FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER May 18, 2025

Prayer of the Day O Lord God, you teach us that without love, our actions gain nothing. Pour into our hearts your most excellent gift of love, that, made alive by your Spirit, we may know goodness and peace, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Gospel: John 13:31-35 31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews (religious leaders) so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Pastor’s Reflection’s on the Gospel Reading These Sundays of Easter feel a bit like channel surfing —-or in more modern parlance—scrolling bits of John’s Gospel. Dr. Karoline Lewis being a ‘go-to’ authority on the Gospel John invites us to put pieces back together.

Maundy Thursday’s Gospel reading takes us to the upper room—-where Jesus having loved his people to the very end washes their feet before they eat a Passover meal and he is betrayed to the religious and civic authorities. Jesus’ words about loving one another might resonate in a way that’s minor key; foreboding knowing some real evil is about to be unleashed.

How do the same words sound during the Easter season? Minor key? Major key? something else? John’s Gospel contains a very lengthy passage in which Jesus prepares his followers for what is to come—the scholars call this the “farewell discourse” and it begins in John chapter 13 and continues through the 17th chapter. Along the way Jesus speaks about being the way, truth and life and likens himself to the life giving vine that sustains the branches (us). The vital force from vine to branches is love; and Jesus invites, beckons and even commands that we remain connected (or if you like one of John’s favourite words, we ‘abide’).

Extolling the virtue of love is one thing. Loving is quite another. Love is doing what needs to be done so that the one we love can thrive. Sometimes we can do that. Sometimes we fail. Imagine Jesus stepping out of a customary role to serve his followers…they’re embarrassed and awkward. The foot washing is necessary for the moment and Jesus’ action teaches his followers what love sometimes looks like; not glamourous. Not many Hallmark greeting cards sold on mother’s day contain verse about colicky babies, choosing between paying rent and buying diapers, or about 3 am phone calls from a kid who is at a party yet has the common sense to call home for a ride. That might be what love looks like.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians pre-dates John’s Gospel. Remember the famous words he writes about love? We often read them at weddings and the words do speak to how difficult love can be sometimes. At weddings we don’t often peel back the layer to reveal the context of words about love being patient and kind, not keeping score of sleights and infractions. The context is that a faith community is deeply divided over a great many things. The mission and purpose of the church have been almost completely obscured by multiple deeply divisive controversies. Paul’s intervention is to remind people that the only way through is by loving in the same ways God loved us first and in the same self-giving way Jesus embodied during his life on earth.

It may have been the writer and preacher Dianna Butler Bass who says that ‘proof’ of the resurrection can be found in the ways Jesus’ followers continue to live as he lived. The resurrection might be real for the world in moments when Christians (and their churches) live and love in ways that make them distinct from the rest of society. Here’s a snapshot of what that love in action looks like….

Tomorrow the ELCIC and other churches join in an international event where people will pray and speak to advocate for the queer community and against the transphobia that makes life unsafe for many.

Our own denomination has written to the Canadian Prime Minister Government humanitarian aid for people in the Holy Land.

One of our neighbours in Ridgeway participated in a bicycle trek as part of the synod’s climate justice action.

This past week, the U.S. State Department unsuccessfully attempted to abuse an agreement with the Episcopal Church in which asylum seekers receive assistance from the church. In this instance the U.S. government aimed to grant asylum to white South Africans who supported and benefited from the previous system of apartheid. The church responded they could not in good conscience go along with the scheme.

These expressions are not popular, not easy and far from quick fixes. They are about long-haul commitment to love. So as many of us are tired and discouraged we might remember the final lines from Paul’s words about love—-in the end, three things remain: faith, hope and love. The greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).