Let us pray: God of love, in you we abide. In you we find our ground for growing as a community of disciples, seeking to know and do your will. Strengthen us to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, loving others as you have loved us. Amen.

For the season of Easter the people who put together the lectionary – the set of scripture passages that are assigned to each week of the Christian year – decided to move away from the traditional set of choices. Usually there is a reading from the Hebrew Bible, a psalm selection, a reading from one of the books other than the first four gospels in the Christian Bible, and a reading from the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. However, in the season of Easter, a departure from that pattern is taken, with the first passage being replaced by a passage from the book of Acts. The book of Acts is the story of what happened after Easter – and thus a reason for making it a focus for the season which follows Easter in the Christian year. Over the past several weeks we've been jumping around a bit in the book – reading stories, many of them about Peter and the new found earnestness and insight that he discovered within himself in the time following the death and resurrection of Jesus. The passages have also told us a bit about the fledgling community that was developing – a community that was to be known as Christian, but which in the beginning was formed to build community with people who had been moved and empowered by the message and actions of Jesus. These people called themselves people of The Way.

We heard a couple of weeks ago about the closeness and unity of the community – the communal nature of their life together – sharing what they had and using only what was needed. Today, similar to other of the Acts readings in previous weeks, we heard about how the message of inclusive, open community was acted out – with the boundaries of this new community being significantly expanded in unexpected and exciting ways.

The rite of initiation into this new community was not surprisingly one which found its basis in the story of Jesus. The gospels tell the story. Jesus was about to begin the public part of his life – the healing and speaking tour around Galilee. He goes to his cousin John – also a wandering preacher – a counter-cultural character who challenged people to transform their lives and signify it by washing their old lives and actions away in the Jordan River. Despite protests from John that Jesus did not need the same kind of transformation that he invited others to consider, Jesus insists that he should also be baptised. And so the baptism happens, the Holy Spirit was present, a divine voice gives approval and the scene was set for Jesus to begin his mission with the people of Galilee – right after a forty day vision quest in the wilderness.

So, the focus in one series of readings in the season of Easter is on the post Easter formation of the community called The Way. Followers of The Way were led by the apostles, a new title given to the friends of Jesus in the post Easter milieu. The apostles were none other, with one notable exception, that being Judas, the same as the disciples of Jesus. They were empowered to carry the story forward. And that's why we heard the gospel passage that we did this morning. It may seem surprising in this season of Easter to revisit so soon again the events in the days just before Jesus' crucifixion, but the purpose is clear. The gospel story we heard this morning is the story of how the empowerment of the disciples – the apostles – came about. Jesus knew full well what would be needed in order to keep the community together.

Abide in my love. Remain in my love. And Love one another. This was the clear instruction, commandment, advice, request of Jesus as he contemplated his own difficult future. This is how he summed up the point of his teaching and actions. They were focused on love – love for God, love for neighbour, love that stretched the boundaries of who is lovable, love that broke through barriers of mistrust, misunderstanding and missed opportunities.

I remember about forty years ago there was a campaign in the United Church of Canada – probably a campaign promoting the Mission and Service Fund. Part of the campaign included those little pin-on metal buttons. As I recall the button was very simple in design. It had a large “L” on it and then beside it were the remainder of two words using the L as their first letter. Live Love the button said in a design that emphasised the inseparability of the two words and which in a contemporary phrase echoed the words of Jesus – Love one another. Even though I don't remember the reason for the campaign I've never forgotten the button and the posters which were produced to support it. “Live Love” they said, in a phrase that for me summed up the whole of Jesus' message, the whole of the gospel stories, the most basic intent of all the scripture passages. Live with love in your heart and in your mind and in your soul. Live love for God. Live Love for each other. Live love for the hard to love. Live love for the unloved. Live love that opens doors. Live love that opens arms. Live love that opens minds to the possibilities that love is a better way than hatred and contempt and exclusion. Live love that celebrates the divine spark in every living thing. Live love that celebrates creation and live love that loves creation enough to keep it and nurse it into health. Live love that gives life.

Today we all made promises to each other and to God. The promises were made in the same rite of initiation that we heard about in the reading from Acts this morning, and which followed in line from Jesus' own baptism by John in the Jordan river. We could sum up all the promises we made in those same two words: Live Love. That's the promise we made. That's the promise of this community, just as it was the promise of that community which we claim as our foundation. Live love. Amen.