It was still the first day of the week. That evening, while the disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. When the disciples saw the Lord, they were filled with joy. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.” John 20:19-20
We
began our sermon series, "Hymns that make you go hmmmm," with a
contemporary (mid-19th century) re-writing of Psalm 103. This week, we move to an older hymn - around
100 years older, written by another prolific hymn-writer, with a different
method - Charles Wesley. Yes, we turn
today to our good friends the Methodists.
I
want to put this in perspective a little bit - for us worshipping in this
Presbyterian church today. The
Presbyterian movement - John Calvin and John Knox - had been around in
Switzerland, Scotland, and France, for almost two hundred years when the Wesley
brothers started riding around the countryside preaching. They were largely influenced by the Moravian
movement - a part of the counter-reformation in Europe that emphasized simple,
common language that could be easily understood in worship - no big books of
prayers and liturgies needed! The
Moravians also believed in living simply - simple speech and a simple lifestyle
- also as a way to connect with others, mostly with those who are
"not", who do not "have." Yes, the Wesleyan brothers and the Methodist movement were highly influenced
by a desire to share Christ, their lives, and their livelihood with those who
did not believe.
I'm
assuming you've all at least heard the Wesley name. We have, here in our own community, a
Wesleyan University. I don't know about
you, but when I think of the name. Wesley, what I think of is Methodists, and John Wesley. He's the brother I think of, with all his
writings on theology and the church. Charles, however, whether we know it or not, is the brother we "sing." Charles did not like public speaking and was
often thought to be the more "emotional" of the brothers. I'm not sure if that's true, as it seems a
fairly objective insight. Maybe he was
shy, maybe even, yes, more emotional than John; he really didn't like preaching
as an expression of his faith. Instead,
he turned to music, writing more than 6,000 hymns, including some you probably
know by heart; like Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Christ the Lord is Ris'n
Today, and Rejoice the Lord is King.
I
really like Love Divine, All Loves Excelling. I know for some it is a favorite hymn, chosen to be sung at weddings, at
funerals, at baptisms, and every occasion in between. Unlike last week's hymn, it's not based on
one scripture, on one Psalm. If we were
to go through and reference ever bit of scripture in these words, I could preach
all day. Which I won't. But it does make it a good camp song. The Wesleyan brothers were dubbed,
"Methodists" for the way in which they shared the gospel, training
preachers to ride horses from town to village to countryside, set up a tent,
and hold a revival. In order to do this,
preachers needed to be able to preach to the people they met, sharing the
gospel in meaningful ways that often involved leaving a script behind in order
to speak "correctly" about faith. Songs then, were sung around the campfire, in a tent, and led by various
musical instruments - sometimes with the voice as the only instrument. Like camp songs today, they needed to be easy
to sing, easy to remember, and a strong connection to the Christian faith of
the people, focusing on Jesus, sin, and salvation.
So,
let's talk about love. Overall, the hymn
follows a nice pattern, each verse sharing a different, important, foundation
of faith. Perhaps one of the reasons I
like the hymn so much is that this first verse finds love as the way to explain
the relationship between God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's my favorite way to talk about the
trinity - that the love between God the Creator and God the Redeemer is so
strong that it becomes a person, or the being of the Holy Spirit. I like this theory of relationships, that
every time we are in relationship with someone else - no matter what that
relationship is - that the relationship itself becomes a life to be nurtured,
cared for, and supported. It's
beautiful, then, to think about this love between the one Jesus called Abba,
Father; and the son; as so strong it is the powerful presence, being, and
person of the Holy Spirit that we carry in our hearts and lives today. God is made known to us by the strong and
mighty power of love, a love divine, a love that is shared with all of
creation.
For Wesley, just as for many of us, that strong love is most known to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the son. While the main scriptural reference here is Philippians 2, where Paul quotes one of the oldest Christian hymns, we also think of John 3:16. Charles gets right to the point here in this camp song - the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ and the giving of the son so that we might have eternal life, tells us even more about this love divine, this love excelling.
But how is this love made known to each one of us - as individuals? Once again, as in the hymn from last week, there is an individual reality that Charles brings forward. Once again, this makes some of us uncomfortable, as we know faith is not about the I, but about the "us". It's a discussion that we still have today among believers, about how we come to faith. Is it an individual act, made in the individual freedom to accept or deny the faith? Is it an act of God, the revelation of who God is, when we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and are able to see things more clearly? Both find lots of references in scripture, leading this preacher to hold her hands up and say, "yes!" to both. That it is a magical interplay between revelation of God's presence in the world, and the acknowledgement and acceptance of that presence into our hearts and lives. Yes, it is individual, and yes it brings us into community. The scriptural reference here to the divine ruach, the divine breath first breathed into the 'adam' and shared with 'eve', this divine breath that Jesus breathes into to the disciples when he appears among them in that enclosed upper room in Jerusalem, that divine breath gives life and life everlasting. Scholar Karoline Lewis here notes that this breath is breathed into the disciples, just like that first breath shared with 'adam. It is the breath of God exhaled into the disciples who have seen and believed, and the ones who need to see to believe, to those who doubt, and all those who are afraid and uncertain. It is the breath of God inhaled by the disciples who have seen and believed, and the ones who need to see to believe, to those who doubt, and all those who are afraid and uncertain. It is shared with all of them who are gathered, waiting, wondering, searching, learning. And while I think there is much for us to learn from our faith today, I think this is the one thing I want us to come away with this morning - that you are loved with an amazing and divine, excelling love that will be shared and shared and shared until everyone is breathing in the love of God and breathing out the love of God, until we have peace with each other, and peace in the world. It's an individual breath, and something that brings us together. It is our life, and our peace.
It
is with this breath that we continue on in the faith - finding the strength and
hope to pray for deliverance from the things in our lives (including sin) that
we struggle with, and that leads us to look to THAT day of a new heaven and a
new earth, when we will be made finally perfect in Christ, at one with
God. Walter Brueggeman summarizes the
hymn this way, "That is where we are headed when we are fully caught up in
divine love. The ultimate goal and outcome of human life is that our “selves”
of fear, anxiety, and responsibility are caught up in a complete yielding to
wonder, love, and praise: • Wonder at the unimaginable splendor of God’s person
• Love that arrives back at love divine that was our beginning • Praise, glad
ceding of life over to God in ways that enhance God’s awesomeness.[1]
Love
Divine, All Loves Excelling, a hymn written by a man who believed preaching
wasn't the only way to share the gospel. How will you share it this week? Amen.
Rev. Dr. Melodie Jones Pointon
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