Sixth Sunday of Easter
“‘ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
Summary
We are all experts at loving: between us we have done an awful lot of it; tenderly cared for dying relatives; been alongside loved ones in distress; persistently put the needs of family and friends above our own. But is it enough? In John 15:9-17 Jesus does not just command us to love; he commands us to “do these things” “in order that we might love”. What things? Well, he has just finished washing his disciples’ feet. For Jesus, love is about acts of service, it is about responding to the needs of others. Moreover, it is offered to all indiscriminately, without exception, whether they deserve or not and whether we like it or not. Jesus doesn’t pick and choose, he washes the feet of Judas who will betray him and of Peter who will deny him. It takes the disciples some time to appreciate just how indiscriminate God’s love is. Last week in Acts Peter is astonished when the Ethiopian eunuch demands that he too be baptised. This week, Acts 10:44-48, the disciples are all astounded when it becomes clear that the gift that God has given them God has also given to Cornelius’ household, even though they are gentiles, even though they are Romans. Love that is in the service of the needs of others, love that is given without partiality stretches us beyond our usual acts of loving, takes us out of our comfort zones and out into a world that is crying out for love. The kind of love that can transform the giver, receiver and the world around us. We cannot love like this on our own but God is always going before us (sending Peter to the Ethiopian, pouring the spirit upon Cornelius’s household). God’s love will flow with or without us but God invites us to abide in this love, to share in its outpouring. God choose us so that our joy may be complete.
FIRST READING
Acts 10:44-48
Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.’
The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
GOSPEL
John 15.9-17
‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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. 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. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
