Glory, Love, and Y'all Come

May 18, 2025, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, the Bronx, N.Y. 

The lectionary readings for the fifth Sunday of Easter give us three things to contemplate.

In John Jesus talks about his glorification. He also gives them what he calls a “new commandment,” to love one another “just as I have loved you.”

In Acts, we see the apostle Peter struggling with what it means to love one another in times of rancor and division. Apart from “one another,” long time members of the old gang, is there anyone else we should love.

To begin with, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” (Jn 13:31)

“Glorified” is an over-used term and we sometimes lose sight of its meaning. The Oxford dictionary defines it as something extraordinary that happens to ordinary people, something that elevates them or makes them seem more special. For example, “I did the paperwork and was basically a glorified secretary.”

In theological contexts, the dictionary refers to “the transformed and “glorified Jesus,” an acknowledgment of the majesty and splendor of God.

But this glorification is not just between God and Jesus. There is a clarifying footnote in our Lutheran Study Bibles:

“Jesus speaks of his followers doing even greater works than Jesus did himself. Lutherans believe that a person is not saved by doing good works but by having faith in Christ Jesus. Yet throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus understands his followers to be participants in his own work (9:4, 14:12). 

“How can Lutherans understand Jesus’ words here? Luther writes in his preface to the book of Romans, ‘It is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as it is to separate heat and light from fire.’”

Frank L. Crouch, Retired Dean and Professor of New Testament Emeritus Moravian Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, places the awesome onus of glorification smack on our shoulders – on me and on you

“Our actions show God’s glory, too,” says Professor Crouch. “At least, we are charged that it be so. Jesus prays, ‘All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them (17:10)’ … Here the focus lies on promise and possibilities, looking at the fullness of God’s gifts: ‘The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one … so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me”’(17:22-23). As was true for Christ is true for us. We cannot fully show the glory until we have completed the work God has sent us to do. Or, more positively, we show the glory as we complete that work.”

We are called to be full partners, not just junior partners, with Jesus. And that’s not intended to be a burden. Jesus makes it clear to his disciples and to you and me that this is responsibility to be carried out in love.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13:34-35)

|Scholars have wondered what Jesus means by “a new commandment.” Brian Peterson, Professor of New Testament at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C., points out that the command to love one’s neighbor is as old as Jewish law.

“What is new,” he writes, “is not the content of the command but Jesus’ own role as the lover at the heart of this community’s life. Note that the command to love one another is repeated at the beginning and the end of verse 34. Sandwiched in the middle is a phrase that points to the new thing: “just as I have loved you.” Jesus is the one who has loved his own “to the end” (13:1). This love flows from the incarnation of the Word, and through it the disciples will enter into the love of the Father. This love not only models but will empower their love for one another.”

Even so, you and I both know that this kind of loving is not easy to carry out. Perhaps you’ve seen the meme, “Mr. Rogers did not adequately prepare me for the people in my neighborhood.” 

In Acts we find the first Christians arguing about who should be members of their merry band.

At issue is the practice of circumcision, a religious practice rooted in the story of Abraham and symbolizing the covenant between God and God’s people.

As more and more Gentiles convert to Christianity, Jewish Christians could not bring themselves to invite them to the table.

“It may strike us as odd that the ‘circumcised believers, including Peter (‘By no means, Lord!’), would invest so much importance in distancing themselves from Gentiles,” writes Karl Kuhn, professor of Religion at Lakeland University in Herman, Wisconsin. 

“But such purity norms reinforced for Israelites their identity as a people set apart to serve God, to honor God’s Torah, and to receive God’s deliverance … The concerns of the uncircumcised believers were not trivial legalisms. They reflected essential elements of their worldview that defined their role and place as the people of God.”

Of course the issues that separate us today seem very important to us. Two millennia after Jesus told us to love one another, Christians are irrevocably divided into divided camps. Catholics do not want Lutherans (or any non-Catholic) to receive the Eucharist at mass. Orthodox Christians do not share the Eucharist with anyone else. Evangelical Christians believe Catholics and Lutherans are going to hell. Catholics and Lutherans believe Evangelicals are taking Scripture too literally. Christian Nationalists believe Christians who believe in love, compassion, empathy, and welcoming migrants are “woke liberals.” The words of the old Tom Lehrer song echo in my brain: “I don’t like anybody very much!”

“So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, ‘why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them.”

This is a crucial moment for the young church. Will Jewish and Gentile Christians remain eternally estranged, causing the church to contract and fade away? Or will they find a way to build a bridge to unite them.

At this point, Peter rises to the occasion. He begins to explain his intermingling with Gentiles, as Luke puts it, “Step by Step.”

Peter describes a bizarre sheet being lowered from heaven, a strange table cloth laden with beasts. A voice said, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” (Acts 11:7)

Obviously this is not a favorite verse People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but we know Peter is no vegan.

But the beasts being foisted on Peter are not merely unkosher, it would disgust many of us to think of killing and eating them.

“Four footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.” (Acts 11:6)

Snakes? Toads? Vultures? cats? Puppy dogs?

Please.

It makes sense that it would appall us to put any of these creatures in our stew pots because it prevents us from setting conditions about what we would eat, or who we should love and accept. “I will eat lambs, but not snakes.” “I will love Lutherans, but not Mormons.”

When God’s voice says, “Up Peter, kill and eat … What God has called clean, you must not call profane.” (Acts 11:9)

The purity barriers that prevented the circumcised from rejecting the uncircumcised are annulled when God calls the uncircumcised clean.

Decades earlier, the Apostle Paul, writing in Galatians, had already announced what Peter had affirmed.

“There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:28-29)

“Both within and beyond the pages of Acts, the church will continue to struggle with the Spirit’s calling to reframe their sense of who belongs, and how Israelite and Gentile, male and female, rich and poor are to serve and share the table together,” writes Professor Kuhn. “These parts of our history call us to join our ancestors in the struggle to map our worlds, ourselves, and others in ways that lead us all more fully into God’s life-giving realm.”

Our calling as Christians is to live into Christ’s calling to participate in his glorification and to love one another as Jesus has loved us.

This was, is, and ever shall be work in process.

Because God is not finished with us, and God’s Holy Spirit walks with us every step of the way.

Amen.