Sermon for the 2nd Sunday After Trinity

“And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

One fateful fall day in my early teens, I think sometime around grade 8, I went with some friends after school to one of their houses, the house of a girl who had already differentiated herself in appearance and style, wearing lots of black and ripped clothes, piercings and so on; I went with a purpose.

Because, you see, she was the only person we knew at the time who had access to a pair of electric hair clippers, and the only one of our friends who had any experience with shaving someone’s hair into a mohawk.

To state the obvious: no, my mother was not impressed when I got home.

It was all part of that thing that many of us went through at that age, that time when we try so desperately to carve out an identity for ourselves, to figure out who we are.

For me in Junior High, for all of us, even though there’s this immense pressure to fit in and not fall outside of the herd, there was also a strong desire to be me, to be different, unique, to go against the grain. Hence the mohawk.

Part of fitting in for us, then or now, is wanting to be liked. Some people can live very happily knowing that they are disliked, or even take a kind of pleasure in it, but for most of us it’s a discomfiting thing to learn that someone does not like us. We don’t like to be hated or thought enemies of.

But strangely, in the Epistle this morning, St. John not only seems to imply that we shouldn’t be surprised if we are hated by the world, but there’s an insinuation that we should almost be glad for it, that maybe being hated by theworld is a sign that we’re doing something right.

Remember that when we speak of the world in scripture what we’re talking about is not the earth; the world is like the conditions or circumstances in which we live, the present age and all the prevailing sentiment that goes along with it. The world is always set up in apposition to the Kingdom of God; in the Kingdom the last are first and the first last – think about that Gospel parable last week of Lazarus and the rich man - but in the world the last are always last; in God’s Kingdom it’s not the powerful but the meek who inherit the earth; in the Kingdom there is no limit to our forgiveness, not so in the world.

And so for John, and for us too I think, if we are living our faith in such a way that the world is hating us then we must be doing something right because we are going against the grain of the world which is so often opposed to the values, the virtues, and the ways of the Kingdom of God. Our forgiveness, our charity, our care for one another – even for our enemies, and the least loveable in our society – should be in quality and quantity off-putting to the world. The world should be uncomfortable with how we regard even the least of all of us.

How many times have we heard, or have we thought, when we see the rising cases of drug abuse, poverty, and crime on the island that perhaps those people aren’t worthy of help? Why waste the money; they chose to put the needle in their arm, right?

What would the world think of that feeling, will we be hated by the world if we feel that way? Probably not. What would the world think if we were, like with Lazarus last week, to love the outcast and the downtrodden even as our own brother or sister? When we hear or have such thoughts do we think that it’s the spirit talking, or the world?

I said last week that loving in this way – even being okay with being hated by the world – is no easy task. Loving in this way is not something we simply have, it comes about through habit and practice, by us striving to become more holy. The love that abides in us that allows us to love one another in such a way as we’ve been talking about can abide in us by no other way than through us drawing near to God, who is perfect love.

Loving in this way is no easy task, but there may be another more difficult task that goes along with this, in some ways the first step to loving as we ought: and that that we must accept and know that we are loved. Loving is not a passive activity or state of our soul, but neither is being loved.

We all know people in our lives who are great gift givers, those friends or family members who always seem to be able to buy the perfect gift along with the perfect card as if it were written for you, with the perfect note inside of it - you couldn’t do it better for yourself if you tried, and their gift sometimes makes you feel ashamed at what you’ve given them.

But have you also known people in your life who are great gift receivers? Because not everyone is. Some people are really excellent at receiving gifts, they know how to be gracious in the right way, how to say thank you, make you feel special and appreciated for the gift you gave.

What I’m getting at is that if we want to be good at loving others, we must first be good at accepting love ourselves. We’ve known people in our lives who aren’t; try as you might, whatever you do, you just can’t seem to get them to trust that you love them.

I said last week sometimes we suffer from shame or self-hatred, that nagging voice that lies to us and tells us we aren’t worthy of the Father’s love or forgiveness, that we’re beyond redemption, a lost cause. John knows this and he describes this in his Epistle today as those moments when our own hearts turn against us like a betrayer. St. John says that when we love truly, when we are really actively engaged in abiding in love we will be reassured “…whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

You think that you committed the unforgiveable sin, that there’s no way God could love one such as you because of it, but St. John reminds you that the Father knew you and knew what you would do and think and say before the foundations of the world were laid, and even knowing that didn’t stop him from giving you life and sending his son to die so that you may know His love.

If we’re loving right and if we’re accepting love right, then we should be okay – perhaps even pleased – to be like me with my grade 8 mohawk - to go against the grain; pleased that the world will hate us, because perhaps, at least, their hatred of our love and our lives lived in God might be a witness and a testimony to the love that exists for them. This is that moment at the crucifixion when those who hated Jesus and his ministry, and were nailing him to a cross, heard the Son of God beg forgiveness for them from the Father.

It all must begin with knowing that we are loved and welcoming that love in.

This is the point of the Gospel parable today. It’s all there for the invitees to this banquet, the tables are laden, and the feast will be rich, but the graciousness of the host is rejected. The people are busy, preoccupied with the concerns of the world, of their own lives and their own busyness, and they want no part in what is being offered. But what is left for them?

None of those who were invited will taste my dinner, says the host, and so it is with us.

We are invited to share in that life and love of God, to accept His love, to accept it as an invitation to a banquet where we can feast on it, on love itself, and be fed by it, not for the sake of pleasure alone, but because without that feast, without that love, we will starve.