gospel portion for today, especially verse 10, which is the second sentence in the passage. The words here are fine – but not quite expansive enough for my spiritual sensibilities. The word for “if” is also “whenever.” It’s not so much a conditional transactional word, it’s an indication of when – of what happens when. The “you” is plural here – it’s “y’all.” The word for “keep” is also “protect.” The word for “commandment” is also “commission.” This is a commission for compassion. So put that all together, and it sounds like this: “Whenever you all protect my commission for compassion, you will linger in my love, just as I have protected my Maker’s commissions for compassion and linger in Love.” The reason for this – for the commissions for compassion, for lingering in love, Jesus reminds his hearers, is to experience complete joy.

You know, joy is that deep sense of well-being and blessing and connectedness that is quite independent from circumstances. It’s different from happiness. Happiness and happenstance are related words – they have to do with fate or chance. Jesus was teaching that joy could be experienced even when the circumstances are dire. In the Gospel of John, Jesus was teaching about complete joy even as his life circumstances were going from bad to worse, as his arrest was imminent, on the night before he was executed. In John’s Gospel, Jesus knew how things were going. His deep desire for his followers’ well-being, blessing and connectedness, in a no matter what kind of way, prompted his commission for compassion, his directive to linger in love. This is the centerpiece of five chapters full of instructions just prior to Jesus’ death, composed by John the Evangelist for a community experiencing humiliation and persecution.

When Jesus was teaching about love for one another, he wasn’t talking about loving within any particular community, you know, those inside the circle. Jesus was always looking outside the circle, wanting to draw people in, to enlarge the circle. And the “new commandment” to love one another wasn’t any more new than a new moon. [1] A wide angle lens look at all of scripture makes this very clear. The look and the reach for compassion are outward. Jesus made it clear again and again that loving one’s neighbor is the central Biblical mandate. Love is reason for all of the Law and the Prophets. Jesus made it clear again and again that “neighbor” includes anyone and all who are near, inside and outside, clean and unclean, known and unknown, friend and enemy, and that love meant action much more than affect. The story from the Acts of the Apostles indicates that Jesus’ followers did come to understand this, in spite of how difficult or inelegant their learning might have been!

The challenge, of course, is that once we understand that Biblical (or Torah) definition of neighbor to include even the aliens among us, the challenge becomes completely overwhelming. How can we love our neighbors when we have countless neighbors to love? It turns out that working for social justice is how we love our neighbors when we have more neighbors than our individual or communal acts of mercy and care can possibly cover. Working for social justice is about organizing our society so that everyone has sufficient food, shelter, and well-being, blessing and connectedness. Of course that includes music and art! Working for social justice is about organizing our society so that our policies and practices support and reflect the inherent dignity of every person, indeed all of creation. It’s not just how we vote, it’s how we spend, how we save, and how we share; it’s not just what our public policies are, it’s what we consume, what we invest, and what we give away. [2]

The Good News is that there’s no expectation that any of us figures this out alone. The commission is just that – a co-mission – given in and to and for community, and the direction is to linger in the Love of God so that we have the help of unconditional and relentless One Who is Love. It’s no accident that the first question in the baptismal covenant prompts us to promise to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. We are going to need to be in community to do what no one of us can do alone. We are going to have to be a part of something bigger than any individual.

I’m often reminded of a time almost twenty-five years ago, as I was beginning to publicly respond to a sense of call to ordained ministry, I found myself in a contentious interview situation with the bishop’s advisory commission (in a far away Episcopal diocese). Some of you have heard this story before — I love to tell it. As I walked into the interview, I could tell the four interviewers were extremely annoyed that the bishop asked them to interview me, because the bishop had already decided he would not admit me into the ordination process under any circumstance because I was an “out” lesbian in a committed relationship, so it seemed like a waste of time. The interview team also seemed furious that I’d brought so many of my friends from another Immanuel Church along with me for the interview. They had anticipated that I would have two or three people with me. Without asking permission, I had brought along ten from my parish.

The interview room was set up with two tables arranged in a T. The four interviewers’ chairs were across the top of the T. Four chairs were around the stem of the T. There were other chairs scattered around the perimeter of the room. I was already very nervous as my group and I walked into the interview room and heard the lead interviewer say, “Well, there certainly are a lot of you.” “Yes,” I said. There followed a long awkward silence. Then the lead interviewer said to me, “well, you are going to have to figure out who can sit at the table and who can’t.” I looked down at my feet, tears were stinging my eyes. In the fifteen seconds or so that followed, I thought, I didn’t want to decide who could sit at the table. I had no idea how to decide that. I felt humiliated and embarrassed that so many people had taken a day off from work to drive several hours on my behalf to accompany me, just to be treated so badly. I thought, “this was a mistake. We should just leave right now. This is terrible.”

And during those same fifteen seconds, my companions just pulled all of the chairs in the room into one big circle around the table. They instinctively did what, in my humiliation, I could not manage to figure out on my own. My tears of shame were changed into tears of joy. My companions demonstrated in an instant, without words, that I didn’t need to decide who could sit at the table and who couldn’t. They demonstrated in an instant that we all just needed to make the circle large enough so that everyone could be in it. They demonstrated in an instant the lesson that has shaped and informed my ministry ever since. It seems to me that that is what we are doing here today in our celebration of Micah’s belonging – making the circle larger. Welcome to the circle of Christian practice, Micah Warren. We are hoping that you will help us make it and the rest of the world better than when we found them!

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