Abide with Me
April 28, 2024
Year B; 5th Easter
1 John 3: 1-7
Psalm 4
Luke 24: 36b-48
1 John 4:7-21
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
Homily by Rev. Megan Limburg
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our
hearts be acceptable in your sight,
O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
Hard to believe that we are already at the 5th Sunday of Easter! Only 2 more to go before we celebrate the Day of Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit to the disciples.
Throughout this season of Easter we have read selections from the letters of John, in 1stJohn, as well as, for the gospel readings, mainly John.
These readings throughout Easter have shared the theme of how we relate to, connect to, are loved by God, and called to love God.
And we can get a clue as to how we are to love God, by the number of times these readings use the word “abide”, 6 times in each reading today!
And these two books of the Bible hold the highest number of times for that word, abide, to appear, the gospel of John uses this word 41 times! And the 1st letter of John, 22 times!
A lot of abide, and abiding.
So, what does this word mean? We know the word, but we need to look at it afresh, if John is going to use it dozens of times!
Abide is defined as: stay, lodge, live, reside, remain.
The Methodist preacher, Melissa Meyers, spoke of this word, recalling when she first moved out of her family home and lived with non-relatives. She spoke of going to college and living with various roommates over her years there, and then later when she married, with her spouse too.
Meyers spoke of learning to not just show her best face, but her honest self too, sharing her low days, her fears, her selfishness, her grief, as she learned to abide with her friends, and later with her husband.
Meyers said:
“If you don’t share yourself or your life, you’re kind of just living alongside, which may be polite and necessary, but it’s not really living together, it’s not really abiding.” (Pulpit Fiction podcast, April 15, 2024)
Meyers went on to connect our learning to abide with people with how we are invited to live in our faith, to abide. She noted:
“The invitation of a relationship with Jesus is to abide, to know and be known. And in doing so our love grows, and how we show our love grows….May you find yourself living with Jesus and not just alongside.”
Not just alongside Jesus, but abiding, residing, remaining, lodging, with Jesus. How would this look, in our own lives, and in our lives as Trinity, as SMWC, and as the churches together?
1st John notes a central feature of abiding, living without fear.
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.”
There is no fear in love, perfect love casts out fear. Hard to imagine in our world today, though hard to imagine in all ages, a life without fear.
Tensions, conflicts, wars, gun violence in schools and on the streets, and our politics full of talk of be afraid, fear the other, stoking our broken tendencies to divide ourselves into us and them.
And in the midst, a call: do not be afraid, cast out fear, abide, abide, abide.
Abiding, of course, is not a call to the easy life, where nothing goes wrong. Our mortal lives continue but in abiding, the fear does not rule, fear is cast out, and we are freed, to help and to love.
So I return again to my earlier question: How would this look, in our own lives, and in our lives as Trinity, as SMWC, and as the churches together?
Your churches are in the midst of a time of transition and change, times that often bring out fear and anxiety.
May we all hear God’s invitation in John’s writings abide, abide, abide, with me, cast out fear and live deeply in God’s love.
Amen.