Easter 6 – 5th May 2024 (Christ Church St. Lucia)
Readings: Acts 10: 44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5: 1-12; John 15:9-17
It’s a privilege to be able to welcome the members of the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem to our Eucharist this morning. I pray that your deliberations at your National Priory over the last couple of days have gone well and that you go from here in hope, looking forward to your continued ministry of service and support to some of the most vulnerable in our society. Your name, as you’re no doubt aware, has deep roots in scripture. Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha and dear friend of Jesus is raised from death to life.[1] Jesus tells a cautionary tale of another Lazarus in St Luke’s Gospel.[2] This Lazarus is a poor man who, covered in sores, lies at the gate of the rich man. There’s a typical gospel reversal and when Lazarus dies, he is borne away by angels to new life with Abraham, while the one who had the means and capacity to help, but didn’t, suffers in torment. The name Lazarus has a particular resonance, too, for Libbie and me. Libbie’s grandmother’s surname was Lazarus. Her great grandfather was Jewish who lived in what is now Latvia, then part of Russia. His surname we believe was “Pusillata”. He and his family escaped one of the frequent pogroms and came to Liverpool in England where they became Christians in the 1836. Libbie and I have visited I have visited the church where they were baptized, and the register reads “Samuel George Lazarus of latter years of the tribe of Judah.” We understand that they took the name Lazarus in thanksgiving for the new life they’d been given.
Those who were here last Sunday might recall I spoke about the idea of “abiding”. You might recall I remarked on the number of times the word appears in St. John’s Gospel and in his first Letter. Today, Jesus briefly continues the theme – he speaks of abiding in his love, or, as we could say, living in his love, and then he says (and if I have a text for today this is it) “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11)
What’s joy? Joy can be such a subjective emotion – what gives joy to one person might cause another to say or think “What! How come?” Some find running brings them joy. It did me once for a while - I actually ran a marathon. Can you believe it? Now I can think of much better things to do. I read an article the other day on “Slow Travel”, and I thought “That’s it!” That’s what gives me joy these days – taking time to immerse oneself in experiences and landscape.
Much of what we are told will give us joy is indeed shallow passing and ephemeral. Advertisers excel at suggesting if we use a particular thing, we’ll be happy and joyful. Cars, fast food, cosmetics, the latest mobile phone, financial products – you name it – they’re all enlisted in the cause of promoting some false and shallow enjoyment of life.
So where do we find joy? The best definition I’ve found was when I was a theological student and it’s stuck with me ever since. I have probably mentioned it from this pulpit before, but I think it bears repeating. I found it in all places in a book titled “Principles of Christian Theology.” It says, “Joy arises from the sense of belonging to a mysterious totality and having some affinity with it, and in which, we as finite beings have, it seems, an insignificant place.”[3] I’m not going to repeat it, but I’ll ask you to use your imaginations. Imagine a stunning and beautiful sunset. Imagine coming across such a sunset, maybe turning a corner in the road or reaching the top of a ridge – and feeling part of that great scene in the face of which we seem so small. One of the hymns speaks of “being lost in wonder, love and praise.”[4] And I’ve found that to be the case over and over again. Earlier this year I attended a Retired Clergy Retreat at Santa Teresa Centre at Ormiston. Amid suburbia, it’s a wonderful peaceful oasis – a smallish area of natural bushland through which you can walk and lose yourself views across Moreton Bay to Stradbroke Island beyond. Libbie and I love driving to Darwin each year, especially across the Barkly Tableland and the vast skies in which we feel so small. There are few signs of habitation, not much traffic but the experience fills us with joy each time. The speed limit is 130km/hour, so perhaps it’s not really slow travel. How lucky, or should I say blessed, we are in Australia to have big skies.
Joy therefore is for me a deeply spiritual value. The Westminster Catechism says that our chief end is to love God and to enjoy God forever.[5] The call to God – our baptismal call – is an invitation to joy. Christian life is the form of human life that seeks to live fully in and from the life of God – in the joy which God gives. It’s the life of joy that chooses people – we do not choose it, it chooses us, and it chooses us so we can be shaped in ways of joyful living so we can be inspired to say with the Psalmist this morning “Shout with joy to the Lord all the earth, break into singing and make melody.” (Psalm 98:5). Or in this Easter Season we can sing of the joy that breaks forth from death’s grip: “Now let the heavens be joyful, and earth her song begin. The round world keep high triumph, and all that is therein. Let all things seen and unseen, their notes of gladness blend, for Christ the Lord has risen, our joy that knows no end.”[6]
And the immensity – the mysterious totality to use John McQuarrie’s term – in which we immerse ourselves, in which we abide, is love. The great love of God revealed in the Son. The love from which, St. Paul tells us, nothing can separate us – not life, nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor anything else in all creation.[7] And it is this love which we’re commanded to share. Notice Jesus doesn’t ask, or suggest, or recommend it to us – he commands us to love one another as he has loved us – a sacrificial, self-emptying love.
Yet even though Jesus commands us, he says we are not servants (the Greek word doulos translated as servants means slaves). Slaves were told what to do and when to do it. They knew they had no choice. Their position in life determined their obedience. We are Christ’s friends – we’ve been called to be with Christ. We’ve responded out of our free choice, and having responded freely, we’re called to love as he loves us. This love we receive by being embedded or abiding in Christ. We’re called to share this love in the life of the Christian community. And love in action is service. Perhaps this is best expressed in a hymn we sing sometimes “Kneels at the feet of his friends”[8] We sing: “neighbours are wealthy and poor, varied in colour and race, neighbours are near us and far away. These are the ones we should serve, these are the ones we should love, all these are neighbours to us and you.”
So we give thanks for expressions of love in action through service. To give a few examples at random, I note in the current Annual Reports for the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem both financial and volunteer support for two schools in Timor Leste, for Prisoner Release Support in Queensland, for Street Chaplaincy in Western Australia, for learning support for homeless men in Tasmania, a drop in centre in Victoria for culturally and socially isolated people, support for adults with intellectual disabilities in the ACT. In this Parish we give thanks for Meeting of the Ways, for Care to Cook, for support to Goodna and Inala Pantrys, for coffee mornings and for all expressions of love and pastoral care.
Jesus said “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11). May we all find our true joy through love in action expressed through service to others.
[1] John 11: 1-43
[2] Luke 16:19-30
[3] Professor John McQuarrie “Principles of Christian Theology” SCM Press p65.
[4] Together in Song 217 “Love divine, all loves excelling”
[5] The section on “enjoying God” is drawn from “Being a Priest Today” by Christopher Cocksworth and Rosalind Brown; Canterbury Press Norwich p 57.
[6] Together in Song No 361 “The day of resurrection”
[7] Romans 8: 38-39
[8] Together in Song No 640