Love Story: A Celebration of New Ministry

John 15:9-16

I bring you greetings from my home church, Calvary Episcopal in Memphis, and from the diocese of West Tennessee. I called our Bishop, Don Johnson, to ask if he would like to send a greeting. He enthusiastically and without hesitation replied that indeed he would and asked me convey his delight in being able to send so fine a missionary as Tom to the Diocese of Maryland! He also sends heartfelt regards to Bishop Rabb and to Bishop-elect Sutton.

Memphis, you may know, is famous for three things: Graceland, barbeque, and the Mississippi River. There is no question that the White House is more dignified than Elvis' home, and I readily concede that Maryland crab cakes trump Memphis barbeque any day. I've yet to visit Chesapeake Bay so I can't say how it compares to our mighty river. But I know the bay has much to commend it, and Tom has promised to take me there this week. For these reasons and more I am very happy to be here.

People who are just getting to know us are often surprised to learn that Tom and I are practically newlyweds. We were married in November of 2004 after a three year courtship. For Tom it was practically love at first sight; for me things proceeded more slowly. I accepted his invitation to dinner with some reluctance. And on our second date, when Tom pulled out photographs of people and places in his life to show me, I frankly thought it was rather strange dating behavior. Who is this guy, I kept thinking. He persisted, and in spite of my uncertainty I kept saying yes. Finally, on the eve of our wedding day, he announced to a room full of people that we had known each other for a complete lectionary cycle! That, for me was a Eureka moment. I had never known anyone who counted time, not by birthdays or anniversaries, not by hunting or football seasons, but by lectionary cycles! I took it to be a sign, God's definitive green light. And now, here I am. Here Tom is and here all of you are.

Gathered on a steamy Sunday afternoon in June to celebrate something brand new. Of course ministry is not new; All Saints' is not new, and Tom is definitely not new! But the relationship being birthed here is new. It is something that has not been before. How this relationship will develop and grow, how it will be tested and challenged, how and when it will end no one here knows. We might say that you are standing together on the edge of a great unknown. I can think of no text more appropriate for such an occasion than the one we have just heard. For that is where the disciples were too-standing on the edge of a great unknown.

The eight verses of today's lesson are part of a much longer section of John's gospel-four entire chapters to be exact-called the Farewell Discourse. To make sense of it we will need to look at the whole scene, starting even before the discourse, when, in an upper room in Jerusalem on the night before his death, Jesus kneels down to wash the feet of his disciples. "Love one another as I have loved you," he says in the middle of the 15th chapter, but the as-I-have-loved-you part is in that kneeling gesture.

It's so unexpected, so startling and disturbing, that Peter, you will remember, at first refuses to participate. "You'll never wash my feet!" he exclaims. We can't know for sure why Peter expresses himself so strongly, but it's a safe bet it isn't because he is squeamish about feet. And surprisingly it isn't because he doesn't get what Jesus is doing. We are used to Peter's cluelessness; the problem, at least one scholar suggests, is that Peter does get it. (Sandra Schneiders) And he doesn't like what it implies.

Jesus, in kneeling down to wash feet, is taking a servant's role. It is a purposeful act signifying something different, something new, in their relationship. "I do not call you servants any longer . . . but friends," Jesus tells his companions. In modern parlance he might have said something like: "From now on you and I are equals; this one-up, one-down business is over and done with." We can see why, for at least some of the disciples, this is not good news since arguing about pecking order seemed to be one of their favorite pastimes. If they are equals, if no one gets to be the big cheese, if there is no sitting on the right hand or the left hand, if no one is better than, then what?

Were we to read John's gospel in its entirety we could follow a thread running through the whole thing-Jesus gradually revealing more and more of who he is, from dropping hints at a wedding in Cana way back in chapter two, right up to this night-the night before Friday's crucifixion. Now Jesus pulls out all the stops and tells his disciples everything; namely, that to know him is nothing short of knowing God.

During the last months of my dad's life, even though he was a hospice patient and staying at home, there was a crisis which required hospitalization and emergency surgery. As he was waking up following the surgery, I was sitting with him in the intensive care unit. He opened his eyes and reached for my hand; I pulled my chair up close. And then my father proceeded to tell me a story I had not heard before. About a woman he had loved before he knew my mother and his despair when she married someone else. He told me about how, when he was training to be a naval pilot, his plane crashed over a Kansas cornfield. He didn't care, he said, whether he lived or died. And then he told me about meeting my mother on the steps of the First Baptist Church in Port Arthur, Texas. "She saved me," he said. "Your mother's love saved me." He talked on for awhile and when he was through, my dad closed his eyes and said, "Now I have told you everything. There is nothing else." And we sat there together in the quiet, holding hands.

I think of Jesus' Farewell Discourse as a little bit like that. The last time they are all together, Jesus reveals himself fully, holding nothing back. In preparing the disciples for his departure, he reassures and chides, instructs and warns. But mostly he tries to explain, in every way he can, the depth and breadth of his life in God.

"I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you," he tells them. (14:20) And, "I am the vine, you are the branches." (15:5) In the section our lesson comes from, Jesus says to them, "(You) abide in my love, just as I abide in (my Father's) love." The language is confusing to our 21st century ears; it confuses the disciples too. In the 16th chapter John says flat out that they have no idea what Jesus is talking about. (16:18)

And how could they? To love each other as Jesus loved them, to accept a new way of being together, would change everything. "Who is this Christ, who interferes in everything?" asks Rilke. The disciples are probably asking themselves that same question. Jesus is showing them a way not defined by rank or status but by a willingness to be known, to be vulnerable, to serve, to pour out the self-not because they have to, not because they need something in return, but because they have become, to borrow a phrase, "little Christs." (Carrol Houselander)

You would think after spending so much time with Jesus, after being at table with him and listening to all those parables, after the wonders they had witnessed, you would think the disciples would rise from their seats on that Thursday night with minds enlightened and hearts aflame, resolved to stand by Jesus until the end. But before they ever knew what is happening they scatter. Every one of them.

They aren't ready to live into this new way because you can't learn to love by sitting around the supper table talking theology. You learn to love as you bend down to enter the fray, as you hold your nose and plunge into the messiness of living. Eventually, of course, those unruly, quarrelsome, slow-on-the-uptake disciples did learn the way of Jesus. They did enter the fray and they did learn to love. Fully, radically, passionately. Most of them, all but John according to tradition, will later die a martyr's death.

It may seem strange that what Jesus had to say as he was leaving is appropriate now as your new rector is arriving. But the questions that apply are exactly the same. For what or for whom would you be willing to die? What would it cost to love the Jesus way? How would abiding in Jesus change the way you see the world? What would it be like to give yourselves away until everything is spent?

What all this means for you is that Tom has not come here to do the work of ministry for you. He has come to labor alongside you as you continue the work God has already begun-shaping this community called All Saints' into a communion of friends abiding together in the great heart of God. Whether you are clergy or lay doesn't matter. Whether you've been a member for a hundred years or are just walking in the door for the first time is not important. Whether you are rich or poor, male or female, gay or straight, sick or well, saint or sinner doesn't count for a thing. It's discipleship, not credentials, title, or pedigree, that matters.

My prayer for Tom and for all of you at All Saints' is that your journey together be courageous, because great courage is needed in these violent and troubled times. May it be trusting, because God, in an act of astonishing recklessness, trusted you first. May it be truthful, because telling the truth, difficult as that is, will ultimately strengthen and empower you. May your journey be costly, because cheap grace is no grace at all. May it be messy, because when you are brave and honest and trusting, neat and tidy is not even a possibility. And may your journey together be joyful because God, I am sure of it, created you in joy, and for joy.

I have shared with you a tiny bit of the love story between Tom and me. When Tom pulled out those photographs on our second date, he was allowing himself to be known; he was making a gift of himself and inviting me to journey with him. That is, I believe, the Jesus way.

And I have given you a peek into the love story between my parents. My dad's trust as he shared the deep secrets of his heart signaled a turning in our relationship. No longer parent and child, we were simply fellow travelers offering whatever help and support we could manage. That too, I believe, is the Jesus way.

Finally, I have tried to tell something of the story of Jesus' love for those who were with him during his time on earth. Like them, you have no way to know what lies ahead. Things most certainly will not go according to plan. In the midst of the celebrations, there will be misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Tom will disappoint you; you will frustrate him. But whatever happens, God will be there-love will be there-on the edge of your unknown, to meet and guide you.

I offer these stories believing that all stories, ultimately, are love stories. May the years ahead be a great story of love between the people of All Saints'-including Tom-and the God who loved you into being. Amen

The Rev. Eyleen Farmer