Based on the readings from Acts 16:16-34 & John 17:20-26

As we approach Pentecost, the call of Scripture becomes more and more focussed on Christian love.  Of course, to love is always the call of the Christian. The great commandment calls us to love God and to love neighbour.  The gospel goes beyond the commandments.  The readings of the past few weeks have constantly reminded us of God's great love and of our need not just to be loving people, but to love as God loves.  It is a reminder of our need to seek God who is love, and to see Christ in others. 

To love as God loves is a call to a special kind of love.  In Greek, there are three words for love, each with a different sense.  "Brotherly love” (filio) is the kind of love one feels for family or friends.  Eros, "romantic love", is the love one has for a lover.   Agape, "Godly love", is the love that stems from our deepest connection to God.  And, as Paul pointed out, "the greatest of these is agape." 

Our language is not nearly as rich as Greek in words that describe love.  We use the same word no matter what the distinction.  "Compassion" is probably the closest we can come to any real description of agape.  However, when it comes to compassion we tend to have a rather maudlin idea of what it is.  We picture some ‘Pollyanna’ character with tears in their eyes.  We see it as emotive.  In reality, it is far more than that.  It means literally "with strong feeling", a strong feeling unrelated to erotic love, but deeply connected to our relationship with God and with other people.  It is a strong and selfless love that stands in solidarity with the unlovable, with the oppressed, with the powerless, with victims of injustice.  To reach out in compassion to such people, is to stand with them against oppression.  It is to live out Jesus’ command to love, not as ourselves but better than ourselves.  

Luke, more than any of the other New Testament writers, loves to report on the joy of the communities he met.  It is a joy that comes from living in relationship with a loving God, by being people who are living in the spirit.  He describes the early Christian community as compassionate, loving and welcoming.  His account of Paul and Silas in the Acts of the Apostles is a story of great compassion shown to two people. 

The first of the people is a slave girl whom Paul and Silas met.  Her ability to foretell the future brought her owners a great deal of money.  She followed around behind the disciples for many days, shouting after them.  Finally at the end of their patience, Paul confronted the young woman, and cast out the spirit in her, setting her free.  The owners do not care that she has become a much more balanced person.  They see only that their easy source of income is gone.  Paul and Silas are charged with disturbing the peace.  They are beaten and thrown into prison. 

A second story of compassion follows.  There is an earthquake.  The doors of the prison are opened.  The chains of the prisoners fall away.  They are free to walk out of the prison.  That would leave the jailer to face the consequences, for in a Roman jail, if a prisoner escapes, the jailer suffers the penalty that the prisoner would have suffered.  But they don't leave.  Out of a sense of compassion, they freely choose to stay.  They must in some way persuade the other prisoners to do the same for no one escapes.  Their act of compassion is overwhelming.  The jailer questions them.  They tell him of the love of God and of their faith in Jesus Christ.  He asks a very important question.  "What must I do to be saved?"  The answer is simple.  "Believe and be baptized."  He and his family do so.  The compassion of the apostles brings about transformation in the lives of those to whom they minister.  Life gains meaning and purpose.  This is faith in action. 

"What must I do to be saved?" is a good question for each of us to ask. It may seem "unanglican" to you, but if we are to be compassionate people we need to access the grace of our compassionate God. We all need salvation. It means 'wholeness'.  Many things keep us from being whole and holy people.

At the heart of the gospel is the fact that our compassionate God chooses to transform us.  Often that transformation comes about through the compassion of the faithful reaching out in love.  Love in action is the mark of the Christian community. If our faith does not make a difference in our lives, if it does not lead to action, then we should be asking ourselves if we are living the Christian life. How else can we be a witness to those who are seeking God? 

Such transformation requires great compassion.  And we are all in need of the transforming grace of God.  There are Christians who attempt to bring about transformation by putting up barriers to God's grace, by making it hard to ‘get into the club’.  "If grace is so easily given," they think, "then salvation is too available."  They want people to struggle with the faith.  The problem is that such an attitude of holiness can make salvation seem unattainable and even undesirable.  Anyone who would act that way simply lacks compassion. 

So how do we experience God's loving compassion?  How do we extend that same compassionate spirit to others?  Is it a gift?  Perhaps.  But it is a gift that comes about by opening ourselves in service to others and by standing in solidarity with those in need.  It demands that we be in relationship with God and with others.  It demands that we allow ourselves to be open to the Holy Spirit working in us.  It demands that we be lead by the Holy Spirit into action.  As we grow in compassion, so we know the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives.  Others are touched by freedom in the Spirit, as a fulfillment of all that happened through the life, death and resurrection of the risen Lord. 

 Our actions, compassionate and caring, are the marks of our faith.  Our witness is our faith incarnate in our own lives.  Our witness is our lives, lived day by day and hour by hour in relationship with our loving God. 

The gospel calls us to live as people who know we are loved.  It calls us to live as people who are free to love.  People will be drawn to our Christian community not because of what we say, but because of what we do, because of how we live our lives.  That empowerment, that call to action, comes from allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives.  The resulting transformation could turn the world upside down. 

Make no mistake, the world is watching.  The world is watching a community that claims to love but never shows it.  The world is watching a community that claims commitment to justice but refuses to examine justice, much less carry it out.  They are watching a community that claims to be inclusive but cannot open its minds or its hearts without excluding someone.  The world is watching a community that claims hope, and despairs of ever bringing about change.  The world is watching a community that claims to be committed to faith, but cannot believe that God is capable of sustaining the world.  The world is watching a community that claims faith and yet cannot see the signs of resurrection around it. 

Let us show in our actions that God is love.  Let us show in our lives that God has transformed us.  Let us show in our lives that the resurrected Christ is alive in us.  Amen