Easter 5(C): All You Really Need
By: The Rev. Joe T. Mitchell
In the mid-1990s John Travolta saw a career resurgence with the now-classic Pulp Fiction. But around the same time he starred in another movie that garnered him a lot of attention, though it has gone mostly unnoticed in recent years. In the film Michael, Travolta portrays an angel who has come to earth for….reasons. In one of the movie’s best scenes he is sitting in the backseat of a car while a bewildered Oliver Platt and Andie McDowell ride shotgun. Leaning back, Michael says “I remember what John and Paul said.” Oliver Platt pops up and asks, “The Apostles?!” Michael retorts, “No! The Beatles! All you need is love.”
While my knowledge of Beatles songs is rather limited—apologies to my Beatles-loving wife (who I once tried to impress by telling her my favorite Beatles album is The White Album, even though I didn’t know a single song in it—I DO know that song!) It is a song that is filled with hope that really, honestly, seriously, the only thing we actually need in this world is love. If we had love, then so many of the problems that we know would cease. If we had love, we would know a world of peace and harmony the likes of which are hitherto undreamt of! It is such a nice dream.
For most of us in parish settings it is just that, a dream. Each week we pour so much into our sermons and are met with a lukewarm reception, we run ourselves ragged setting the parish hall up for a Wednesday program to which a smaller-than-expected crowd shows up, and just as we’re hitting our stride planning an upcoming liturgy we get that surprise visit from the parishioner who is concerned about the very last thing that you would expect. Let’s face it, ours is an environment that breeds disappointment and frustration. Someone is always upset, and even the best of our intentions go unappreciated. It’s easy for us to wonder how we are to respond when the expectations are so high.
As I read the lection for this week from the Fourth Gospel I thought about the disciples gathered at that meal with Jesus. I imagine their expectations were through the roof. This is it, y’all! Something big is about to happen. He’s going to unpack all of the mysteries of the universe right here and now. Maybe he’ll tell us his plan for overthrowing the tyranny of empire and ushering in a new era on this earth. OK, Jesus! Lay it on us!
“Love one another.” That’s all he says. “Just love one another, as I have loved you.” It can’t really be that simple, right? Doesn’t Jesus understand how complex this whole thing is? There has to be more to it than just “love one another.” Well, maybe there isn’t. Maybe that really is all that they (we) need.
What does it mean to love “as I have loved you?” I suspect that means things like forgiving when others deserve judgment, or feeding those who are hungry, or showing God’s radical welcome to all who meet us. Jesus did all of those things, but something else he did was hold all of the little things that his flock did that would otherwise cause most leaders to pull out their hair. When James and John selfishly want to sit at his sides in glory (Mark 10), when the disciples tried to keep some curious kids from interacting with Jesus (Matthew 19), or when they all complain that “this teaching his hard” (John 6, among MANY others), are all moments to which we congregational leaders can relate. We’ve all been there—as the line from one of my favorite tv series, Battlestar Galactica, is repeated, “All this has happened before, and it will happen again!” Somehow, though, Jesus handles it all. He holds their concerns, and even when some of them–*cough Judas and Peter cough*–literally turn their backs on him, he stills shows love and mercy. Because that is the mark of Christ, the sign by which everyone will know Christ and those who follow Christ. It is love.
So perhaps our task this Eastertide is to remind our congregations, and ourselves, that love is what will show the world that we are disciples. Arguing over sermon content, or fretting about the number of people that showed up, or getting defensive with the concerned person won’t show the world that we disciples. Only love will. Perhaps we can learn from Jesus and hold all of those concerns, and in doing so perhaps we can model for our folks a better way, inviting them to also see that the fretting, finger-pointing, and frustrations are not the signs of discipleship. As one of my mother’s favorite spirituals reminds us, “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love!” They won’t know by our arguing!
In the end, maybe it really is that simple. Maybe we have just complicated it so much that we need to hear it spoken plainly once more from Jesus himself. Perhaps he really was opening up the mysteries of the universe. Perhaps the Beatles were right. All you really need is love!
The Rev. Joe T. Mitchell is Rector at The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Asheboro, North Carolina, where he lives and serves with his wife Kristen Leigh and dog/chaplain Casey. He is your typical Transformer-collecting, baseball-playing, theatre-loving, moonshine-drinking priest from the coalfields of Virginia. He runs the blog Father Prime (www.fatherprime.blogspot.com), where he wishes and works for a world transformed.
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