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The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Ezekiel 34:11-16; John 21:15-19; II Timothy 4:1-8
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
Ezekiel 34:11-16; John 21:15-19; II Timothy 4:1-8
✛
We are the family that love built.
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Note: On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Nine people were shot and killed, including the senior pastor; the horror of this reverberated throughout the United States.
“We are the family that love built.”
Words of Bethane Middleton-Brown, the sister of the Rev. Depayne Middleton, one of the nine people killed in just over a week ago in Charleston. She went on to say something quite extraordinary:
“We have no room for hate, so we have to forgive,”
I have no idea what it must be like for the families of those who lost their loved ones in that shooting. I find it hard to believe that it happened not only in a place consecrated to God but in the midst of a bible study that the gunman was present at. Two days after the shooting something equally extraordinary happened. The Chief Magistrate for the Bond Hearing invited the families of those killed to address the accused via a video link. If you have listened to some of those proceedings on the internet you cannot help but be moved to compassion as the families described their overwhelming grief: “We welcomed you Wednesday night at our Bible Study with open arms…every fiber in my body hurts.” But what is extraordinary is not the fact that the families were able to face the accused so soon after that terrible crime but the fact that these words were said. “I forgive you”. The families didn’t say “May God forgive you.” They said, “I forgive you”. Through their ordeal the faith of these families has become a witness to Jesus Christ and the power of his love that will conquer the evil of racism.
As we heard in our Old Testament lesson today, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak. but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.”
Our God is a God of compassion and his Compassion has been revealed in Jesus Christ and through his sacrificial love for all humankind. The word compassion is a powerful word. It is not to be confused with sympathy or even empathy. The word compassion in the Bible is rooted in the same word for the gut or intestines – to have compassion is to have one’s inside completely churned up; like saying “Every fiber in my body hurts.” What is extraordinary in this example is that the compassion results in the phrase “I forgive you”.
Forgiveness can only come when we know that we are forgiven ourselves. As the great spiritual writer Henri Nouwen used to say, it is significant that in the Lord’s Prayer “Forgive us our trespasses” comes before “as we forgive those who trespass against us”. To live in God’s forgiveness is to live in the compassionate nature of God. To know that one is in need of forgiveness oneself allows us the capacity to forgive others.
“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?”
When Jesus meets Peter after he has denied him three times there is no blame. The discomfort is felt by Peter but Jesus looks intently at him and simply wants to know that he loves him. The cost of that love is terrible – in order to tend the lambs and feed the sheep he will accept the same kind of death that the Lord endured on the cross. It is significant to me that it is only after the prophecy of Peter’s death -“…when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) – it is only after this prophecy that Jesus says to Peter “Follow me”; the same simple words that were spoken three years prior when he was a fisherman with his brother.
In two days I will be in Rome and I think that, this year, I will attempt to walk in the Appian Way and find the little church of Quo Vadis. It is, of course, a legend but we do know that Peter lived in Rome not far from where the little Church now stands. The legend says that during the terrible persecution of Nero, Peter was fleeing Rome on the Appian Way when he met Jesus. Peter said to Jesus “Lord, where are you going?” (“Quo vadis, Domine?”) and Jesus is thought to have said “To Rome to be crucified again” at which point Peter returned to his role tending the lambs and feeding the sheep and was one of those martyred by Nero in the Circus that used to stand near where St Peter’s Basilica now stands.
Both Peter and Paul were challenged to stand up for their faith and to live lives worthy of the Gospel. Peter and Paul were all too human – they had their flaws and they made terrible mistakes at times, but their faith and their knowledge that they lived under the forgiving gaze of their Lord enabled them to do amazing things. As we heard in our Epistle reading today, St Paul understood the cost of his discipleship – “I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.” But he was confident in the promise of Jesus Christ that death would not be an end but a new beginning through the love of Christ.
Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church has now resumed its Bible study on Wednesday evenings. The first topic after the mass shooting was “The Power of Love.”
That love we celebrate today in the lives of Peter and Paul. That love we celebrate today in our compassion for Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston. That love is the love of Jesus Christ and that same love we celebrate today, in this Church, in each other as we celebrate this mass, which is a sign of the love of Christ that binds us all together regardless of race or lifestyle. Ubi Caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. The words sung by the choir at the Maundy Thursday Liturgy are poignant today – Where love and charity is found – there is God.
My dear friends, I pray that when the time comes for me to die, whether it be gentle and painless or traumatic and out of my control that, like Paul, and those who died in Charleston, I will believe in my heart these words:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
