Your Joy May Be Complete
Your Joy May Be Complete”
Acts 10:44-48, Psalm 98, John 15:9-17
Sixth Sunday after Easter, Year B, May 9, 2021
First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho
Andy Kennaly, Pastor
“While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.” “While Peter was still speaking” is when God’s Spirit moved in the hearts of those who heard. Acts chapter 10 is one of the most amazing stories in the entire Bible because what’s going on as Peter visits Cornelius, wasn’t supposed to happen. That Peter is even there is against the rules, it violates Jewish religious law and is counter to cultural expectations and practices. But Peter’s there, acting on a vision given by God, sent to a situation that was stressful at best, and potentially dangerous; Jews mixing with Gentiles and Peter speaks. As he speaks, these constructs of division, these false barriers, these doctrines that once served well but have outlived their function, come crashing down. The partnership of heaven and Earth revealed through the actions of Peter and the Holy Spirit confirms unity over separation, shows God’s expansive love in action, and reveals the ongoing nature of revelation as Gentiles are now included in the faith story of a covenant people.
Then comes the question that proves these points. “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” In other words, does anyone want to contradict God’s action and activity that is leading the people into new interpretations and experiences that widen Love’s reach? This also echoes last week’s question as Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch share a chariot ride and explore the gift of Christ through the prophet, Isaiah. That scene has the Ethiopian ask a similar question. The Ethiopian eunuch is devout, faithful, worships the Lord, and yet is excluded from the covenant community because of rules based on outdated doctrine. As they come upon some water, the Ethiopian asks, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He’s ready for exclusion to end and commands the chariot to stop. Both went into the water “and Philip baptized him.”
“Can anyone withhold…” This question is answered by these stories, and the answer is “No.” No one can withhold God’s love. No one can contain or prevent the work of the Holy Spirit. No one has exclusive rights to the ministry of Jesus or the living Christ’s presence in the world. The Ethiopian recognizes this and commands the chariot to stop. Peter recognizes this, and orders them to be baptized. Commanding, ordering: these are decisive movements, pivotal examples of a dramatic shift as God’s covenant with Israel expands to include so much more. This invites not only a larger view, or more inclusive attitudes, but consciousness shifts through an expansion of the heart.
It’s as Peter is speaking, as Philip is invited into the chariot; God partners with us as we share through our lives the transformative word of God and the Spirit is at work in the hearts of people who are already resonating with spiritual power. As connections are made, a new song is possible. As sharing takes place, deeper truths become articulated.
In the chapter 8 story of the Ethiopian, he goes on his way rejoicing. In the chapter 10 story, as the distinction between Gentile and Jew is overridden by a larger unity through Christ Jesus, Peter is invited to stay for several days. Transformative joy, expansive new community: these are illustrated in the next reading from Psalm 98. “O sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things.”
The way the Lectionary is set up, the first reading sets the tone, introduces the theme. The second reading, usually a Psalm, is intended as response. As we see distinctions lose their divisiveness in the Acts of the Apostles, we now see distinctions take on their unique qualities as parts of a larger whole in Psalm 98. Each part now joins another to give praise to God as a collective, united through God’s victory. The Psalm gives the same movement as these stories from Acts, saying “God has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel.” Like Peter and the other circumcised believers, they know full well they are included in God’s divine purposes. And this movement then expands.
In the Psalm, like in Acts, not only does God remember love and faithfulness “to the house of Israel,” but “all the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.” This sets up new invitations, like Peter baptizing the Gentiles in the name of Jesus Christ. The Psalmist declares, “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth in joyous song and sing praises.”
In our Anthropocentric hearing that keeps people as the central reference point to all the Earth, we resonate with the Psalmist calling for the stringed instrument, the lyre to sing praises. But that’s not enough. This expansive movement says the praises are with the lyre “and the sound of melody.” Now, to have melody, you need multiple voices at different pitches. This is not a solo, not individualistic, but a communal response. So the Psalmist brings in the trumpets, plural, to also “make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD.” Now this spelling has LORD in all capital letters, meaning God Almighty, Yah-weh, the unpronounceable Holy of Holies. This name is breathed more than said, taken in and given back, Yah-weh.
This is important because not only is it our lives, human lives, called to give God praise through our life, our breathing, our living, our singing, but along the theme of expansion, it’s all the Earth. The sea roars, and “all that fills it; the world and those who live in it. […] Floods clap their hands; […] hills sing together for joy at the presence of the LORD.”
In those sentences there’s a little word floating around, the word, “let.” “Let the sea… let the floods… let the hills.” God is coming to judge the Earth, the world with righteousness, the peoples with equity. God desires that all things work in their own distinctive ways as they are designed and intended to be.
These scriptures seem to recognize some sort of resistance to the inherent divinity, the sacred purposes, and the spiritually active calling of created things. Creation participates in God’s creativity, and yet somehow this calling and connection gets corrupted. What is it that helps us “let” the world respond to God’s Spirit? What is it we need to give permission to, to override smaller visions and limiting beliefs? How do we get beyond patterns of withholding and exclusion to fully immerse in grace and love overflowing as we participate in what God’s Spirit is doing in the world?
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Jesus shows us how to love. Jesus shows us unity, reveals God’s very presence in our lives, in the world, and even in mysteries we don’t understand. As Jesus says, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete,” we see the same dynamic of two coming together and inviting God’s Spirit to move. This happens with Philip and the Ethiopian, and with Peter and Cornelius. The joy of Jesus comes into us. It’s through this invitation, this union, that joy becomes complete. Not partial, but fulfilled; not only life, but life abundant.
God judges the people with equity in the same way Jesus no longer calls us servant but friends. This Jesus friendship is shown in love, through equity. Central to the passage from John is Jesus giving his command as he fulfills all the law and the prophets, saying, “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…”
Which gets back to the word, “let.” Are we willing to “let” Jesus be our friend? Are we open to laying down our life, in other words, to set aside ourselves, like the Apostle Paul says, “it is no longer I, but Christ in me.” The “less of me, more of you, O Christ” message sounds good, pious, faithful, but in practice involves letting go of our egocentric self, and this is a hard teaching, a scary thing, like Peter going to see Cornelius, even as everything official prohibited this.
Jesus shows us in his own life this pattern of kenosis, which is a Greek word for letting go, the path of descent, of shedding everything that prevents or obscures the true joy of the Divine. Our joy is complete when God’s joy is in us. Bearing “fruit that will last” is a qualitative statement, an invitation to participate because God has chosen and appointed us to a communal partnership. Are we willing, like Peter, to speak, to share of and trust God’s movement in our lives? That’s when God’s Spirit “fell upon all who heard the word.” Are we willing to join the entire planet and recognize the inherent divinity of other creatures participating as expressions of the Living Christ giving praise to God? Are we willing to love one another, even if our self-imposed distinctions fall away by the command to love, and equity?
May we recognize the good news, that joy may be complete. More than fleeting happiness, this joy is like fruit that lasts because Love never ends. As we join our hearts with the singing hills and the clapping waters, we give thanks for God’s humble, vulnerable love, given in Christ. Amen.