May 17, 2009
The Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year B)
Rogation Sunday
(Children's Sermon)
Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6;
John 15:9-17
In the gospel lesson this morning Jesus tells us to love one another as he has loved us.
What do you think that means?
For me it means that even though I like to think of myself first and what I need or want, that is not God’s way. God’s way would be this: when I love someone, I need to think about what they need or want before my own wants or needs.
I want to tell you a story about this kind of love:
Once upon a time there were two little girls, Annie and Lizzy. They were both nine years old and they had been friends since the first day of second grade when Mrs. Martin put them in seats next to each other. So it felt like they had always known each other. They were best friends and they loved to play together. They even had dolls that were exactly the same. It was in the olden days, and girls didn't have lots and lots of dolls. Every one didn't have things like Barbie dolls. In fact, little girls would often have only one or two dolls and these they really loved.
So having dolls alike was a big deal.
And they loved their dolls, and they dressed them, and they played with them, and they hid them from their brothers, and took them on overnights to each other’s houses. One of the games they played was baptizing the dolls, and they would name and rename those dolls dressing them in pretty long white dresses.
One day Lizzy’s doll was not to be found anywhere, and I do mean anywhere. She accused her brother of taking it and hiding it. Can you imagine doing that?
She cried and whined at her mother to help her find it or to make her brother give it back. Annie looked all over her house and had the same conversation with her brother and her mother. Both girls were really sad. Then after about three days Lizzy’s mother found the doll, or at least what was left of it. It had been eaten by their new puppy, Shiney.
Everyone was devastated, Lizzy, Annie, their mothers, even their brothers! Shiney was really in the dog house – literally! There was no consoling Lizzy. They couldn't go out and buy a new one because that kind of doll didn't exist any more. It have been around when they were in second grade and now they were in fourth! There was no eBay or used toy store to buy another. The doll was gone.
But because Annie loved her friend Lizzy more than her doll, she came over to Lizzy’s house (which she got to by traveling through the back hedges of her own yard) and gave her doll to Lizzy.
That is an example to me of loving one another as God loves us.
It is about giving up what we have, things we love even, things that God has provided for us, either directly or through the generosity of our parents or friends or others. Loving one another as God loves us is to give away that which we love, to people we love the way God – because God did that for us!
Sometimes even adults forget that this is the way we are supposed to treat one another, giving and taking care of others, thinking of what is good for other people, God’s people, thinking of those others, loving them before taking or keeping for themselves what they have when others don’t have anything.
When that happens, the story might have gone this way:
Lizzy lost her doll, and Annie decided because Lizzy didn’t have a doll just like hers any more that she would then play with Donna more than Lizzy because Donna’s doll was almost the same as hers and Lizzy didn’t have a doll any more. And so too bad for Lizzy; she was out! And they stopped playing together, and walking to school together, and hiding from their brothers together.
Then do you think the girls might have had a fight? Might Lizzy have been angry at Annie for dumping her? Might Annie have been angry at Lizzy for making her change friends? Can you imagine how this could turn into a big mess?
Well, I have to tell you even adults do this kind of thing. We get to seeing things our own way and we forget to love each other as God loves us. Can you imagine that?
One of the things that the vestry has done in the past year – do you know what a vestry is? The vestry appointed a Covenant Committee, Now, do you know what a covenant is? A covenant is “a holy agreement between people that says how the people who agree to the covenant are going to be or act or what they are going to do, AND it asks God to watch over it. Which is fancy way of saying it’s a “God agreement.”
Our Covenant Committee has written a wonderful covenant that they presented to the vestry and which will be published and talked about. We will even as a whole parish meet and talk about it. But the prayer that is in it and I hope everybody loves it as much as the vestry does, is this:
“God, help me to be Jesus’ love in what I say and do. Amen.”
Can you say that with me?
It seems to me this is a simple prayer each of us can say so that we are able to ask God to help us live into the commandment that Jesus made in today’s gospel, “Love one another as I have loved you!”
“God, help me to be Jesus’ love in what I say and do.” Amen
So, if we go back to that story about Lizzy and Annie, the second one where everything went all crazy. What do you think they might each have done if they were trying to be “Jesus’ love in what they said and did” to fix the broken friendship?
Does it matter who goes first? Do you think both girls should apologize? Does it matter whose fault it is? If we are being Jesus’ love in what we say and do, then we can’t blame other people, and we have to let go of being hurt. Jesus always lets go of blaming people and instead forgives them!
So this seemingly simple commandment of Jesus is not easy to do, but it is what Christians will do when they are at their best.
So I want you to remember this prayer from what will likely and hopefully become our parish covenant.
“God, help me to be Jesus’ love in what I say and do. Amen.”
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd