Sunday, May 13, 2012

Sunday Sermon 5/13/12

The reading today has the famous line "Greater love than this no man hath than a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends." This a a continuation of the "True vine" gospel. In it Christ says, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you."

There is intimacy here, unlike any other religion. It is unnerving and startling. Christ sees His disciples as friends, not servants, as His followers are involved in His thinking. And His great commandment is the logical extension: Love one another.

Then the great closer: "If the world hate you, know ye, that it hated me before you." Because "you are not of the world." The material world cannot recognize the immaterial world. It is not that the two worlds are incompatible, they just are on different planes. The materialists will never understand you. And they will hate you because you are not of them.

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