Death, Love and Joy

May 6, 2018

Helen Jacobi

Easter 6     Acts 10:44-48     Psalm 98     1 John 5:1-6     John 15:9-17

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If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love … so that your joy may be complete. 

Last week Bishop Ross talked about belonging, believing and behaving. 

A circular pattern of our Christian life – we belong to the faith community; we come to believe; and then we behave or act or live in a certain way. 

Keeping the commandments of Jesus is about the way we live, the way we act; the way we love our neighbour and our enemy. 

In our final session with the confirmation group this last Wednesday we talked about what now? 

You have been confirmed; what is next; confirmation is not the end point – like baptism it is the beginning point of a journey of discipleship. 

We talked about what God calls us to in our lives; what kind of ministries. When we hear the word ministry we usually think of ordained ministry – priests and deacons; or ministry within the church – like leading the prayers; or bringing food for the City Mission. 

Ministry is much wider than that – we can be disciples and ministers of God in our families in our workplaces, in our communities. 

So we talked about how God calls us to be leaders in our workplaces; leading by example; acting with compassion, honesty and care; looking for the best in others.

Being the best we can be, bringing all of ourselves to the task in hand – that is being a follower of Jesus; that is ministry. 

Different congregations often have clusters of different occupations. 

When I was vicar of St Luke’s in Wadestown in Wellington pretty much everyone was a public servant working in government departments. 

In Napier we seemed to have lots of teachers. 

St Matthew’s is more of a mix but one thing we have noticed is that we have lots of doctors and nurses in our congregation. 

Last year Cate and I invited the doctors to gather for a conversation – and simply asked the question – is there anything you would all like to talk about together as medical professionals and people of faith. 

How is it for you in your working lives?

The result of that conversation is today’s after church conversation on death and dying and the End of Life Bill which is before Parliament. 

Today’s conversation is an opening conversation and if there is interest we will carry on with more conversation or maybe host a public forum for the community. 

Like all of us our doctors have a diversity of opinion on end of life options and are keen to have a place to explore those views and listen to each other.

For Cate and I, we think it is really important that before we form an opinion on the End of Life Bill as individuals, that we first face the death and dying conversation. 

Facing the idea of death for ourselves and our loved ones is a hard thing to do; we don’t like to talk about death; we don’t want to seem morbid; we want to keep to happy topics. 

But being able to think about what our wishes might be and share that with our loved ones can be a positive thing to do. 

There is a prayer at the end of the funeral service which says “Strengthen faith and hope in us so that we in turn may not be afraid to die”. 

As followers of Jesus, as people of the resurrection, we can face death because Jesus has been there before us.

Stephen always says if you get a bunch of clergy together you don’t have to wait long before we are telling funeral stories; some funny, some not so funny. So maybe we are used to these conversations but we all still struggle as well within our own families and for ourselves. 

We are no different in that regard. 

We each bring attitudes and beliefs about death from our families; from our cultural backgrounds. 

So today for those who are interested we will begin a conversation with each other and listen to some of our fellow parishioners whose calling it is to assist people in health and in illness.

Then if people wish we will use the skills of others – lawyers, ethicists, nurses, people in the disabled community, friends, as we think about death and dying and the End of Life bill. 

There is also a wealth of information written which we can share and read. 

In these conversations and in other life conversations we might have together we hold on to the thoughts at the heart of today’s gospel reading – “the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” 

One writer says this love is “an excellence of character that God has by nature and in which we participate by grace. 

Such love is primarily interested in the good of the other person, rather than one’s own.” [1]

God has this love by nature, is this love, and we participate in it by grace. 

And in this love we are called to reach out and become community – friends, as Jesus puts it. 

So as we cycle through the life pattern of belonging, believing and behaving and back again, we give thanks for that grace, that love that we find here and that we then take with us into our daily lives, our ministries, our callings. 

And whether our conversations are about tough things like death, or happier things we know that God’s intention for us always is to abide in God’s love and for our joy to be complete. 

[1] David Cunningham p 498 Feasting on the Word Year B Vol 2