"Love - Even On Them" a sermon on Acts 10:44-48 & John 15:9-17

John 15:9-17
Acts 10:44-48
“Love - Even On Them”
Preached Sunday, May 5, 2024

Who are your friends? Think about the answer for a second, say their names to yourself.

Why are they your friends? Similar interests? Circumstances threw you together? Something else? Think about that answer for a second as well.

How do we define friendship? And given that definition, how we do understand our relationship with Jesus, as in this week’s Gospel text, he calls us friends. “You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends…”

To be honest, friend is not a go-to title of Jesus for me and that’s partially because of how I’ve understood my earthly friendships. Because, well, a lot of our best pals have the same interests as us. Believe the same things as us. If Jesus was just like my best pals, he’d have a theology degree from Vanderbilt, would watch Pride and Prejudice on repeat with me, and would enjoy all you can eat sushi. But it’s not because we have similar hobbies or interests that Jesus calls us friends.

One of those most famous friendships in the Bible is between David and Jonathan. 1 Samuel 18 describes that friendship: “the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” In this sense, friends are those whose lives are inextricably tied to ours, at a spiritual level. That tie is built on love as if for one’s own self.

Think again of those friends you have - think of those you are closest to, perhaps their lives are inextricably tied to yours, perhaps you are friends because you are bound together in love.

In the Greco-Roman sense of friendship, that which Jesus could have been familiar with, friends “weren’t people of similar interests having fun together. Friends, at least as the philosophical ideal would have it, were committed to the care of each other’s souls. As Aristotle famously put it, ‘The opposite of a friend is a flatterer.’ A friend is someone who speaks the truth, who builds up your character; you have a shared commitment to helping each other to become good, wise, and holy.”

A lot of us want flatters as friends. A lot of us have flatters as friends. But that’s not what friendship with Jesus looks like. Jesus isn’t just gonna pat us on the back and tell us we’re doing a good job. By claiming us as friends, Jesus has tied himself to us on a spiritual level, committed to the care of our souls. And sometimes, that looks like putting us in our place and telling us what’s best for us.

I believe that is why the Scripture says, “You are my friends IF you do what I command you…” So what is it that Jesus commands us to do? “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for a friend.”

The commandment? To love one another. To care for each other as we care for ourselves. To care for the SOUL of each other, to put others first.

And when we DON’T love one another, when we treat anyone less than a child of God, not only does it hurt the other person, but it hurts our soul as well. And, as a friend, Jesus wants what is best for our soul: love.

Bryan M. Massingale, Jesuit priest, professor, and author of “Racial Justice and the Catholic Church” describes racism as a soul-sickness. He says, “For a believer, it is important to see racism as a soul sickness. Racism is that interior disease, that warping of the human spirit, that enables us to create communities where some matter and some do not.” And this is true for any -ism. Last week we talked about the text from 1 John that says anyone who fears or hates someone, cannot love them and cannot love God. And this is what all -isms do: This warping of the human spirit, the warping of our souls that causes us to treat some people as more worthy or trustworthy than others. Some as better than. Some as insiders or outsiders.

Anytime we put anyone in a “them” versus “us” category, it warps our souls. Instead of having love in our soul, we have anger or contempt or fear. Instead of acts of kindness, there is malice. Instead of friendship, there are claims of superiority. It does not matter who this “other,” is - those of a different gender, sexuality, socioeconomic class, race, ethnicity, religion, or political party whoever “THEY” are - the simple act of having a “them” instead of an “us” warps our souls, spreading an illness, a sickness of our soul which damages us in turn.

Whenever I think in terms of “us” versus “them” - which, hey, I’ll admit, I’m guilty of more than I want to admit, I think of the words of Nadia Bolz-Weber. Nadia is a Lutheran minister and founder of the Church for All Saints and Sinners in Colorado. She is known for her more progressive Christianity. She is a recovering addict with sleeve tattoos and pastored a church that openly welcomes LGBTQ folk, addicts, and doubters alongside soccer moms and investment bankers. In her book, she writes about the advice a friend gave her:

“[My friend] once said to me, after one of my more finely worded rants about stupid people who have the wrong opinions, ‘Nadia, the thing that sucks is that every time we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is always on the other side of it.’

“Every time we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is on the other side of it.”

Dang. That can be hard to hear. Basically, Jesus is always with the outcast, with those shunned, with the marginalized. Jesus doesn’t have time for our dividing distinctions. For borders, for divisions, for human-made categories. Jesus loves all and calls all who follow his command, to love one another, he calls us friends.

Last week’s story of the Ethiopian eunuch getting baptized showed us how the Spirit is also widening who God is inviting into our communities - even and especially on those who would be on the outskirts of societies, those who would be subversive or surprising, those who we might first fear or exclude but God is breaking down barriers, walls, -isms, and fear with the perfect Love of God. Once again this week, our Scripture from Acts has God breaking barriers of “us” versus “them.”

The reading from this week was the climax of a much longer story in Acts 10. The passage starts by describing a very devout Gentile, Cornelius. “In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God.” An angel of the Lord spoke to Cornelius, telling him to go find Peter and invite him to the house. At the same time, Peter had a vision from God, telling him to make no distinction between clean and unclean and to go with the servant to the house of Cornelius. Basically, eat what Cornelius offers to you. Go, be with Cornelius, human-to-human not Gentile to Jew, not us versus them. So Peter goes to the house of Cornelius and teaches saying, “‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.’”

And as Peter was saying this, the Holy Spirit is poured out on Cornelius, his friends, his family, his household. All that he had gathered together. And the Scripture says, “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God.” And the words that pop out to me are that they were ASTONISHED that the Spirit had been poured out EVEN ON the Gentiles. Even on THEM. THEY are different from us. I mean, yeah, sure, as Peter said, God shows no partiality….but surely that doesn’t include THEM, right? Just as it is when we say we believe that God shows no partiality...but in our hearts we go, “but certainly not THEM, you know, people like such and such….” But behold! Anytime you draw a line between us and them, God is always on the other side of that line.

And so, this story shows us God breaking down our “even them” barriers. I also wonder, whose lives were more changed by this encounter. Was it Cornelius’s as he was baptized? Certainly his life was changed but the Scriptures already described him as a God-fearing, devout, and generous man. Instead I would suggest that the lives of the religious circumcised were changed. Those who were astonished that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on “even them.” What kind of soul-sickness did they have in their hearts to separate Gentiles into a “them” category, not one of “us,” someone whose life matters less, someone who God loves less...On that day, as the Spirit was poured out, and they saw God choosing those who they had drawn a line between “them” and “us” - God choosing those on the other side of our human distinctions - what part of them was healed that day? Making more room for love, charity, kindness, friendship in their souls. Making more room for everyone at this table, to eat and drink and share in the love of Jesus together.

Which brings me to some news articles from this week. I am sure many of you have seen the breaking news headlines to come out of The United Methodist Church General Conference. General Conference is the worldwide decision making body of The United Methodist Church. Only they have the authority to change the Book of Discipline, the book that structures and orders our theological and administrative lives as United Methodists.

And through the course of the last two weeks, historic votes took place including removing language that prohibited openly LGBTQ individuals from being ordained as clergy, getting married in United Methodist Churches, or United Methodist clergy presiding over those weddings. Our book had harmful and discriminatory language against LGBTQ folks who were created in the image of God, are loved by God, and who are our siblings in Christ who we are called to love. And we were failing at loving God and them through the language and rules in our Book of Discipline.

To be clear, mandatory inclusive language was not added. Churches and pastors who do not wish to preside over or host same-sex weddings do not have to. Churches who aren't ready to receive certain pastors most likely won't. Our language however in the Book of Discipline is no longer harmful. It is not inclusive or affirming either. It is truly neutral language. And still, this is a big change in The United Methodist Church.

I also want to say that these changes passed with overwhelming majorities from the worldwide United Methodist Church, including votes from our African siblings in Christ.

I know that even in our own congregation, we are not all of one mind on this decision. Some will celebrate, some will lament, some will be somewhere in the middle.

But let’s think of all of this in light of our Scriptures from this week:

What are we called to do? Follow Jesus’s commandment to love one another. When we love one another, Jesus calls us his friends.

And where are we, where are you, in the story of the Baptism of Cornelius and his family? Perhaps you are celebrating that this new group of Roman Gentiles was brought into the family of God. Perhaps you yourself are part of that group. Perhaps you are one in the crowd watching and surprised, thinking “Even on them?” Yes. Even on them.

Remember, the Spirit is always widening the circle of who God includes, welcomes, and loves. Our job as Christians is to keep up with the Holy Spirit. And even if you’re in a place where you can’t celebrate or accept - we all can still love. For perfect love drives out fear. Love God. Love neighbor. Love all children of God. For love will heal all of our souls.

This is what it means for Jesus to be our friend. It means that Jesus will work within and around us, to allow us to heal our own sin and fear sick souls. To give us endless opportunities to love others, to welcome others in, to go out to help others, and to break down distinctions of “us” versus “them.” Because Jesus loves us, calls us friends, and cares for our souls. Therefore, let us be a friend to Jesus, a friend to each other, a friend to “even them” and follow Jesus’s command to love one another.

Amen.