John 13:31-35

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I read a devotion by Peter Marty about something called “Kangaroo Care,” this week. I’d actually heard of it before…knew it was a thing…but just never knew it had a name. “Kangaroo Care” is the practice of laying a naked newborn baby onto the bare chest of its mother. And I knew it was a meaningful, successful way of establishing a connection…of promoting a very real physical, emotional bond between a mother and her child. I even knew it was something done by fathers and adoptive parents, to establish a kind of physical bond and connection for parents who aren’t the birth mother. That it is something God has facilitated through the natural way of things for eons, seems obvious.

But I read this week that it’s been noticed by doctors and nurses and the medical community as a viable medical practice and treatment, even, on occasions when medicine and doctors and therapy and other modern conventions don’t cut the mustard. The story I read came from an occupational therapist who worked in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit who talked about putting Kangaroo Care to use very deliberately when a baby’s heartbeat is irregular, out of whack, slightly off rhythm.

When drugs don’t work, and because electrically shocking a newborn’s heart is too risky, the simple, holy prescription to re-synchronize the little baby’s heartbeat is to lay the naked child, onto the naked chest of the mother. The baby’s head is deliberately turned so that the child’s ear is just above the heart of the mother, and when it works, the fix…the cure…is nothing short of miraculous, if you ask me: the less powerful beating of the child’s heart begins to pump in time with the more powerful rhythm of the mother’s heart. Their hearts begin to beat in time, together. Apparently, even outside of that, NICU nurses and therapists have found that everything from sleep and weight gain to respiration and more can be helped by this kind of skin-to-skin “Kangaroo Care."

Of course, they call it – “Kangaroo Care” – because of the way kangaroo mothers carry their kangaroo babies so close to their bodies for so long after they’re born. But it made me think about Jesus…and this new commandment to love one another…and the practice of Holy Communion, which we’ll celebrate today with a handful of our youngest ones.

But first, we can’t just read or hear these words from today’s Gospel and pretend to find any meaning in them, without first being reminded of their context. And that’s a little strange for us, on the 5th Sunday after Easter, because these are the words Jesus said to his disciples on the evening of the Last Supper – before Easter – just before he was betrayed and denied and crucified and killed. Not only was it the Last Supper, but these were some of Jesus’ last words to his friends and his family, before life and death – as they knew it, anyway – would be changed forever.

So, the short version of this already short little snippet of a Gospel reading, is that Jesus was preparing to leave, to say goodbye, to head for the hill of Calvary, to his own execution, death, and burial. And he wanted to give his disciples some final instructions, some last words, this “new commandment,” before leaving. When you see it after the fact – when you read these words as “parting words” like I do, anyway – it makes you wonder if Jesus might have had some doubts about that whole resurrection thing working out.

But these parting words… these final instructions… this “new commandment” is no less profound or meaningful, even after the resurrection, as we anticipate Jesus’ departure once again.

Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

But this is hard work, loving one another, don’t you think? When I hear Jesus say, “just as I have loved you, so you also should love one another” I think, “Yeah…we’re gonna need you around a little more often. We’re gonna need to keep seeing and experiencing that kind of reminder, that kind of presence, those kinds of examples: the foot-washing, the preaching, the teaching, the healing, the forgiving, the feeding hungry people, the comforting of the lonely, the loving the outcast. All of that is gonna need to keep happening if you’re going to expect me…if you’re going to expect us…if you’re going to expect them to keep loving one another the way you’d like.”

Because when we get too far away from the source of our faith… when we step beyond the reach of our inspiration and encouragement for loving one another… when we move beyond our ability to hear the command and encouragement of Jesus to love the other… we drop the ball, don’t we? We lose our way. We fall behind. The heartbeat of our faithfulness slows to a rate that can be imperceptible from its source, or even from our best intentions.

Which is why Jesus gave this command to love one another, just after washing the feet of his disciples and just before heading to the cross where he would lay it all down for the love of them, and for the love of the world. It’s why Jesus gave this command to love one another around the table with bread and wine. It’s why he transformed the earthly bread and wine of that meal into the heavenly body and blood of the sacrament – so that we would be nourished with it, comforted in it, encouraged by it, loved through it.

So that our sinfulness, laid bare-naked in the presence of the body and blood of our creator – like a sick child, laid upon the breast of her mother – could be transformed by forgiveness and changed into new life and deep, grateful love for the sake of the world.

Holy Communion is like God’s “Kangaroo Care” for those of us whose hearts have missed a beat. It is our tangible connection to God’s love for us. It is our tactile reminder of God’s grace in our midst. Communion is our connection to the divine love of God that means to re-calibrate the beat of our hearts as disciples and the beat of our collective heart as the church in the world, so that ours – and so that OURS, together – will beat in time with grace and gratitude, with generosity and service, with hope and love, in the name of Jesus Christ, who loved us first, who loves us still, and who calls us to nothing more and nothing less than, to love one another.

Amen

John 10:22-30

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." Jesus answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one."

I meant to talk about stewardship today – the financial kind, I mean. Our General Fund commitment Sunday is coming up on May 1st, and over the course of the next couple of weeks, leading up to that, I hope to get us all thinking and praying and making plans about our money – why we have it, why we give it, the work it does in and around and for the church, the way sharing our money blesses us as much as it does the church and the world, and so on. I even had some good ideas about this Gospel and hearing Jesus’ voice; about faithful sheep who follow what God asks of us to do with our money; about doing the works of Jesus in God’s name, and so on.

But then this week happened.

Someone from our congregation is in danger of losing their home; someone else has lost a job; others continue to search for work.

Many of us keep praying for sick kids and loved ones for whom cures can’t come soon enough.

I know of a young mother waiting with all kinds of sadness and anxiety for what seems like the inevitable loss of a pregnancy.

I heard this week that 70 people were killed by guns in just one 72 hour period in this country.

North Korea just developed a bigger, better, further-reaching weapon of mass-destruction.

An earthquake destroyed Japan.

And, all most people seem to want to talk about is the whole Donald Cruz. Hillary Sanders circus, or whatever all of that is.

So, despair and frustration seem to be the order of the day…every day; or at least more days than not, these days.

So, “away with sermons on financial stewardship,” I thought, “we have bigger fish to fry.” And my inclination – my desire, anyway – is to try to prove something to the contrary about all of our bad news; to undo all of the really good reasons we have to ask hard questions and to harbor strong doubts and fears, even in these days so soon after Easter. And so my head and heart go searching for some evidence to combat it all. And it’s out there. You can find it if you look.

Thanks to the work of a few faithful Cross of Gracers, that home-foreclosure I mentioned a moment ago has been postponed.

The young mother whose pregnancy is failing received a prayer shawl – and the prayers that came with it mattered for her.

We are baptizing babies like crazy around here. We’ve had nine since Easter Sunday, one more this morning, for little Lindy Harrison, and a couple of others in the hopper. These are people and parents – in spite of all sorts of reason not to – who are affirming faith and stepping into the promises of God’s love as a sign and celebration and embrace of gratitude that God is up to something new and holy and different in their lives.

But bear with me, because all of this is more than “looking at the bright side,” or “searching for silver linings,” or “turning lemons into lemonade.” I don’t mean this is simple or easy or warm-and-fuzzy in any way. Which brings me to today’s Gospel.

What Jesus does today Gospel is something we don’t always recognize unless someone points it out. What Jesus does is step into the middle of the world’s news – the good, the bad, and the ugly of the world’s news – very deliberately. See, John’s Gospel doesn’t tell us, just for the sake of it, that Jesus is strolling through Solomon’s Portico.

John’s Gospel wants us to know Jesus is walking around in the Portico of Solomon because this porch – somewhere on the east side of the Temple – was the place from which the King would pronounce judgment and justice upon his subjects, back in the day. And not only that, but Jesus was there during the Festival of Dedication, when believers celebrated the temple’s annual, formal, ritualistic consecration and blessing.

So along comes Jesus, stepping into all of this history; this one who, not long before, had declared himself a new “Temple,” of sorts. During this holy time for that worldly “temple,” then comes a different kind of “temple” God would re-build just three days after the world tried to destroy it. In other words, the “temple” of Jesus Christ was strolling around in the “temple” – in the Portico of Solomon, to be specific – so that into this place of earthly judgment and worldly justice strolls the very presence of true justice; faithful justice; righteous justice; loving justice in the likes of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And this is our good news. This is our Gospel. This is our comfort and joy and calling and challenge in these days. And again, this is not a greeting card. This is not easy. This is not meant to be some warm and fuzzy response to whatever struggle or sadness we face – because I don’t have answers for all of the despair and fear and disappointment that bombard us from one day to the next.

But I’m encouraged to see Jesus step into the middle of it all to proclaim and promise and become something different. And because of Jesus, I’m challenged to be something better and holy and different, myself; to be something hopeful and gracious and merciful, when I’m able; to step into the mix of the despair and darkness that surrounds me, and to be something forgiving and loving and patient and just, in spite of that.

It’s why we are the Church in the world – and it’s why we are the Church right here at Cross of Grace, together, too. It’s why we worship and pray and tell what we know of grace. And yes, it’s why we share our money and our resources and ourselves, however we’re able. All of this is who and how each of us is called to be. It’s what we’re about as sheep who know the voice of the one who calls us out of the darkness and into the world.

And life in this world can be brutal. There’s no denying that. There’s no escaping that. There’s no fixing that anytime soon, as far as I can tell.

Frederick Buechner, a pastor and theologian said once, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” Glennon Doyle Melton, of Momastery fame, a mother and theologican in her own right, who I know many of you are familiar with, calls the mess of it all “brutiful” – as “beautiful” as it is “brutal.” But they aren’t the first to notice or to name it or to call the mess of this world what it is.

Because Jesus knew, too… God knows… life in the world can be as hard as it is holy a lot of the time. And I’ve come to believe those two things – hard and holy – aren’t mutually exclusive. Because into the hard stuff comes Jesus, at one with the Father, calling us all out of the darkness and into the light, like so many sheep, longing for a voice we can follow.

We’re scared sometimes. We’re lost sometimes. We’re hurting and broken and shaken, on occasion. But we follow because there is beauty to be seen and shared, too. And there is generosity, and justice, and peace, and hope. And a lot of the time we are called to be those things – generous, just, peaceable, and full of hope, I mean. We are the ones called to be and to bring the beauty, in spite of the ugly that surrounds us.

As believers, as followers, as faithful ones – even when that faith waivers and gives way, more often than we’d like – we’re called to bear witness to the light, to bring the beauty, to bear the beautiful, and to share grace with all creation in the name of this Jesus, our Good Shepherd, who promises never to let us be snatched away from the love of our creator.

Amen

"Kangaroo Care" – John 13:31-35

"Brutiful" – John 10:22-30