Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 18, 2025
Should you have thought, while listening to the words from John chapter thirteen, ‘Haven’t we just heard this?’
you are right! With today’s Gospel reading, we have gone backward, back to Holy Week and the Last Supper.
We heard these verses as part of the longer reading from John chapter thirteen on Maundy Thursday. The opening phrase, “When he had gone out” (John 13:31), comes on the heels of Judas Iscariot’s departure from the supper table as he headed to the authorities to betray Jesus. Still at the dinner table, the eleven remaining disciples are left with a mix of emotions and questions wondering what Judas’ sudden exit means. And…Jesus’ words: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him,” left them in a confused muddle wondering, ‘what’s it all about?’
Yet, here we are, on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, returning to something we heard before, in a different liturgical setting and context, on the eve of Good Friday.
Of course, the framers of the Ecumenical Lectionary we follow week by week, (I would guess), chose John chapter thirteen for a Sunday near the end of the Easter season so we could hear once again Jesus’ call and commandment, that we “love one another” – for without mutual care and concern for one another, the health of the community of God’s people is severely compromised. Jesus’ words always bear repetition!
Take a quick inventory of our personal and our corporate behaviour, and we discover the commandment, “to love one another,” is something we need to hear again and again.
Jesus’ call “to love one another” embraces the big challenges of feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, righting the wrongs of people unjustly treated and denied their dignity, caring for the earth, God’s precious creation, as well as those mundane things within each of our reach – how we greet and treat friend and stranger, where we spend our time, our talents and our resources, the priorities we choose.
Being near the end of the Easter season we now face the challenges of living out the conviction that Jesus Christ did rise from death. The challenges of living out the conviction in this troubled and troubling twenty-first century of ours!
Like a couple returning from the bliss and joy of their wedding and honeymoon, with a home to create and the new and unknown (and daunting!) future of living together, day in and day out, followers of Jesus must now start life afresh and make our home with the risen Lord. Or, to put it another way: we are coming down from a mountaintop experience of meeting the risen Lord, back to the grind of home in the valley where we live – and where we learn Jesus is more than a polite weekend houseguest.
He is now a companion. A member of the family. Worthy of a regular place at the table, and has an important part to play in the pattern of our lives.
You and I are far removed from the heady days of the first community of believers, the earliest Christians. The sweep of two thousand years of history leaves us with the impression of the Church as ‘an institution’, ‘an organization’, ‘a corporation,’ that emerged from Easter and the approaching Feast of Pentecost, fully formed –
with bishops and their mitres, shrines and their spires, archdeacons and Synods, and books and candles and crosses.
Getting in touch with the first people who knew the risen Lord is no easy task!
We have to shed layers of clothing; clear out a lot of things stored over the years; and move the furniture of our lives around to gain the space to make contact with them on the one core conviction we share. And, that one core conviction Christians today share with the first followers of Jesus is that he is risen and alive and the Resurrection has an immediate and lasting effect!
We are given an example of what the first Christians faced in Acts, chapter eleven. As more and more people heard the Good News and came to faith, the community of believers grew; Gentiles (non-Jews) also heard the News, met the risen Jesus; and it began to happen very, very quickly.
There was no time to entrust the work of evangelism to a trained ‘board’ or a hand-picked ‘committee’ charged with the task of church expansion considering the demographics of race, language, culture and country of origin.
There were no twenty-first century specialists and influencers to turn to for help, to craft the message in an inoffensive, yet consumer-friendly and attractive pitch, bound to sell the product and bring home the results.
The message about Jesus was so new, so fresh, so unexpected, the earliest Christians had to rely on their own resources, and as we learn throughout the Easter and Pentecost seasons – to rely on a God who was now among them in a new and a surprising way. A way so new and fresh that burning fire and gusty wind became signs of his presence.
Peter the Apostle had a vision, a dream-like trance we are told. He was away from Jerusalem and the bosom of the disciples. He had been spending his time with some Gentile folks, telling them about the risen Lord. When Peter got back to Jerusalem, he was immediately grilled by some of his fellow Jewish Christians, ‘why was he spending time fraternizing with Gentiles, even eating with them?’ (Acts 11:3)
Peter’s answer was to tell what he saw in his vision. It was about a huge sheet with animals of all sorts, animals good faithful Jews were forbidden to eat lest they be ritually impure and unworthy to approach God. He was told, “Get up…and eat!” (Acts 11:7)
Peter’s faithful answer was he ‘had never eaten anything unclean and forbidden by the Law.’ (Acts 11:8) The answer came back: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” (Acts 11:9) Gentiles, non-Jews, who came to know the risen Lord Jesus, were not required to follow the laws and customs of the Jewish people.
At the same time, they were full members of the community of Jesus’ followers – for they too had met and knew the risen Lord. Peter then recounts how three men from Caesarea arrived looking for him to come and share the good news. Peter says, “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.”
That is: between Gentile and Jew. (Acts 11:12)
The story illustrates one of the thorniest things the first Christians had to settle: were Gentile believers bound to keep the customs of the Law? You can read about it in Acts, chapter 15. A Council of the apostles was held in Jerusalem and the question solved once and for all. Paul, called the Apostle to the Gentiles, played a big part in it.
Gentile believers were freed from keeping circumcision, the Kosher diet and other traditions that marked the Jews. Gentile believers were asked “to abstain from anything polluted by idols, from fornication, from the meat of strangled animals,” (meat sold in the marketplace that had been sacrificed in a pagan temple) “and from blood.” (Acts 15:19)
However, Jewish believers, by virtue of their ‘Jewishness’ and traditions, were required to keep their customs and the Law.
It was a big hurdle to get over for the first generation of followers of Jesus. There was no precedent to follow. It had to be worked out for the sake of the Gentiles seeking to follow Jesus and the Good News – and for the health and wellbeing of the community of believers. It was the first of many hurdles the community had to face.
Now, life in the valley ain’t easy…for any of us!
Would that we could stay on top of the mountain enjoying the glory and the joy and the intimate fellowship of the risen Lord Jesus, away from the challenges and thorny and troublesome issues of life, basking in the happy warmth of the Lord’s close presence and the sweet sound of his voice!
But the Easter season is coming to an end. And we know our place is back down in the valley where we make our home and live our lives.
Perhaps the Christian’s life-long ‘learning curve,’ to borrow a phrase popular today, is that we more often than not meet the risen Jesus while living and working in the valley than hidden away on the mountaintop.
Amen.
Fr. Ted Hales