Youth Sunday, 8:00am - 2025

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty

It is easy to love the people you like. It is much harder to love the jerks, but I’m telling you to love the jerks. Because, as God reminds us in Exodus, there was a time you were a jerk and someone loved you.

"That's one thing I take quite literally. Because if Jesus goes to the effort to say, that I am giving you a new commandment and that you haven't understood it up until now. So, I am giving you a new commandment. Love one another. If we are doing anything other than showing love and acceptance of one another, then I feel like we are already off base." Bishop Wells.

Some will say, “If we love too much, we’ll be taken advantage of.” Maybe. But Jesus was crucified for loving too much. If we err, let it be on the side of radical grace.

How did Jesus love?

• He loved the unworthy.
• He loved the betrayers (even Judas was at the table when He said this).
• He loved the weak (Peter would deny Him hours later).
• He loved first, without conditions.

"Christian behavior and relationships are prompted by the God we worship who does not react but acts in love and grace toward all. This is what it means to be children of God” (Fred Craddock)

So let's guard each man's dignity and save each man's pride. And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love. Amen.