Easter 6B 2024

The lectionary does an odd thing in these Easter weeks in the B cycle.  You’ll recall that the lectionary, or schedule of lessons we’re assigned to read each Sunday, has three rotations.  In the “A” year we mostly hear the gospel as Matthew tells it, with his emphasis on Jesus’ parables;  in the “B” cycle – which we’re in this year – we mostly hear Mark’s version, a more fast-moving, action-oriented gospel; and then in the “C” year, we hear how Luke understands the gospel story, with his interest in Jesus’ outreach to society’s outsiders.

There’s no cycle for John.  It’s quite a different account from the other three.  John covers both less and more:  it includes fewer stories of Jesus’ ministry – the healings, general teaching, and everyday encounters with people who came to see and hear him – but goes to much greater detail in those stories he does include in his narrative.  It is only John who gives us some of the key accounts that give us insight into Jesus’ mission and ministry, including the wedding at Cana, the raising of Lazarus, the Samaritan woman to whom Jesus reveals his identity at the well, and the “doubting Thomas” incident we hear on the second Sunday of Easter every year.  

When the framers of the lectionary set it up, they spliced these unique passages from John  into the Matthew, Mark, and Luke cycles so that we could benefit from hearing them even though – for whatever reason – John didn’t get a cycle year of its own.

Which brings me back to my observation of the peculiarity of the lectionary’s structure in this “B” year’s Easter season.  Instead of continuing with accounts of what was happening for the disciples in the time between the resurrection, the ascension and Pentecost, as would seem logical, the “B cycle” takes us back to hear Jesus’ words to the disciples at the Last Supper.

Last Sunday, today, and next Sunday we hear excerpts from what is known as the “Farewell Discourses”, material that is unique to John’s gospel.  As Heather suggested in her sermon last week, it is important to hear these passages in context, specifically, that they represent what John wants us to understand to be the final words that Jesus shared with his friends in the last hours before his arrest.  Heather summarized it this way:

“In the verses that precede our lesson, Jesus modeled for his disciples what it means to love one another by washing their feet. Now he is advising the disciples to abide, and in the verses that come immediately after our lesson, to love.”

The repeated theme throughout  the “Farewell Discourses”, as Heather pointed out, is relationship.  Jesus emphasizes the relationships between himself and the disciples, a relationship that mirrors the relationship between  himself and the Creator, his source and grounding, whom he referred to as “Father”.  Jesus offered the metaphor that
 “I am the vine, and you are the branches”, conveying not only that the bonds between himself and his friends could not be broken, but that whole and complete life is not possible if one is cut off from the source that gives us life and enables us to “bear fruit”.

These words of reassurance were undoubtedly intended to provide comfort for the disciples, an image to remember and hold onto in the days following his death and his eventual departure, when the loss of his physical presence could well feel like loss of the relationship.  His words undoubtedly provided the same comfort and reassurance to the early Church community for whom John’s gospel was written, about 60 or 70 years later, as they suffered under persecutions by the Roman Empire.

In the part of the passage that we have heard this morning, Jesus goes beyond emphasizing the relationship between the Father, himself, and the disciples:  he reminds his friends of the love that is at the center of  the relationship, and urges them to sustain it:

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you” and “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

As Heather pointed out last week, throughout these farewell passages Jesus repeatedly entreats his friends to “abide” in him, and in his love, just as he abides in them, and, of course, in us.  He uses the word “abide” eleven times in the eleven verses of this extended text.

Even though we don’t use the word much ourselves, these days, we know what “abide” means.  We know it means to dwell, to stay, to shelter, to inhabit a particular context or environment.  “Abide” suggests calm, a restful place to dwell – we’d never say someone “abides” in prison, for example, or in a war zone.

Cynthia Briggs Kittredge points out that dwelling or abiding is a theme throughout the whole Gospel of John.  Discussing the opening verses of John, which declare that “the Word became flesh and lived among us”, she observes that the Greek more literally could be translated that the Word dwelt among us as in a tent.*

“The Word pitched a tent or “camped out” among us”, she observes, “and showed us the embodiment of God’s love. In Jesus’ life, God’s love walked and talked among the people of first-century Galilee and Judea.”*  And it is in God’s love that Jesus calls us to find our shelter, and then, to express that love to one another.

“Abide in my love,” he says. “Make my love the house, the tent, the shelter in which you dwell and move around in,” he seems to say.*

We all know how critical the place where we abide is.  Thinking about our homes, when we have the resources to create a space that not only feels comfortable, but reflects our passions, our priorities, and our histories, we have a home base in which we can live with joy, and from which we can venture out boldly, and to which we can return for refreshment and renewal.  On the other side of the coin, we’ve probably all had periods – hopefully brief ones – of living in spaces that were not our own and somehow felt alien or hostile, and we know how difficult it is to feel joy in our living there, or to thrive in our day to day life.  We’ve also all lived through a pandemic in which our homes were both shelter and, which, at times felt somewhat suffocating.

Jesus invites us to allow God’s love to provide us a safe, nurturing and empowering shelter.  We can perhaps imagine Jesus elaborating, “Let my love be the foundation under your feet, let my love permeate the walls that shelter you, and let my love form the roof arching over your head.”

And we know what it means to live grounded in Jesus’ love:

We can live out of the dwelling of God’s love when we volunteer for Sunday Sandwiches or Second Helpings.

We abide in God’s love when we call on a neighbor to check on how she is feeling.

We do so when we work to reduce our carbon footprints.

When we donate to humanitarian relief organizations that provide aid to those impacted by war.

When we write emails to our local and national officials to express our concerns and solicit their action on the justice issues facing our communities and nation.

When we abide in God’s love and strive to live as Jesus did, we are not satisfied to remain where we are.  We recognize our own need to learn and to understand more deeply.   We choose to engage with tough questions and try to bridge divides by listening to perspectives different from our own.

The more that we can allow God’s love to be our dwelling place, our foundation and shelter, the more room we have to invite others to shelter there with us.

In this season of resurrection, may we abide with Jesus in God’s love.  May we find new ways and commit ourselves ever more fully to abiding in the love of the One who first loved us and who shows us how to love one another.

•  The Kittredge quote is cited by Lucy Strandlund in her sermon for Easter 6B, which inspired other ideas in this sermon, at episcopalchurch.org.
  

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