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The Third Sunday Of Easter
O God, whose blessed Son did manifest himself to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open, we pray thee, the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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The Third Sunday Of Easter
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A Sermon by
The Rev. Preston Gonzalez-Grissom
✛
Evensong Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter
audio_file: 363115
In the name of the father of the son and the. Holy Spirit, Amen.
Return to your first love. This is what the Angel or Jesus tells the Angel to tell the church in Ephesus in our New Testament passage. Return to your first love.
When I first read this, preparing this week, my first thought was that doesn’t sound like very good advice. Return to your first love. For some of us, that might mean going on Facebook and trying to figure out what an old flame was doing. It doesn’t sound wise to me. Maybe it is for some of you. I don’t know. I don’t know. But it’s an odd call to repentance, isn’t it? To return to your first love. To not just repent or return to God, or do what you’re supposed to do, but to return to this first love in the Bible.
God is often described as the first lover. See in the beginning we see that God is love, Father, son and Holy Spirit. And needing nothing. This God makes the world and everything in it for the purpose of sharing this love. It is in love that God pursues people even when they run away from him and love God meets Abraham and tells Abraham I will make you a people who are supposed to be gods Incarnate, love to the world. And in our Old Testament scripture, God visits these people through Moses and says I chose you not because you were strong or creative or powerful. You are the weakest of all the nations. I chose you. Just because I love you. The NRSV version. This translation of the Bible God says my heart was set on you.
But God’s people often got this wrong. They often misunderstood why God chose them. They thought it must be because we are better than our neighbors, more moral than him, perhaps. But as the story goes, they consistently fail over and over. It turns out they’re not more moral than their neighbors. They often assumed that God must love them because of their bloodline. They come from the right kind of people, the tribe of people who have God on their side. But we know that this too, is not why God continually chooses them over and over again. In the book of Malachi, another story in Old Testament, we have the story of Jacob Bonesaw. Where it says God loved Jacob. But hated Esau. This is a classic kind of Hebrew extreme. To prove a point that Jacob and Esau, two brothers. From the same family, the same womb. Yet God. Loved Jacob. And chose him. They had not even been born yet. When God declares this so they could not have done anything moral to make them more attractive to this God. And they’re in the same womb, the same bloodline. Yet he chooses 1.
And this is the Christian story. If you belong to God, when God says I love you. It’s not because you are better than others, or even because your family went to church or you’re from the right kind of people. When God says I love you, it’s just because. God loves you. And God is this first lover, our first love. And there’s a lot of talk in the world today about love. This is a good thing. And who knows how many times I’ve said that word already. But for as much talk as there is about love, something I think we all can take as a serious encouragement is that there’s even more conversation about what love is. What it requires, what it is and what it is not. And we hear this refrain in relationships all the time, right? Don’t just tell me that you love me. Show me that you love me.
We talk a lot about God’s love, but it’s often harder to describe what God’s love is, and it’s vital, really important that we know that God’s love is not just a disposition. God is not just up in heaven thinking kind sweet thoughts about you and me. That’s not what it means necessarily. Whenever we say that God is love, no, God’s love is not just a disposition or a feeling. It is an action. And in the Bible is almost always displayed or told as an action. Usually, if the Bible talks about God’s love, it’s followed up with a statement. An example of what this love is, and our Old Testament passages says God says I love you and I set you free from slavery in Egypt. This is God’s love as action. In first John, we hear by this we do know love. That Jesus laid down his life for us. This is God’s love in action as action. Therefore, little children let us not just love and word, but in action. And yet so often we run away from this God of love. Who loves us in action? This is where our New Testament text this evening meets us face to face. Return to your first love. This is a sweet. Invitation, but it’s also a warning. It’s a judgment on how the church in Ephesus has been acting. God gives them this warning. Return to your first love. Or I will take away. Your lamp stand or candle holder, I think is in the King King James version lamp stand is probably a more kind of direct. Translation and it means exactly what it sounds like, that there’s a lamp, which is the church. And there’s a stand that makes the light go higher and gives it more effect. And this warning seems harsh for people who are trying to do good before and after the warning. God is continually telling them you did so well, good job. Keep going. But just as God’s love. Is not just a disposition. So God’s judgment. Is also not just a disposition. God’s judgment is often God’s love in action for our good notice that it doesn’t say if you don’t stop, I will take away your light. Now I’ll take away the stand. Your effect on people. You are hurting others right now. This is what God is saying. And to protect you, to protect them. I will take away your stand unless you repent. This is God’s judgment as action. God does not just sit in heaven in quiet, distant disapproval of our sins. That is not what we mean. Whenever we say that God is judge. In the Bible, God’s judgment again and again is God coming into the real world and giving real people, you and me. Real chances to turn around. God enters into our lives and reminds us through conscience and friends and closed doors and quiet voices, to return to your first love. Psychologists will tell you that if you’re having a challenge in your relationship, seeing the other person clearly, if you’re frustrated with them, you should go back to the beginning of the relationship and think about all the wonderful things. This usually helps kind of kick start or restart a relationship. It can be any kind. And this typically works, they found unless. The relationship has been so marred that when you go back even to the wonderful memories, all you can think about are the things that hurt you. And this is where many people find themselves today. If it’s not you. It may be you in the future and it is your neighbor. We are in a place others are in places where they look back at their previous faith. And all they can see is the things that hurt them. They are stuck in what Emory Professor James Fowler calls this fourth stage of faith development. And to reclaim parts of your old spiritual life. And bring it into the new. This is the next stage this is. What must happen? You must be able to reclaim what is beautiful in the past. And match it with what is now good and healing in the present. So how must we return? To our first love, how do you reincorporate parts of your old spiritual experiences with new life giving ones? And this is where I think Saint Thomas comes in, actually. I mean, how many of us found Saint Thomas in exactly this way? It’s similar enough to our old experience. That it makes some sense, but it’s different in ways that I desperately need. This is a place of returning again and again. To your first love. And this is God’s invitation to us every day. The loving warning, the encouragement of the Angel to Ephesus and to you and to me is not just to return to a previous way of being with God, but to return to God, even if it must be in a new way. And when you return to this God to the one who loved you first. You may just find that your first love has grown more than you thought. In the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
