New and Improved!

John 13:31-35; Acts 11:1-10; Revelation 21:1-6

May 19, 2019

The texts for this morning – from John, from Acts, and from Revelation – all turn on something new: the new commandment that Jesus gives as part of his long farewell discourse in John’s gospel; the new understanding of accepted purity codes that Peter perceives at a key moment in Acts; and the eschatological vision of a new heaven and a new earth at the conclusion of Revelation.

Clearly, throughout scripture, God is regularly doing a new thing. God is a God of renewal, and, I can’t help it, but I think if Madison Avenue got ahold of the whole thing they’d stamp “new and improved” across the entire story.

Trouble down in Egypt land? Here’s a new and improved promised land!

Tired of life in Babylon? Behold, I’m am about to do a new and improved thing!

Tired of trying to keep track of 10 commandments? Here’s a single one: new and improved!

Yeah, no. The worst thing that can happen to the gospel of Jesus Christ is for it to get tangled up with the consumer culture of Madison Avenue. Indeed, the worst excesses of the North American church of the 20^th and, now, 21^st centuries have come out of that ill-considered combination. The whole prosperity gospel and consumer Christianity have roots there, and those roots sprouted a whole lot of the worst of conservative evangelical American Christianity.

Still, God is, regularly and throughout scripture, doing new things.

The thing is, regularly and throughout scripture, the new things that God is doing in the world confound, first and foremost, the traditional institutions of the faith.

Take this story from Acts. Peter stands in for the traditions of the faith with his declaration, “by no means, Lord; I will not do this ‘unclean’ thing.” Yet the vision persists – three times – and this traditionally faithful follower, who has, notably, denied knowing Jesus three times then proclaimed his love for Jesus three times, begins, ever so slowly, to see things anew. Peter begins to get a new mind for a new age and perceive this new thing that God is doing.

The new thing, in Peter’s case, is the beginning of the spread of the gospel beyond its traditional roots in Judaism into cultures and communities for whom traditional Jewish law and custom have no deep meaning or power.

The vision compels Peter to wonder and explore what will have meaning and power for cultures and communities beyond his Jewish roots. The answer? The new thing that God was doing in and through the life of Jesus, and, in particular, the powerful simplicity of a singular commandment: love one another as I have loved you.

If we are ever to taste a bit of the new heaven and new earth, the new Jerusalem that is the climactic vision of John’s apocalypse, it will only be to the extent that we learn to live Jesus’ commandment. If we love one another as Jesus loved his disciples, then that new heaven and new earth are close at hand.

It is, of course, a whole lot easier to say this than it is to do it. So much gets in the way, even when we authentically want to follow the way of Jesus in the world.

I take comfort, often, in the stories of Peter. Clearly, he wanted to follow the way of Jesus. Indeed, he sacrificed everything, and, eventually, even his life in his effort to be faithful. Yet, the gospels of full of stories of his failures.

Sometimes he just doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about. Other times he misses what’s right in front of him. At the end, in the garden, he turns to violence before Jesus rebukes him. And then, he turns away in fear as Jesus faces his final hours.

Even when the resurrected Jesus appears to him and asks, “Peter, do you love me?” Peter misses the cue. In that famous scene in the final chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus three times asks Peter, “do you love me,” and three times Peter says, “yes.”

We miss the depth of this exchange in most English translations that simply have Jesus say, “do you love me?” and Peter respond, “yes, I love you.” But it all turns on the Greek words, for the first two times Jesus asks, the Greek reads “Simon, agapas me?” and Peter replies, “philo te.”

Philo is best translated as the love of siblings. It’s what we hear in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Agape, as distinct from philos or eros – the love of lovers – is sacrificial, self-giving love that is concerned solely for the well-being of the beloved. It is as if Jesus asks Peter, “do you love me?” and Peter responds, “Yes, Jesus, I’m fond of you.”

Tellingly, after asking twice if Peter has a sacrificial love, an other-centered love, the love which Jesus has commanded his followers to have for one another, Jesus asks the third time, “Simon, phileis me?” It is as if, in that moment, Jesus realizes that the commandment he has given – new and improved – has been given to ordinary old human beings – not new, not improved, just us. And, in that moment, he lets the standard slip for an old friend.

Nevertheless, the commandment remains and it stands for us as an invitation to live into something new. Fortunately, that story from the end of John offers some helpful guidance to us in our old, worn-out, not-much-improved human condition: feed my sheep.

If you recall, when Jesus inquires about Peter’s love – even when he shifts from agape to philos, from sacrificial, other-centered love to “brotherly” love – his instructions remain basically the same: feed my sheep, take care of my sheep, feed my sheep.

In other words, Jesus understands that he’s not addressing a “new and improved” human being, but, instead, a tired, fearful, confused, ordinary, run-of-the-mill human being. And the invitation remains the same: love one another, take care of one another, feed one another.

You want to live into a new heaven and a new earth? You want to experience a new Jerusalem? You’ve heard about the “keys to the kingdom”? Well, there’s actually only one key to the kingdom: love one another.

That key opens every gate to the city of God.

Let us pray: Holy One, you promise us that when we seek we will find what we’re looking for, that when we knock then the door will be open. When the door to the Beloved Community seems locked, you have given us the key – love one another. Give us the courage to use that key to open every doorway to justice and to peace. Amen.