Hi there! Today you get an unpublished sermon because I have a chapter to finish. The sermon is based on Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, and John 13:31-35 and was preached at St. Paul’s Oakland. Enjoy!
If you and I were to sit down for a cup of coffee, we’d probably shoot the breeze for a little while. “Oh, what do you do during the day?” I’d ask you, and we’d perhaps talk about your job.
“Oh, you’re a gardener too? Do tell me the secret to growing a bounty of epic tomatoes, because I have high hopes for Canning All the Things this summer, but alas, I need help.”
“Oh, and what do you do in your spare time?” Maybe we’d talk about hiking through Joaquin Miller or the power of a good book; we’d argue over which Netflix reality television series really is the worst (The Ultimatum), but then eventually, we’d start talking about the thing I can’t seem to get enough of, the single thing that sparks a light in me like nothing else: Little League baseball.
I’m specifically talking about The Mummies, the team my seven-year-old son plays on. The team that puts a “curse on all their opponents.” The team that has an undefeated record, perhaps because, in the end, six and seven-year-olds are privy to an everybody-wins kind of baseball game.
Even if the coach pitches five times and you accidentally swing too slow, you can always pull out the t-ball stand.
Even if, in your zealous, overexcitement to get the batter out, you overthrow the ball and it hits the dugout fence, still, the parents cheer.
“Strong throw, buddy!” “That’s exactly what we want to see!” “Way to show up for the play!”
I love it because my kid loves it and I get to see him shine, but I also love it because it’s just downright good and fun.
I love it because at the end of the day my job is to show up and LOVE.
As I sat with the lectionary passages this last week, that’s what I kept seeing: at the end of the day, God’s job was to show up and LOVE.
In Acts 11, God shows up through a story Peter recounts. Peter is praying and he enters into a trance. He gets this vision, not once, but twice, and then there’s a transition from God to Spirit; Peter remembers the words of Jesus, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit,” for God’s spirit is with God’s people in new form.
God, in other words, showed up.
It’s the same in Psalm 148, when the word “praise” is uttered thirteen times – when the one who sings this song dares us see how God is present all around us. From human to animal, from water to hill; from sun and moon, young and old, men and women, sea monsters and all deeps, we are invited to praise the Lord – we are invited to see how God’s love has been made manifest through the earth.
It’s not too different in Revelation, when in this next-to-last chapter of the Bible, John’s vision of a new heaven and a new earth is finalized. God is here. God is in this place. “See, I am making all things new,” we read, in this place, in this neighborhood, with these people.
God is here, for God has shown up, with us.
It then all comes together in the Gospel passage. And I can’t help but notice that when Jesus speaks, he directs his words to the children that are scattered around him.
Here’s part of this passage from The Message translation:
“Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. But just as I told the Jews, I’m telling you: ‘Where I go, you are not able to come.’
Instead, let me give a new command. So, this is your new command: Love one another. Just as I loved you, you get to love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples – when they see the love you have for each other.”
Jesus speaks directly to the little ones, but certainly, also, he speaks directly to us. Because I have loved you, you get to love one another. You get to show up. You get to be love to one another by being fleshy humans to one another.
By dropping off a meal. By remembering a name. By inviting someone over for a meal and letting them enter into your messy, lived-in place of residence.
You get to send a just-because, “I’m thinking of you” text. You get to pop by with a cup of coffee or a copy of your favorite book. You get to pick up the phone and dial a number, just because that human on the other side of your brain Holy-Spirit crossed your mind and you find yourself thinking about them.
We get to show up and love.
That gets to be our job.
Sometimes we give. Sometimes we receive. But always, we step out, and we look around us, and we say, I don’t know how this happened, because I wouldn’t have necessarily picked you, but God picked us for each other.
I’m talking about us, St. Paul’s Episcopal Oakland.
You and me, we are here and we are in this together, and we get to show up for one another.
Because this showing up counts.
And this showing up, which is love-made-flesh, which is Jesus-in-us, matters now, more than ever before.
Yesterday, at the Mummies end-of-year afterparty, my family and I sat down on blankets and in camping chairs, with a bunch of other players and their grown-ups beside them. We ate bagels and donuts; we sipped on coffee and sparkle water.
The boys got trophies (which are absolutely their pride and joy), and after a low-key awards’ ceremony, when they went to play a game of tag we grown-ups got to chat for a few minutes.
At one point, I found myself in conversation with the grandparents of a local Oakland first grader. We talked about the positives and negatives of technology – how we’re so grateful for things like FaceTime, because we get to see our loved ones across the country, but how we’re also so tired of learning new things. Of how it sometimes feels like too much to learn another new gadget, another new app, another new social media invention.
Yeah, I’m tired too, I remember thinking to myself. Then the grandma said out loud, almost as an afterthought, “You know, we’re all going through a lot right now. Literally, all of us. We just need to be kind to one another.”
I picked up my phone and typed her words into a note, my head nodding vigorously. It was the truest thing I’d heard in a long time.
When I sat down to finish the sermon last night, her words returned to me, in light of this God showing up and being love business – in light of the command Jesus gave to do the same, and show up and be love to one another too.
In whatever way, shape or form, we’re all going through a lot right now, literally, all of us.
But we can show up. We can be kind. We can love one another, as we’ve been instructed to do, one meal, one Swords to Plowshares event against gun violence, one “just thinking of you” text at a time.
You in?
Amen.
I’ve got a fun surprise coming to you on Friday. Hint: It’s short. Hint: It might just happen every week. Hint: It has to do with books. Stay tuned!
Question of the week: Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Why or why not? What’s the most memorable resolution you ever made?