Sixth Sunday of Easter May 10, 2026

Prayer of the Day
Almighty and ever-living God, you hold together all things in heaven and on earth. In your great mercy receive the prayers of all your children, and give to all the world the Spirit of your truth and peace, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Gospel: John 14:15-21 [Jesus said to the disciples:] 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 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.
18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 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
“When the power of love replaces the love of power, the world will know peace.”. Those words have been said by people ranging from Eastern mystics to members of British Parliament to Jimmy Hendrix. Pick your provenance.

The idea behind these words pairs nicely with Jesus’ words that love produces obedience to God’s design—It’s best to read those words about commandment keeping as since/then more than if/then.

The world we live in like that of Hendrix, Gladstone, the first disciples revolves around love of power. Jesus forms and shapes a community aspiring toward the power of love—and he promises that the Spirit of God will come along side us.

We can make a connection between Jesus’ promise to his followers to the Creed we have spoken together over the Easter Season.

That Third section might sound like a laundry list of stuff we believe. Imagine if we reframe those words around what the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus…the Spirit always with us DOES when we say we believe in one Holy Catholic and apostolic church.

To put it in Luther’s words, the Spirit will call, gather and enlighten and bring wholeness to the Christian church. Let’s unpack a bit more and while we do think about that word love, mentioned some fifty times in John’s Gospel.

The idea of holiness isn’t dashboard saint squeaky cleanliness. Holiness has always meant whole-ness or integrated completeness. My experience has been that holiness often means at least as much UN-learning as learning. The church became more holy in my lifetime when it repudiated teachings that put others down…like the infamous doctrine of discovery that held that only with the arrival of white European colonizers did God’s presence come to where we now live. The observing of Red Dress day is one small step toward solidarity with our indigenous siblings—the long and hard work of reconciliation may well be the church’s life long journey of repentance and of growing holy and in love.

We say we believe in a catholic church which means a people of all places and times. And an apostolic church literally means a church sent to carry on Jesus’ work of being present in the world and loving it and blessing it.

For now, let’s conclude where we began…Jesus says that love produces obedience to the commandments….and scripture also says the greatest commandment is love. Love of God. Love for neighbour. May God’s presence in the church and among us lead us all toward a life where a love of power is replaced by the power of love. Amen.