Sermon — June 8, 2025

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

I spent the summer before my third year of seminary getting ready to lead Vacation Bible School at my second internship parish: a week-long day camp for thirty kids from the neighborhood, led by yours truly with the help of four volunteers from the church. It was five days full of stories, arts and crafts activities, and songs, and the preparation had me stressed.

I opened the plastic bucket that contained the curriculum we’d bought, and tried to wrap my head around the list of the supplies. Each day, there were three or four things to do with instructions like “for this activity, you’ll just need a pair of scissors, colored yarn, cotton balls, six soda-bottle caps, the horn of a unicorn, and a heart-shaped balloon.” Just dividing everything up into the relevant categories felt like a gargantuan task: here are the things every Sunday School room has, here are the things we could easily buy, here are the things that nobody sells: what can we substitute?

I remember standing in a Michael’s parking lot on the hottest day of July, the sun beating down on me as I stood frozen in place, completely overwhelmed by all these little details. And let me tell you, it was a brutally hot summer, as my wife Alice could attest—because, while I was stressing out about Vacation Bible School, she was six months’ pregnant with our first (and only) child.

Now, over the years since, I’ve become a wise and self-aware person—and humble—and I know now what I didn’t quite know yet then: I was feeling a lot of a stress, but it wasn’t really about Vacation Bible School. There was a bigger change going on for me that summer, and it was one for which, no matter how carefully you shop for strollers and organize a nursery, it’s not really possible to prepare.

It’s why I’ve always found the titles of the What to Expect When You’re Expecting series to be so funny. Sometimes it feels like the only useful advice I’ve ever gotten in life, let alone as a parent, is to expect the unexpected.

It certainly would have been good advice for the disciples, as they gathered on Pentecost Day. Because they were expecting something, too. It’s not for nothing that Pentecost is sometimes called “the birthday of the Church.” It marks the arrival in the world of a person who’s going to change the disciples’ lives in ways they never could have imagined, and lead them to grow in ways they desperately need; not a child, in this case, but the Holy Spirit of God.

And make no mistake, they are expecting this Spirit to come. Jesus had told them, when he was still with them before his death, that they should be expecting someone else: that he would be going away, but that “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,” would come. (John 14:26) And he had told them, just before he ascended into heaven, that they should wait, because the “Holy Spirit” would come upon them, and they would “receive power,” and they would be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) He said he couldn’t tell them exactly when these things would take place. (Acts 1:7) But he gave them the sense of what it would mean: this Holy Spirit would be “another Advocate,” he says, just like him; a “Spirit of truth,” who would “teach [them] everything, and remind [them] of all that [he had] said to [them].” (John 14:16-17, 26)

This description of the Holy Spirit almost sounds like a kind of Jesus 2.0: a ghostly form of the same teacher they knew, there to remind them of what he’d taught, and to lead them toward the truth.

I don’t think they were quite expecting this: “a sound like the rush of a violent wind,” and “divided tongues, as of fire,” resting on their heads, and the sudden eruption of speech in other tongues. (Acts 2:2-4) They’re amazed, and they’re perplexed, and the skeptics think they’re drunk. (Acts 2:12-13)

It’s not what they’re expecting at all. But the Holy Spirit acts in unexpected ways. It doesn’t only remind them of what Jesus had said, it leads them to live those teachings out: the very first thing they do after Peter’s sermon ends is to they sell everything they have and share the money with all who are in need. (Acts 2:45) And the Holy Spirit doesn’t only lead them to the truth, in an inward, spiritual way. It sends them out into the world, to share the good news of what God has done for them.

What happened on Pentecost wasn’t what they had come to expect. But that’s only because they hadn’t yet learned to expect the unexpected.

Today we’re celebrating several different things: the baptism of Charlotte DaSilva Connors after six months in this world (almost seven!); a farewell to our seminarian Michael Fenn after two years at this church; a ribbon-cutting for the work to restore our Garden, carrying on the legacy of generations.

Each of these moments is just one phase of a longer journey. A journey for Ella and Ryan into parenthood, in all its beauty and messiness. A journey for Charlotte into a life of learning, as the Holy Spirit helps her grow into the vows that her parents and godparents will make on her behalf. A journey into ministry for Michael, as he continues to grow in his knowledge of God and of himself, and as he shares the amazing gifts he’s offered to all of us over the last two years with so many more people over the rest of his life. A journey for our church toward our own vision of the future, even as we celebrate the dreams of the generations who came before us.

These journeys all follow different paths. And yet, in the most important ways, they are the same: because if we want to be ready to receive the Spirit of truth, we need to expect the unexpected.

Vacation Bible School went fine, by the way. It turns out you don’t need to prepare for all the details on your own, and the four grandparents who’d signed up to volunteer were perfectly capable of adapting the activities based on what we had. The week was full of crises, but none of them were the ones I’d planned or prepared for. And the week was also full of joy that I’d been too distracted to anticipate. (And also full of coffee. It turns out coffee helps when you have small kids around.)

And I suspect that’s true for all our paths through life: there are crises that we never could’ve prepared for, and joys that we never could’ve imagined. And is a God who loves us, who is there to comfort and inspire us, and to send the Holy Spirit to remind us of this again and again. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says, “and do not let them be afraid,” and it’s not bad advice. Not because nothing bad will ever happen in this life. But because the greatest joys and sorrows of life are rarely the ones we’re worrying about: they’re the ones that show up as unexpected as a sudden wind, or a tongue of fire.

Sermon — June 1, 2025

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

It’s been days, by now, and it’s starting to get old.

The first time Paul and Silas heard footsteps behind them on the street, they started to worry. They’ve been run out of town before, and they’ve learned: when you start hearing footsteps on your trail, it’s time to leave, before the one person following you down a back alley turns into a mob.

But that first time, it wasn’t a mob, it was just a girl they’d seen before, telling fortunes for a few coins, payable to the two burly guys standing on either side of her. They were nowhere to be seen, that day, just her, following them quietly, looking at them curiously, until suddenly it’s as if something has seized hold of her and the words spill out of her mouth, “These men are slaves to the Most High God, proclaiming to you the way of salvation!” Silas laughed, at first. Paul knew better. They didn’t need this kind of publicity. Couldn’t she just be cool?

She could not just be cool, it turns out, because the next day, there she was again, following them. This time she looks a little worried, like she wants to walk away, but instead she keeps calling out in an even louder voice, “These men are slaves to the Most High God, proclaiming to you the way of salvation!” Heads started to turn. Silas started walking faster. Paul jaw clenched. Can’t she take a hint?

But she cannot take a hint, it turns out, because the next day, there she is, shouting frantically, again and again, “These men are slaves to the Most High God, proclaiming to you the way of salvation!” Now Paul is annoyed. And Paul is worried. And Paul is not the calmest guy, under the best of circumstances. And so he finally turns, and he stares into the very depths of her soul, and says, directly to the fortune-telling spirit within her, “In the name of Christ, I order you to come out of her.” And it’s as if something drains out of her, and she looks exhausted, and lucid, and scared.

Unfortunately, that’s the moment that her so-called masters come by. And they look at the woman, and they look at Paul, and they can tell right away that something’s changed. “What did you do?” they snarl. And they’re enraged. “That’s my business you’re messing with!” And the two big guys grab Paul and Silas and drag them right up to the courthouse.

“These men are Jews,” they say, “and they’re disturbing our city. They’ve been going around telling everyone not to follow our laws.” And the crowd who’s followed them in from the marketplace starts to push and shove, and things get a little blurry, and the next time Silas really comes to his senses, he’s lying on the floor, in the dark, with chains around his feet.

If only they’d left town when they started hearing footsteps.

But here they are, behind bars, and Paul starts humming. A real earworm of a hymn. And Silas can’t help himself. He starts humming, too. And then Paul starts to sing, and Silas starts to sing, and there they are, sitting in jail, rocking out, and everyone else in the cell is looking at them, thinking, “This is kind of cringe, but… it’s not a bad tune,” and they’re listening, and then [jump] the floor begins to shake, and the chains rattle, and a crack creeps up the wall as the whole doorway crumbles and then the guys in the cell look down and their chains have come undone, and they look up, and there’s Paul and Silas, still bopping away.

It’s dark in the cell, but from where they’re sitting they can see out into the hall, and they see a man, stumbling toward the door, wiping the sleep from his eyes. They can hear him mumbling—“Oh, gods! Oh no. The door’s gone. They must’ve gotten away.” And he covers his face in his hands. He had one job—to keep the prisoners inside the jail—and he had failed. He can’t bear the shame. And as he stands there, completely at a loss, he can only think of one way out. But as he begins to draw his sword, Paul shouts, “Whoa, whoa! Put the sword away. We’re here! We’re all right here.”

And the man’s sword falls to the ground, and he grabs a torch, instead. And he walks into the room, and he falls on his knees, the torch trembling in his hands, and, still worried about the consequences of his failure, but even more worried that he appears to have two demigods in jail, he asks, “Lords, how can I be saved?” And they say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

And still numb with shock, he shows them out of the room, and brings them home with him.

There’s a remarkable irony in the climax of this story. The guard was so full of shame, so overwhelmed by the dishonor that would come if it was discovered that the prisoners had escaped, that he’s prepared to end his life. But when he finds that they’re still there—that they’ve been released but haven’t escaped—he’s so full of gratitude that he goes ahead and sets them free.

Can you imagine the conversation the next day? The magistrates come down to survey the damage to the jail. And they ask the jailer for an update. “Boy, was I worried,” he’d say. “This place was a wreck. The foundation’s cracked, the door came right out of the wall. I thought for sure the prisoners would be gone.”

“…And?” the magistrates would say.

“Well, I was so relieved when I saw they were still there, I just went ahead and let ’em all go.”

“…You what?”

(You shouldn’t worry too much about what happens to our friend, by the way. The reading this morning cuts off here, but in fact, on that next day, Paul belatedly reveals that he and Silas are Roman citizens. You do not let the crowd beat up two Roman citizens, so the magistrates apologize to Paul, and beg his forgiveness, and Paul and Silas go and say goodbye to Lydia, and they head on their way.)

But the jailer didn’t know that then. He isn’t thinking clearly when he sets these two men free. He’s acting instinctively. He’s doing what almost anyone would do. Having been set free from the overwhelming shame of losing his prisoners, he does the only thing he can, and sets them free in turn.

There’s a clever saying that you may have heard: “Hurt People Hurt People.” If you haven’t heard it, you can probably guess what it means. People who have been hurt go on to hurt other people in turn; unless something changes, we tend to perpetuate the cycles of trauma and pain that we have experienced.

The jailer’s actions suggest a related principle to me: “Freed people free people.” And this is really all the story is, from start to finish, an exchange of one set of chains for another until, finally, every character is free. Paul frees this enslaved woman from the spirit that possesses her and allows her captors to exploit her. They’re so enraged that they throw Paul in chains in retribution. God breaks Paul’s chains. But the breaking of those bonds wraps the jailer in his own spiritual chains: he is bowed down and nearly broken beneath their weight. But Paul sets him free, with a simple phrase: “We’re in here!” Freed from his burden, he sets Paul free in turn.

Each of these acts of liberation and release is a kind of forgiveness. And we should remember that while Paul begins the chain of events in this story, Paul’s own life is a response to having been set free. This man, who once persecuted the Christians viciously, has been forgiven by God for what he’s done, and gone out to spread the news of God’s liberating forgiveness and love.

In this ultimate sense, forgiveness isa vertical thing; it all flows out of God’s choice to forgive us. But we experience it horizontally. We mediate it to one another. We practice it by setting one another free, because barring a voice speaking to us out of the heavens or an earthquake shattering the walls, forgiving the people in front of us, as we have been forgiven, is all there is.

Each one of us holds great power in our hands, to keep other people wrapped in the chains of our resentment or to release those bonds and set them free. And most of us, I suspect, are also wrapped in chains: held by some sense of shame or fear or guilt, afraid to be seen for who we truly are, lest someone else slam the jail door shut. But God sees us. And God loves us. And there is no shame that is too great for God to want to set you free, no chains of guilt too strong for God to break, because God’s deepest desire is to set you free from judgment and condemnation and despair, and to send you into the world to set other people free, “so that the love with which [God] loved [Jesus Christ] may be in you,” and in all of them. Amen.

Sermon — May 25, 2025

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23)

Bilbo Baggins travels far to the east to find himself; to live the life of adventure he’d always secretly craved, he must first leave behind the homely comforts of cozy Hobbiton. Harry Potter takes a train, departing from a mysterious platform at King’s Cross Station for a castle in parts unknown; to learn about the magic he was born with, he has to go to a place he’s never been. Elizabeth Gilbert processes the end of a marriage that has come apart by traveling the world on a voyage of self-discovery in which her adventures fall neatly into three chronological sections, which just so happen to correspond with the title of the memoir that she writes: in order become who she was meant to be she must journey around the world, learning to Eat, to Pray, and to Love.

These stories share a common structure that’s sometimes called “the hero’s journey.” Time and time again, we human beings tell tales of a hero who leaves ordinary life behind and, with the assistance of a mentor or two, embarks on a road of trials and testing, only to return back home, bearing the gifts and the wisdom they have earned. We can’t help ourselves from writing the same story, over and over again, of a Frodo-Harry-Luke who leaves the Shire-Dursleys-Tatooine, and, with the help of Gandalf-Dumbledore-Obi Wan—spoiler alert—destroys the Death Star-Horcruxes-Ring. If you’re not careful, 4000 years of stories can begin to blend together into one story of what the scholar Joseph Campbell called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Look too closely, and you can get jaded about how easily we replicate the trope. Wait a minute—are you telling me the mentor dies, leaving our hero to undertake the final stage of the journey alone? NO WAY! What a twist.

I love these stories, in their ancient and modern forms. But I often think about a comment I read years ago by the author Orson Scott Card, best known for the science-fiction series Ender’s Game. He observed that most stories like this, including his most famous ones, are about adolescents, literal or metaphorical. After all, “Who but the adolescent,” he asks, “is free to have the adventures that most of us are looking for when we turn to storytellers to satisfy our hunger?” Even the characters who are grown adults are basically teenagers still. Bilbo Baggins and James Bond share with Harry and Luke a kind of freedom to adventure that comes only when you haven’t yet settled down.

 Now, some of you today do have adventures ahead of you in life. But all of our adventuring days will one day fade into the past. Maybe because of kids or pets at home, who can’t be left alone while we go off to find ourselves. Maybe because of our own health or mobility. Maybe we’re already overwhelmed by the things we have to do right here, and can’t afford the time or the money it would take to undertake a quest.

And that’s the tension of this literary form. The hero must go on a journey to be transformed. But the reader’s life mostly stays in place. And that same tension between “home” and “away” appears in all our readings today.

For example: Paul has a vision. A man from Macedonia pleads for help. And so he goes, to spread the good news. The Book of Acts is careful to note the itinerary, so that you can follow along—from Troas to Samothrace, and then you kind of bear left to Neapolis, and just up the road to Philippi. If you’re not looking at a map, let me just say that this is one small step for Paul, one giant leap for Christianity. It’s a relatively quick sail across the waters separating what’s now Turkey from Greece, but it symbolizes the spread of this new Christian religious movement from east to west, from Asia into Europe for the first time. Paul has left the continent he calls home to share the good news. But the women whom Paul meets haven’t traveled very far. They’re right there by the river, as they often are, where there is a place of prayer. And they’re intrigued. When Lydia hears what he has to say, she invites him in: “Come and stay at my home.” (Acts 16:15) And they do. But soon enough, Paul and his companions continue on their journey around the Mediterranean; and Lydia and her companions remain, right where they are, at home, and continue to live their ordinary lives.

Jesus, for his part, lives out the hero’s quest more than once: in the stories of his birth, in his temptation in the wilderness, in his travels from Galilee to Jerusalem, and in the bigger theological story of his voyage from heaven to earth and back, Jesus’ life is journey after journey. Jesus comes from the Father, and goes back to the Father. (14:29) He goes away to die, and returns to live again. (14:28) He ascends to the Father, then he sends the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to teach us everything, and remind us of what he’s said. (14:26) As he sums it up: “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” (John 14:28) But for all this back and forth there’s a sense that the journey does have an end. And it’s a surprising one: “Those who love me,” Jesus says, “will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (14:23) Jesus doesn’t say that if we love him, we will make our home with him; that if we are good in this life, we will go to heaven. He says that they will come—the Father and the Son and the Spirit will come—and make their home with us.

It’s that same journey that we find in the closing chapters of the Revelation to John. John is taken up to a great, high mountain for a better view. But he isn’t brought to see people going up to heaven. No. He sees the holy city, the new Jerusalem, “coming down out of heaven from God.” (Rev. 21:10) Because the story of the Bible doesn’t end with all of us leaving earth behind to go live somewhere else. It culminates in God coming down again to live with us, in a renewed and restored creation, right here.

We are Lydia and the other women, gathering time and again to hear the good news, and then returning to our homes. We are the disciples, gathered around the table with Jesus. We are John, sometimes catching a glimpse of heaven as it breaks through onto the earth. And there is a journey happening in these texts, but it’s not our journey; we stay in place, and all the motion is God’s.

Many people talk about their own spiritual journeys, and I don’t want to discount or discourage that. I think it’s a really helpful way for many people to reflect on their relationship with God.

But I think we’re used to thinking that way. And I think it can create a sense of a lack, of something we’re missing out on. I look at some people and I think, “Wow, what an incredible spiritual journey they’ve been on, while I’ve been spending my time trying to figure out what to cook for dinner.” But there’s a journey that’s taking place even when we feel like we’re treading water. There is an ongoing quest, even when we feel too overwhelmed to pray, let alone to go off and find ourselves. But we are not the heroes of that quest.

Are you ready for me to push the premise of this sermon past its breaking point? Okay. What would it mean if, in the story of your life, you were not the Frodo/Harry/Luke Skywalker of it all? What if you were Merry-Pippin/Ron/Chewbacca? What if Jesus were the protagonist, and you were one of those supporting characters who turns out to be the best of all, because they are ordinary, decent people inspired to do extraordinary things by the hero’s quest, even after Frodo-Harry has ascended into heaven. Sorry, I mean sailed West to the Undying Lands/mysterious heavenly train station.

For the most part, our role story is the part of Jesus, or even Paul. It’s more like Lydia or John. It’s not the struggle to ascend the great, high mountain up to God, but to see God’s holy city is coming down to us, and to walk in its light, exactly where we are. That’s the least exciting job. It doesn’t feel like a fun adventure of self-discovery. But God has come and made God’s home with us. God is already here. God’s light already shines, here in this world. And we can look for and walk in that light.

Sermon — May 20, 2025

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there are some parts of the Bible that are easier to understand than others. People sometimes make a distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament, but that isn’t quite it. Jesus or Paul sometimes say incomprehensible things, and often the Old Testament is straightforward. But there is a distinction in vibes between some of the more obscure ritual intricacies of the Bible, and some of the clearer stories and ethical teachings. And you see it in our readings today.

There’s a qualitative difference, in other words, between “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another,” and, “God, no! I would never eat a lizard.”

But here’s the thing: We need both halves, the clear and the obscure. And in fact, each one helps us understand the other. Because if you want to understand what Peter’s saying about unclean foods, it helps to understand what we mean when we talk about God’s love; but if you really want to understand what love means, you also need to know why Peter won’t eat an iguana.

Our Gospel reading today was short, and sweet, and seemingly simple. It comes from the Last Supper, just after Judas goes out to betray Jesus, and Jesus says, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer.” (John 13:33) Soon enough, he’ll be dead. “You’ll look for me,” he says, “but where I’m going, you cannot come.” (13:33) Heaven, we assume. And then he gives them “a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (13:34) This is the classic “easy” kind of verse. This is the God we know and love. The one who sends Jesus to teach us to love one another. This is something we can understand, because we know what it means to love.

Our reading from Revelation is straightforward enough, as well. The Book of Revelation can be weird, sometimes. But we understand what it means to say that there is some future world, where “[God] will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes.” Where “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4) We often read this at funerals, because it’s comforting. It’s good news. And while we might have questions about how exactly this all works, we get what it means, because this experience of grief and death is part of human life.

And then there’s our story from Acts. Some of the other disciples criticize Peter and ask him why he was eating with Gentiles, with men who were not Jewish. “I was praying,” Peter says, “and in a trance, I saw a vision.” (Acts 11:5) Okay, fair enough. There was a bedsheet full of reptiles coming down from the sky. And a voice said, “Kill and eat!” (11:7) And Peter said, No way! “Nothing unclean has ever entered my mouth!” (11:8) This happened three more times, and the sheet went back up to heaven, and Peter knew exactly what to do.

… Sorry, what?

I’m guessing this passage doesn’t make much sense to most of us. What does eating reptiles have to do with eating with Gentiles? What does any of it have to do with Jesus? These seem like prime examples of the two halves of the Bible: the familiar and the strange.

But these stories aren’t as different as they might seem. They’re all part of one big story of God’s love for the world. And so we have to understand this first reading in order to understand what our gospel really means.

Now, if you like to show off, you should consider a graduate degree in Biblical studies. Let me tell you why. At the reception after the Easter Vigil, George Born said he had a question for me. A linguistic question. He’d noticed that one of the psalms during Holy Week used the word “loving-kindness” to describe God’s relationship to us, and he was wondering about the origins of that translation.

I spent years training for this. So I told him: “Loving-kindness” is usually the English translation of the Hebrew word chesed. It means “love.” But a particular kind of love. It’s not romantic love. It’s the loyalty and faithfulness of mutual obligation. And then I said: if you really want to know what chesed means, you have to go back to the Hittite and Assyrian suzerainty treaties of the first millennium BCE. (Six semesters well spent?)

But here’s the thing: These ancient treaties between the rulers of these great empires and their vassals use the word “love” in a way that sounds absurd to us. A new king rises to the throne, worried that his vassals will rebel. And he circulates a treaty to them all: “You shall love Assurbanipal… son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, your lord, like yourselves.” (Ring a bell?)

This isn’t a love letter. It’s a treaty. A covenant. A two-sided agreement, where both parties make promises. The king fulfills the covenant by establishing just laws, and leading the people well. The people fulfill the covenant when they follow the laws the king makes, and don’t rebel against his authority. In this covenantal worldview, following the law is an act of love. It’s the manifestation of this chesed, this loving-kindness that binds the sovereign and the people together.

And this kind of covenant is the model for the Biblical law, given by God to the ancient Israelites. This covenant includes many things. It has both criminal and civil law: regulations for how many witnesses are needed to convict someone of murder, and for how much money you owe if your ox gores someone else’s ox. But it also contains plenty of what we might call religious law. It tells the people which rituals to do with their sons on the eighth day after their birth. It tells them which foods they should and should not eat, and what sacrifices to offer on which holy days. It reminds them, again and again, to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

These laws were the people’s half of the covenant with God. This is what it meant for them to love God: to follow the covenant, to keep the commandments. But in the five hundred years or so leading up to Jesus’ day, the Jewish people rarely had their own state. They lived under foreign rule, or as strangers in strange lands. And so, the distinguishing marks of Jewish identity became not the civil or criminal laws, things that had to be enforced by the state, but the ritual laws. Circumcision, and food laws, and the Sabbath became the primary markers of what it meant to remain loyal to the covenant, to love God, as God loves us.

And that’s what Peter’s vision is about. Will he eat animals that his religion forbids him to eat? No way! He loves God. He’s a faithful man. He follows the Law, and that means he doesn’t eat lizards. That’s part of the covenant given by God. That’s what it means to return God’s love in kind.

But God, it seems, is up to something new. That’s what the Holy Spirit has to say. God has written a new covenant, not only with the Jewish people, but with the world: “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11:18)

And God has given a new law, as well. “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus says. “That you love one another.” (John 13:34) Nothing more and nothing less. This is the covenant the Christian makes with God. The chesed, the loving-kindness, the covenant loyalty that united the Israelites to God, must now extends to unite all human beings to one another.

That new commandment of love may be easy to understand. But it’s very hard to do. “Just as I have loved you,” Jesus says, “you also should love one another.” (13:34) Just as I have loved you, he says, as he prepares to lay down his life for them, you also should love one another.

We’re not invited to be friendly with our fellow parishioners. We’re not called to care for the people of this nation. We are commanded to love “one another,” a “one another” that’s so large that it comes to include all the peoples of the world. We’re commanded to love one another just as Jesus loved us, so that Christians should be known throughout the world by our self-giving love.

That’s the standard, anyway. That’s the goal. That’s the new commandment, a law which none of us, as individuals or as a church, can ever quite fulfill. We can aspire to live out that love. We won’t manage to do it.

But God changed the covenant in another way, as well: God made it unconditional. Because in Jesus, God fulfilled both sides of the covenant, the human and divine. God lived out that perfect law of love that’s too great for us to bear, and commanded us to do the same. But when we fail, we do not face the fearsome judgment of some heavenly Assurbanipal, crushing our rebellion with force; we meet instead the love of Christ, who lay down his own life for us, and who is leading us forward to that world where death shall be no more.