Love is the Law
Easter 3 Sermon 2024 | Gigi Miller Deacon Intern
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[00:00:00] Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you. Oh, Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Please have a seat, everybody. So, unlike Mother Paige, who we know her favorite scripture is always the one she's preaching on that Sunday, I admit to being just a little bit disappointed at first with today's lectionary readings.
I thought I'd get to talk about. Some of the more familiar post resurrection stories like the journey to Emmaus or Jesus beach breakfast with his friends. Even Thomas and his fear of missing out doubts. Instead we get Jesus the friendly ghost. The more I sat with these readings, the more I realized they offer a banquet of good news.
In fact, the gospel reading includes a meal, as we just [00:01:00] heard, and I love to eat, so let's dig into it. As we just heard in our chat with the Children, the now 11 disciples are gathered together, sharing the resurrection news that they've heard from their friends present at the tomb. And on that Emmaus road, you can imagine them all talking at once and trying to process the news and into this chaotic scene comes Jesus who offers them his peace and assures them he's as human as they are.
seeing that even in their joy and disbelieving and still wondering, they share a meal during which Jesus reminds them that this is what he always told them was going to happen and reveals the scriptural basis of his record resurrection. But I imagine that one of the things in their joy, the disciples also might be wondering is just how Jesus feels about them.
Not one of them stayed awake with him in the [00:02:00] garden before he was captured by the Roman soldiers. His trusted friend Peter denied knowing him. And Luke tells us that the rest of them watched his death at a distance. Jesus puts their fears to rest. Forgiveness is proclaimed to all who repent. So as one of my professors said, Jesus didn't tell his disciples what it was like to die.
He taught them how to live in love.
John's epistle confirms that we're all God's children now, as we wait for Jesus final revelation. In the meantime, we remember that Jesus takes away sin, which is lawlessness. And what are the laws to which we need to hold fast? Jesus tells us that the greatest law is to love God, and the second is to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Love is the law. And we sin when we stop acting in love. [00:03:00] God is waiting to forgive when, as the psalmist says, we speak to our hearts in silence and put our trust in the Lord by turning back to love. Jesus showed his hands and feet to his friends to reveal himself to them. But how does Jesus reveal himself in today's world?
St. Teresa of Avila wrote, Christ has no body now but ours. No hands. No feet but ours. Ours are the hands. Ours are the feet. Ours are the eyes. We are Christ's body. Jesus is working through here through us here at ST Peter's serving meals at helping hands, working with Winston school students at the thrift shop.
Watching over a friend in the hospital. Coming alongside a grieving family member. Distributing clothing at showers of blessings. Taking communion to [00:04:00] someone who can't make it to worship. Studying with fellow seekers at the forum. Worshipping God. Distributing ashes to strangers. And all of the ways we serve the community.
We don't do these things because we're good people. Though we are that on our better days. And we don't do them because they're the right or the moral thing to do, though they're that too. We work in love in the world because Jesus did not tell us how to die, but how to live in love. When we fail to work love in the world, as we will because we're human, Jesus is there to resurrect our hearts.
And we can forgive others because Jesus forgave us and abides in us. We can assure the folks we meet that no one is lost to God's abundant love. Not even those who betrayed him to death. So Jesus is rising is more than his own [00:05:00] miracle. It belongs to all of us when we embrace this new grace filled world of compassion and renewal
And that's a good news feast we get to share with everyone. Alleluia.
