No Greater Love - a Sermon for June 29 2025
GOSPEL: John 15:12-17
The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 15th chapter.
Glory to you, O Lord.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 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, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
SERMON (WOV p. 32)
Jesus, you say there is no greater love
than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
I confess, Lord Jesus, I don’t know if I want to do that;
to do what you do,
to lay down my life for others;
for love.
But then again, Lord Jesus,
you show us, again and again,
the beauty of a life laid down,
for us,
for your friends,
for all.
We all could use some more beauty in our lives,
and not the beauty found in Sephora’s
skin-tightening products;
we need real, genuine beauty.
You, O God,
all you do is out of love,
for your creation,
for us.
Right from the very beginning
creation itself is an outpouring of your love, O God,
and we are blessed to witness its beauty.
Friends,
I hope you caught it in our first lesson,
the close of the first creation story from Genesis,
When God looked at everything God had made,
it was - and is - indeed, very good.
Yeah, God’s creation is broken,
you and I are to blame.
God is making all things new,
and God’s creation is still very good.
You, dearly beloved child of God,
you are beautiful,
you are fearfully and wonderfully made,
knit together in your mother’s womb.
God is intentional,
you are not a fluke,
you are not random,
God knows you well:
you are beloved, cherished, and beautiful.
All God creates is beautiful and lovable.
Human love decides what we find beautiful,
human love says red and yellow hockey jerseys
are much more beautiful
than blue and orange ones.
But God’s love doesn’t search out
that which it finds beautiful,
God’s love takes that which is empty
and causes it to exist in the first place.
Everything God makes is lovable, and beautiful.
God, our Creator who sets free,
made the light and the dark,
the day and the night,
and God made the in-between.
the beauty of Dusk and dawn,
and every light and dark in between.
God made the lands and the seas and the skies,
and those places in between:
the marsh, the beach, the fog.
It’s like the greeting our Canadian national bishop offers,
greetings from coast to coast to coast,
which includes everywhere in between.
God made the living creatures,
birds of the air,
fish of the sea,
animals on land,
and those in between:
the flying fish,
the axolotl,
the butterfly.
God made you and me,
God made humans,
men, and women, and those whose identities do not fit
in the narrow categories, the in between:
like the Indigenous person who is two-spirit,
or the Lutheran who is transgender -
whole and holy in themselves.
And - each and everyone one is not just good
but very good,
made in God’s image.
In Hebrew thought,
there is a continuum or spectrum
for gender, for light and dark,
Even the name of God in Hebrew, YHWH,
has echoes of both masculine and feminine verb forms.
God is beyond binary.
Our lives are not binary,
we know there is more to it than in and out,
light and dark,
liberal and conservative,
Flame and Oil;
life is lived in the grey, in the middle.
God blesses the in-between.
The Church will be blessed
by God’s people moving past binary thinking.
More importantly,
God’s beloved children and creation will be blessed
by God’s people moving past binary thinking.
About 10 years ago,
I attended an evangelical ministerial gathering,
this was in Stony Plain,
Pastors from around the Parkland Area gathered.
I didn't really fit in.
I couldn’t compete with the big church pastor
who “single handedly”
brought a dozen people to Christ that week.
(I hope you hear some sarcasm,
it wasn’t the pastor,
that was the Holy Spirit!)
I was mocked for having tattoos on my arm;
remember Leviticus 19:28 - no tattoos allowed!
They didn’t condemn me,
just veiled mockery,
no room for the in between.
I did not go back to that ministerial.
Why would I return to people who mock me?
Anyhow, We had a guest speaker
from the Mustard Seed in Edmonton,
if you don’t know,
they serve the homeless - beds, food, and care.
The speaker talked about the houseless community.
I can’t remember the stats,
but an overwhelming proportion
of that homeless population
are 2SLGBTQIA+ people,
children of, predominantly, Christian parents,
who have not been accepted for who they are
by their parents,
and kicked out of the house,
or the child leaves because they are unsafe.
Things are changing.
The world is turning around,
the general population is more and more accepting
of same sex marriage,
but the trend of hatred towards 2SLGBTQIA+ people
continues today,
particularly in our province around health care.
The hatred, the fear,
is strongest and loudest from Christians.
The words of today’s Psalm bear some special meaning in this light:
10 Though my father and my moth- | er forsake me,
the Lord will | take me in.
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then | shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I | be afraid?
4 One thing I ask of the Lord; one | thing I seek;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek God | in the temple.
My prayer is that our sanctuary
will be a safe place for any who seek for God
to be welcomed and cherished,
that any who are cast away from parent or community
might come and be one with us,
that we become one with them.
That each and every person who enters these doors
might know that they are beautiful,
and just how much they are loved.
Dear beloved child of God,
you are beautiful,
and you are loved beyond comprehension.
Together, we are the body of Christ,
together we are one,
no longer Jew or Greek;
no longer slave or free;
no longer male and female,
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
You are the people Jesus calls friends.
To you who go out of your way to befriend the other,
that is God’s love at work in you.
Jesus called the disciples friends
on that night of his betrayal.
Jesus was comforting them.
and reminding them that the whole point
the reason, the purpose
is love - that you may love one another.
They needed some comfort
and so did John’s early Christian community.
In her commentary on John’s Gospel,
Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis notes that:
Those Christians who read these words 1900 years ago;
many found themselves without family
because of their situation
of being thrown out of the synagogue
for proclaiming Christ.
It sounds not unlike the 2SLGBTQIA+
houseless population, to me,
who are better off being themselves and couch surfing.
Jesus knows a thing or two about couch surfing;
our Saviour had no rock to lay his head.
When family lets you down,
when the faith community lets you down,
friendship is the next social structure
that might embody the relationships
that no longer exist.
Friendship still demands accountability and responsibility,
a trusted dependence.
Jesus is about to leave;
Jesus is setting up a framework
for relying on each other in his absence.
Jesus calls you friend.
Who do you call friend?
Jesus says there is no greater love
than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Friends - Jesus does not ask you to lay down your life for me,
to lay down your life for Jesus,
but to lay down your life for one another.
When family lets you down,
when the faith community lets you down,
you cling to your friends.
Lord Jesus, you say there is no greater love
than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
and that’s what you’ve done.
You laid down your life
for me,
for Judas Iscariot,
and for the Ethiopian Eunuch,
you laid down your life for Advent Lutheran Church;
and for people who call out to you with other names.
You laid down your life
for liberation,
that we might be the creatures you made us to be,
You laid down your life
for love - that we might love one another,
and you even laid down your life
for those who put up barriers to love.
Lord Jesus,
you don’t just show us how to love,
you rescue us in love,
you liberate us
from the systems that crush Gods’ people
Lord Jesus,
you call us friends,
now call us to be friends for those who need a friend.
Call us to make this sanctuary safe for any and all,
that no one be cast outside of the faith community
because of who they love or how they dress.
Call us to extend a special welcome to 2SLGBTQIA+ siblings,
to advocate for their full welcome, inclusion and equity
in all aspects of Church life.
Call us to make our living rooms safe
for our family, for friends and neighbours,
for those who need family or a friend.
Call us to make our neighbourhood safe for any and all,
Call me to make myself safe
for any beloved child of God
whose path I cross.
And when I do not feel safe, Lord Jesus,
when I am not accepted for who I am,
when I am told my love is sinful,
when my worth as a human is up for debate,
when evildoers close in against me,
May you, O God,
be my light and salvation,
the stronghold of my life,
may I dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life;
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
