Sermon for May 10, 2026: You Also Will Live based upon John 14:15-21

5/12/2026

1 Peter 2:2-10 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)
Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” This honor, then, is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,” and “A stone that makes them stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

The scholar Angela Parker writes about today’s scripture, “This week’s pericope begins and ends with love.” This is part of the Gospel of John that is often called The Farewell Discourse. It is the part of John that is just before the crucifixion. In his notes on the text, Obery Hendricks calls it “an interpretation of Jesus’ completed work on Earth.” When you look over the story of the Gospel, this is the part of the story when Jesus knows that something bad is about to happen, and he’s trying to give a final summation of this teaching plus a reminder of the promise inherent in that teaching: love for me is expressed though love of God and love of neighbor, and this love cannot be stopped, even by death. The world will no longer see me, but you will see me.

Friday night into Saturday this week was the Maine Confirmation retreat at Pilgrim Lodge. Our church does not currently have a confirmation class (though I think our next one starts up next year), but I still help host the retreat for other churches in the Conference. One of the activities on Saturday morning was a worship service that involved stations. Two stations seemed resonant for today’s scripture. One was a big paper with the words “God is still speaking...” across the top. We invited everyone, confirmands and mentors alike, to come and write where they hear God still speaking. They wrote of hearing God in the loons who serenaded us to sleep, the woods we walked through, and through the people working at camp to host us.

They also wrote of the protests they attended with church members and watching other Christians work to extend Christ’s grace into the world in such a merciless time. In just a few words shared by a group of about 20 teenagers and adults, we witnessed how loving God and neighbor is going on in this very moment, and we witnessed a group of people certain of the on-going presence of God in their lives. God is still speaking and they hear echoes of God in so many peoples. In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.

Another station was a mirror. Daniel, who works as the Community Ministries coordinator at High Street Congregational Church in Auburn, invited all attendees to walk up to the mirror and see themselves as God sees them: a beloved part of creation. In a world where a small group of people benefit from us not liking what we see in the mirror, it is powerful to take a moment to take our reflections back from the people who make money off of us not liking ourselves. Daniel then invited people to write in erasable marker one word that people thought God would use to describe them.

I didn’t have a mirror to bring in for us to do this exercise, I will have you take a moment and consider: what word would God use to describe you? Keep that word in your heart and mind as you go into this week. I imagine one of those words could be beloved. “They who love my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by God, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” In loving neighbor as yourself, you recall your own belovedness. This belovedness is the gift Jesus told his friends would carry them through until he returns. It is the gift passed down to us to carry us through our own challenging seasons.

One of the activities I led with our confirmands was an art project that resembled a quilt but was made out of paper. I barely had time to glue all of these pieces together. There definitely was no time for sewing. I was trying to figure out a good visualization of the history of the United Church of Christ, which is history of multiple denominations being stitched together, into our current whole. I realized that a quilt, squares and triangles sewn together to make a strong, whole cloth, was just what I was looking for. It helps that quilts are often given as gifts of care to keep people warm and to mark important life moments, like births and marriages. Our predecessor bodies could come together in one denominational body, in part, because of their commitment to care for people- immigrants, people trapped in slavery, the sick, orphans, and the very poor. Our ancestors in the faith saw the good works of neighbor love that their congregations were involved in and realized that they could all be one. They decided to keep the commandments together... to build beloved community together.

Today is what we call Blanket Sunday in our church, the day that we bless our collection of funds taken up to sponsor blankets for Church World Service. Maybe I ended up talking about blankets with the confirmands because I had blankets on my mind from church. Church World Service gave out 17, 317 blankets last year. They also shipped out 1,600 disaster preparedness kits, 5,400 cleanup buckets, 39,300 school kits, and 71,760 hygiene kits. We have been a part of all of that, between packing up school and hygiene kits and sharing funds raised.

I read in a report from last summer that those kits and blankets were shared from “Grand Rapids to Chicago, Dallas to Cleveland, Annapolis to Poughkeepsie.” They ended up in family resource centers, warming shelters, soup kitchens, refugee welcome centers and communities suffering from disasters. Remember that terrible storm that hit the East Coast in early February? Blankets from CWS, maybe even ones we helped purchase, found themselves on the way to South Carolina, where people were facing power outages and freezing temperatures well out of their normal bad weather.

Said Zachary Wolgemuth, CWS Director of Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery, said, “When the storm struck, our Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery (EPPR) team mobilized immediately to support communities across the region. Through swift coordination, we were able to deliver critical supplies and provide nearly 100 nights of temporary housing for individuals who were displaced.” When Jesus was trying to comfort his friends, he once told them, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” I know he’s telling them about the resurrection, but I can’t help but hear echoes of this from the disaster recovery crew. “People have entrusted us with money and kits. We won’t let you struggle through the storm. We’re coming to you.” Jesus shows up in our love of neighbor.

In her commentary on this text, Angela Parker points out the connection between the portrayal of Jesus in John and the portrayal of Wisdom in Hebrew Scripture. Wisdom is at work in the world, building a house, setting a table, inviting everyone to come in. Jesus is the Embodiment of that Spirit, and the Spirit’s ongoing movement in this world, often through us, helps keep Christ’s love alive. Where are you hearing God still speaking love into this world and into your own heart? And, where are you feeling Christ calling you to share that neighbor love right now? Christ comes back into this world all the time, through our actions of love and through the Spirit of Love that moves us. May you live in this love this week and share it with another.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Angela Parker: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter/commentary-on-john-1415-21-6
Obery Hendricks, Jr.'s notes on John in The New Oxford Annotated Bible
More information about Church World Service blankets:

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Winthrop Congregational Church, United Church of Christ