THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2002

Fr. Dan Weir preached this sermon on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2002.

Last Sunday, during Communion at the ten o'clock service, the choir sang a piece with these words in the refrain:

Open our eyes, Lord,
We want to see Jesus,
To reach out and touch him
And tell him we love him.
Open our ears, Lord,
And teach us to listen.
Open our eyes, Lord,
We want to see Jesus.

What simple language of love and even intimacy is addressed here to our Lord; language that echoes that central message of this morning's Gospel: "those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

We are, admittedly, most of us, a bit reticent when it comes to expressing our love for Jesus. It is a subject that is difficult for many of us to discuss openly, even with our closest friends. And maybe it isn't all that important that we talk with one another about our love for Jesus, anymore than it is all that important that I talk with any of you about my love for my wife Jan. Perhaps intimacies are best kept intimate. But if it isn't all that important for us to talk with one another about this love, the love we have for the one whom "we love because he first loved us," it is important that that love be there and that that love find expression. It is important that somehow in our hearts, in that deep secret place of thoughts and feelings which we may never share with anyone, even a spouse, that there we know both Jesus' love for us and our love for Jesus, that there we find our own words to express our joy and thanksgiving as we abide in Christ and Christ abides in us. And it is important that somehow in our actions, in the way we live each day, we show, and not necessarily to the world around us, but to the One who sees in secret, that we show this love.

But maybe, just maybe, this reticence we have about talking about this love, maybe this reticence is wrong, or, at least, something that can cause us some trouble in our relationship with Jesus and with one another. I'm not suggesting that we wear our hearts on our sleeves, but it seems to me that our reticence may well lead us and others to get the wrong idea about the nature of our faith and about the nature of this community that we call St. Matthias Church. Maybe our reticence misleads us and others about why we are here, misleads us and others into believing that this community has been drawn together by something other than the love of Jesus Christ. Maybe our reticence misleads us into thinking that we are a community of like-minded people, with similar tastes in music and liturgy, a community held together by upper middle class, or, at least, middle class values, or, worse yet, a community drawn together by the talents of the parish's clergy, both past and present.

"Abide in me as I abide in you." It is in obedience to that command that we are here, knowing that in obeying another command - "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." - we will be able to abide in him. There is nothing else, really, that matters. All the rest is window-dressing. It is nice window-dressing, to be sure, even widow-dressing that can help us to see and experience that incredible love, but it isn't the music or the liturgy or this beautiful building or all the obvious similarities which we have as members of the most privileged society in the world, it isn't anything else but the love of Jesus which makes any sense of what we are doing here this morning. And we need to know that.

After Dotsie Reed's memorial service on Monday, Ellen Montgomery's husband Ernie asked how things were going here at St. Matthias'. I told him that I was having fun and that I hoped that others were enjoying being here. If I'm right in thinking that we are enjoying being together, I'm also right in knowing that this joy is a gift, a gift that has been created for us by the power of God's love. It is that love which has made it possible for there to be healing for us as a parish. And that's one of the reasons why I believe that it's so important that we know that source of our life together is God's love, important because in knowing it we are more ready to receive as a gift the continued healing a growth that God intends to give us in the months and years to come. Make no mistake about it, I believe that God has great blessings in store for us, but only if we are willing to receive them.

God also has great blessings in store for Jennifer Lynne and Emily Ann. But with them, as with all of the rest of us, a willingness to receive God's love, a willingness to trust God's love, and a willingness to make God's love the central reality of their lives will be the key. They, like us, will face the temptation to make something else central in our lives. And as one who has allowed at times other things, like popularity and success, to be more important than God's love, I can assure you that nothing else works. Nothing else can satisfy our need to be loved. Yes, we do love one another, and I am thankful each day for the love that I receive from others, but I know that that love cannot measure up to the love I receive from God. The love of others may - perhaps, inevitably will - fail, but God's love does not.

As a community, we are called to teach Jennifer and Emily - and each other - to trust God's love. As a community we are called to trust that love in the months and years ahead, even more than we trust the gifts and abilities of the members of this parish community, our clergy included.

As a community we are also called to support one another in our several vocations. That is indeed difficult, perhaps well-nigh impossible, if we don't know each other, if we don't have a sense of the challenges that our brothers and sisters face in their daily life. This morning we will be using a Litany for Rogation Sunday, offering prayers for all persons who have responded to Christ's call to serve him in the world. But this should just be the beginning, and we should take the time needed to get to know one another so that we might support and pray for one another more effectively. The Pastoral Care Committee sees this as an important goal and is working to develop ways for us to get to know one another better, ways that I hope all of us will use in the months ahead.

Trust that love; abide in it; let it be your dwelling place, the place where you can become most truly yourself. Trust that love, and you will not be shaken.