Sermon Preached on May 19, 2019 – Youth Sunday, Fifth Sunday of Easter
By The Rev. Dr. Nina R. Pooley
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Yarmouth, ME
The First Lesson: Adapted from, The Story of Creation, James Wheldon Johnson’s, “God’s trombones”
Psalm 139: 1, 2, 8-13, 22, 23
The Second Lesson: Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson
The Gospel Lesson: John 13:31-35
Be More Kind
I’m sensing some nervous energy this morning, which might have something to do with the bowl and pitcher sitting up front. This is where we enter the Gospel story this morning, it’s the evening of the last supper. We’re coming in late, most of the action of the evening has already happened. As we heard in the opening verse of our text, Judas has just left. There’s not much time left – Jesus turns to those who are there in the room, not very many people at all considering the task before them, and tells them how to carryon once he is gone. How to be his followers, and to begin what is next. Little children,” he says, “I am with you only a little longer.” Just as I said to the Jewish authorities, I say also to you: Where I am going, you cannot follow. But even as I withdraw, I call on you to step forward. Listen: I’m giving you a new commandment. Love one another, just as I have loved you.¹
Loving our neighbor isn’t new, that commandment goes back at least as far as Leviticus. It’s the last part of the phrase, “love one another just as I have loved you,” that Jesus is emphasizing. Which is why we need to refresh our memory about what happened just before he says these words. He has just washed their feet, and that’s more radical and subversive than we often realize. Servants would normally wash the feet of the master, and when Jesus reversed that, he overturned the cultural wisdom about social status, power and prestige. In his following conversation with Peter about washing, Jesus also upends conventional wisdom about purity and impurity.
These concepts may seem distant to us, but consider the ways we measure value and power, those above and below us; as well as the way we judge those who are in and those who are out, those who are worthy and those who are unworthy.
Jesus is saying – I wash your feet to demonstrate my dignifying, levelling love, to set an example for you, so you might go and do likewise. Listen: I’m leaving, and I’m entrusting my love to you. Take up my mantle! Love as I have loved you, making friends, not servants; bridging divides between “above” and “below,” “clean” and “unclean,” “insider” and “outsider.”²
Jesus’ new commandment is a call to a radical, up-ending, surprising form of love, that bridges the divisions in our world. The foot washing is an experiential parable, a live demonstration of what this kind of love looks and feels like – and a glimpse of the community it creates.³
Responding to the call for “new commandment” love means living out this dignifying love in our lives and our communities. Reaching out to those whom others consider less than or unworthy, and building bridges of love and friendship – using whatever platform we can to effect leveling dignity.
Two somewhat radically different examples for us to ponder this morning: Mr. Rogers and Frank Turner. May 22 is the anniversary of the debut of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, introducing generations of young children to ideas of kindness, diversity, peace, and even grief – and eventually becoming the longest-running children’s
program on television.⁴ Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian pastor who was specifically ordained in order to use the platform of television for ministry to children, for their overall well-being.
Fred Rogers was most famous for the programming he did on the air; but what he did for public television and children’s educational programming in particular, is also extraordinary. At a time when network television was producing children’s programming that consisted almost exclusively of slapstick cartoons, Fred Rogers was able to convince the US Senate Subcommittee on Communications to fund public broadcasting fully.⁵
Because it matters what children see and hear, how we are shaping our children’s understanding of the world. In response to a question about the argument for funding children’s programming, he said:
It’s easy to convince people that children need to learn the alphabet and numbers … How do we help people to realize that what matters […] is how a person’s inner life finally puts together the alphabet and numbers of his outer life? What really matters is whether he uses the alphabet for the declaration of war or the description of a sunrise—his numbers for the final count at Buchenwald or the specifics of a brand-new bridge.⁶
His TV show gave him a platform and a voice, which he used to teach – children and adults about the inherent value of the inner life of children. As he lived his life, he embodied being a good neighbor, kindness, and a gentler way of being in the world. He became a cultural icon of kindness and humility.
This is ‘new commandment love,’ as Jesus invites us to live it out. Being loving, granting each other the dignity of listening, of responding, of caring enough to pay attention. As Mister Rogers would say, being a good neighbor to those around us. It doesn’t have to be an outrageous act of kindness, that’s part of what made Mr. Rogers such a great pastor – he let us see how simple it could be, as he zipped up his sweater and tied his tennis shoes each week and invited us along. A kind word might be enough. It’s certainly a good place to start. In his words:
Imagine what our real neighbors would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person. There have been so many stories about the lack of courtesy, the impatience of today’s world, road rage and even restaurant rage. Sometimes, all it takes is one kind word to nourish another person. Think of the ripple effect that can be created when we nourish someone. One kind empathetic word has a wonderful way of turning into many.⁷
Sharing a kind word brings me to our second example, Frank Turner. Last week, the Governor of Boston officially decreed May 16th as “Frank Turner, Be More Kind Day.” Frank Turner is a British punk rocker, turned international folk/rock star, who uses his platform to address issues weighing down everyday people. Maybe a little rough around the edges, sporting a lot of tattoos; the people who listen to music like his.
Frank is direct, sometimes to the point of bluntness – he openly confronts stereotypes; and combats the glorification of difficult issues like depression and suicide. He challenges us for spending too much time on our phones, and not paying enough attention to one another. He encourages us to live our lives, to spend time with the people we care most about, and pay attention to how we treat one another. Unlike so many others in this role, he’s transparent with his audience: grieving the loss of a friend, awed by those artists he plays with, and grateful for the appreciation of his music; modeling humility and vulnerability, gratitude and joy.
Admittedly, he’s a former punk rocker, some of his music is very loud and a little silly, but some of it is loud and uplifting, and profoundly important. There’s something moving about a crowd of rough and tumble strangers singing at the top of their lungs – “rejoice, rebuild, the storm has passed!”⁸ Upbeat and powerfully hopeful, singing exuberantly together.
Frank Turner uses the platform of fame to give voice to important issues of advocacy, to empower those who have been marginalized, and to encourage socially responsible action. One of his songs, “Be more kind,” has become a movement of sorts. On a “Be More Kind Day,” Frank encourages his fans to acts of kindness wherever they are, and then to post on social media.⁹ It’s a way of acknowledging the ways we can be more kind: as individuals one to another, and within a community. How our collective acts make a difference.
When Frank and his band come into a city for a multi-day festival, they sponsor local charities doing good work in the community, they give advocacy groups a platform and voice, and they hold a high bar for their fans when it comes to behavior – being good to each other and the community around the event. They make such a positive difference that city mayors feel motivated to declare a Frank Turner, “Be More Kind Day” in response. 10
This too is ‘new commandment love’ in action. Shape and change a culture, particularly the one looking to you as its idol. Define what is beloved community behavior: how we might be better human beings to one another; how we might serve those in need, how we extend a bridge to those who have been marginalized, advocating on their behalf. It’s powerful and subversive – upending the image of cool rock star, willing to trade some of that image for what it can buy others. A better place for all of us. “Be more kind my friends, try to be more kind.”11
Friends, we might not be rock stars, or even public TV show hosts with a red cardigan, but we are those whom Jesus commissioned to serve in our place and context. To love those around us with ‘new commandment’ kind of love.
As Mr. Rogers points out:
A high school student wrote [me] to ask, “What was the greatest event in American history?” I can’t say. However, I suspect that like so many “great” events, it was something very simple and very quiet with little or no fanfare (such as someone forgiving someone else for a deep hurt that eventually changed the course of history). The really important “great” things are never center stage of life’s dramas; they’re always “in the wings”. That’s why it’s so essential for us to be mindful of the humble and the deep rather than the flashy and the superficial.12
What we do matters; simple acts may change the world. May we live out “new commandment love.” In whatever genre and place, with whatever platform or set of tools we have to share it. A love humble enough to kneel and wash, at the same time bold enough to protect those in need of our protection, and strong enough to build bridges of friendship across division. May we share extravagant kindness, in our lives and in our own context. Exactly where we are called to serve the world in love.
“By this love,” Jesus says, “a love that remakes the world, everyone will know that you are my disciples.”13
1 New Commandment: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5, May 14, 2019, Salt.org
2 New Commandment: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5, May 14, 2019, Salt.org
3 New Commandment: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5, May 14, 2019, Salt.org
4 SALT: Theologian’s Almanac for Week of May 19, 2019, posted May 14, 2019. SALT.org
5 SALT: Theologian’s Almanac for Week of May 19, 2019, posted May 14, 2019. SALT.org
6 Fred Rogers as quoted in GoodReads.com
7 Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
8 Frank Turner, The Next Storm, on Positive Songs For Negative People, Produced by Butch Walker, 2015. Lyrics: https://frank-turner.com/tracks/the-next-storm/
9 For example: https://twitter.com/frankturner/status/1001138530855407616
10 City mayors in Seattle, Boston and Edmonton for example: https://twitter.com/frankturner/status/1021092517884956679?lang=en and https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/english-singersongwriter-frank-turner-be-more-kind-day-1.4819052
11 https://frank-turner.com/tracks/be-more-kind/ Be More Kind, Album same title, Produced by Austin Jenkins and Joshua Block, 2018.
12 Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember 13 As paraphrased in New Commandment: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5, May 14, 2019, Salt.org
1 New Commandment: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5, May 14, 2019, Salt.org
2 New Commandment: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5, May 14, 2019, Salt.org
3 New Commandment: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5, May 14, 2019, Salt.org
4 SALT: Theologian’s Almanac for Week of May 19, 2019, posted May 14, 2019. SALT.org
5 SALT: Theologian’s Almanac for Week of May 19, 2019, posted May 14, 2019. SALT.org
6 Fred Rogers as quoted in GoodReads.com
7 Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
8 Frank Turner, The Next Storm, on Positive Songs For Negative People, Produced by Butch Walker, 2015. Lyrics: https://frank-turner.com/tracks/the-next-storm/
9 For example: https://twitter.com/frankturner/status/1001138530855407616
10City mayors in Seattle, Boston and Edmonton for example: https://twitter.com/frankturner/status/1021092517884956679?lang=en and https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/english-singersongwriter-frank-turner-be-more-kind-day-1.4819052
11 https://frank-turner.com/tracks/be-more-kind/ Be More Kind, Album same title, Produced by Austin Jenkins and Joshua Block, 2018.
12 Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember 13 As paraphrased in New Commandment: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5, May 14, 2019, Salt.org