Growing in love is God’s work in us

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

As a little boy, Church often meant Sunday School. While I would like to remember myself as being a “star pupil,” I’m sure that I wasn’t! One thing I do remember were the children’s hymns. I loved them, and still do. My favorite was, “God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall.”

God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets his tender view;
If God so loves the little birds,
I know he loves me too.

He loves me too, he loves me too,
I know he loves me too;
Because he loves the little things,
I know he loves me too.

Common Praise (1938) 727 v1 and chorus

As children, we learn about love, and God’s love, through our parents and other caring adults. We often learn about compassion through caring for our animal companions, and wild creatures; and we learn about sorrow when they die. The simple children’s hymn, “God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall,” brings together God’s love in Creation, will all its vastness, wonder and creatures great and small, with God’s love for me, and for you.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter is traditionally known as Rogation Sunday. The word, “Rogation” is based on a Latin root “to ask.” Historically, the Church set aside days of special prayer in the period leading up to Ascension Thursday, which is this week. In the Western Hemisphere, it is only natural that in Springtime, such prayer would include the planting of crops and fair weather, as for most of history, famine, want, and hardship were only one blight, one drought, one failed harvest away. Sadly, this remains true for many in the world today.

The COVID-19 pandemic has re-introduced many people to nature, as going for a physically distanced walk has been one of our few outlets during the lockdowns. The “cathedral of nature” is often where people have their first religious or mystical experience. By that I don’t mean hearing angel voices or seeing visions. I am referring to a sense of awe and wonder, of delight and connection with Creation, God, others, in and through natures and the creatures God has made. Mystic communion in the cathedral of nature is our birthright as persons created in the image and likeness of God. It would be inspiring and encouraging to hear from one another regarding our early experiences of well-being, wonder, and love in nature and with people. What were your early experiences of our Creator’s love and goodness?

In our reading from the Book of Acts (10: 44-48), Peter acknowledges and validates the religious experiences of people outside the initial circle of believers; people who were very different from them. While Peter had the joy of celebrating baptisms, an important part of our role as followers of Jesus is to simply recognize and affirm the Spirit in others, especially in those who are different from us, in colour, race, language, culture, sexual orientation, and religion itself. It is only when we see others as children of God, temples of the Spirit, just like we are, that we can begin a conversation about faith, based on love, and love alone, and not some other agenda.

The language of love can seem too soft and insubstantial in a hard world. It can seem this way, whether we are speaking about human love or God’s love; as if the holy dove would be blown away by harsh cold winds of greed, selfishness, war, disease, and suffering. But the heart of God that holds a small child and a little sparrow also calls us to moral backbone and sacrificial service. As John writes in this morning’s Epistle (1 John 5: 1-6), “the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments.” And in the Gospel (John 15: 9-17), Jesus sets us on a path of joy, not as self-indulgence, but as self-giving, in which his service is our freedom: “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.” There is nothing soft about lives shaped by the call of the Cross. There is nothing insubstantial about serving others in Jesus’ name. And yet the love which is as strong as steel, graciously meets us where we are, as we are, with all of our faults and foibles, and gathers us in to a life of grace. God freely gives us the love we could never earn, merit or deserve; a lesson we need to learn and re-learn as the Gospel finds a home in our hearts.

Growing in love is God’s work in us, and not an accomplishment of our ego. The best children’s hymns, like our best theologies, recognize that growing in grace is a life long journey, an eternal-life long journey. I would like to close with another children’s hymn that I believe speaks to us as children of God, regardless of our age.

Jesus, Friend of little children,
Be a friend to me;
Take my hand, and ever keep me
Close to thee.

Teach me how to grow in goodness,
Daily as I grow:
Thou hast been a child, and surely
Thou dost know.

Never leave me, nor forsake me;
Ever be my friend;
For I need thee, from life’s dawning
To its end. Amen.

Common Praise (1938) 708

Written by Archdeacon Peter Crosby

Stratz, Wayne; Almon, Margaret; Halstead, Suzanne. Love, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58120 [retrieved May 10, 2021]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nutmegdesigns/6209236367.