Semon for May 17th 2020, 6th Sunday of Easter
Lectionary Readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
Genesis 8:20-9:17
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.
” God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.
Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind.
And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.” Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
Psalm 66:7-end
God rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations— let the rebellious not exalt themselves.
Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip
For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; you let people ride over our heads;
we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place. I will come into your house with burnt offerings;
I will pay you my vows, those that my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble. I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I
will make an offering of bulls and goats. Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me.
I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled with my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the words of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.
Acts 17:22-31
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
John 14:15-21
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him— though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Paul and Silas and Timothy had just come from Thessalonica, then Beroea. What had happened to them there? When the (men of the city) could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also….They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.
Paul, and Timothy, and Silas, had been turning the world upside down. And the response was mixed. In each place they landed, some were outraged, and some believed—-that this new Gospel of love would transform their lives. In Athens, where Paul stopped to wait for Silas and Timothy to rejoin him after they had stayed behind for the teaching of the Truth—-in Athens, the philosophers and citizens were delighted to debate the merits of any new god that any newcomer had to propose. Paul seized his opportunity.
What had set them on fire? I mean—-Paul, Silas, and Timothy? Why had they left the comfort of their own homes to go out to these strange and uncomprehending places, to place themselves in situations of great risk and great danger?
Our Collect for this morning ends with these words:
Help your Church to obey your command and draw the nations to the fire of your love, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.
Our world has already been turned upside down, by this pandemic from which over 300,000 people have died. The vulnerable, the elderly, the poor crowded in slums, but also brave doctors and nurses and young adults and children who would otherwise not have died so young.
Those of us who have gathered this morning have somehow been set on fire with the truth of the transforming love of Jesus, that in some way has encountered us along the way of our lives and set us here, together, at this screen, this morning.
We have held together, this lovely congregation of believers, through two months and more of a crisis that in upending our world has upended our own lives and caused us, perhaps, to reconsider those lives. How are we living? How might we live, enflamed by the love of God, helping to turn the world upside down to heal its wounds and renew the Spirit of God on the face of the earth?
I find that I, myself, am re-inspired and re-invigorated by reading and re-reading the words of our sacred texts—-these words of Jesus, that remind me of the charge with which I have been entrusted by the Faith I have inherited and embrace.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And the closing words of the Gospel of Matthew:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Here is our chance. Here is the opportunity. Here we are, in the comfort of our own homes, forced to interrupt the usual pace of our lives. How would you like to change the world for the better? How would you like to turn the world upside down, setting it on fire with the healing love of Christ?
God is with us; God is in us, because Jesus promised that the Spirit of truth would come to us and abide in us.
In Him we live and move and have our being.
We have an unprecedented opportunity, now, to spend time with and to absorb the truths of our faith as it has been handed down to us in the writings of our sacred texts. We all have a Bible. Now is the time to read it. A little, every day. Why not begin with all of the Gospel of John? Then all of the book of Acts? And go from there.
We need to know our faith before we go out to share the Good News we know with others who don’t know it. Before we can set others on fire with the fire of the Holy Spirit that has been set in our hearts.
When I was a little girl, growing up in the Southern Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, I remember hearing that very strange word, Paraclete.
I asked: what does this word mean, this word that sounds to me like an ancient flying dinosaur?
And because that branch of the Christian church has a strong teaching tradition, and I had good teachers who answered all kinds of questions of us children who asked them, I was answered by the beautiful image of the Holy Spirit, like a snow white dove, landing on my heart and perching there, bringing peace and love and joy.
Paraclete: Para kalein—-to call, in aid of, alongside. Jesus left, to return to the Father who had sent him, but He did not leave us comfortless. The Paraclete, the comforter, the counselor, God’s own Spirit that is One with Jesus, has come to be in us. To sustain and send us out.
I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.
If we know these words they will fill us and comfort us and inspire us. The vast majority of people in our present-day world do not know them.
Now is the time. Now is the time: to read, to ponder, to study and to pray.
And then, our hearts set on fire like those disciples on the road to Emmaus, let us go out from the comfort of our own homes, like Paul and Silas and Timothy, and seek to share this Good News of the transforming love of Christ with all the world.
It will turn the world upside down. Again.
Amen!
The Revd Dana English The United Benefice of Holland Park: The Churches of St. George’s Campden Hill and St. John the Baptist Holland Road May 17, 2020