Good morning everyone.

You may have noticed that I’m not Mark.

We do both have glasses, but that’s pretty much where our similarities stop. I’m here today because it is Youth Sunday, and Anne and Mark have faith in me to be able to preach to you about God’s word. So, I’d like to thank all of you for being here and being willing to listen as I discuss today’s readings.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us one simple command: love each other. And while I’d like to be able to stand up here and say that I simply love everyone, you and I both know that that’s just not the case. I know how hard it can be to love someone, especially if you’re in a fight with a friend, or even your mom. I’d love to tell you all a story about that one, but I’d prefer to have a nice Mother’s Day (I love you mom).

As a typical teenager, I work a nice, minimum wage job in food service, and anyone will tell you that customers are the worst in the food industry. I’ve met some wild people, and my coworkers have told me countless horror stories about people they’ve encountered. None strikes me more though, than hearing about a man who screamed obscenities at my friend and told her, a teenager, to take his order and shove it somewhere I’d rather not say, all because his order wasn’t ready, when he was the one who showed up earlier than he was supposed to. And Jesus wants me to love this person? He wants me to be willing to give my life for this man?

Jesus loved us and he gave his life for us. He didn’t know any of us, but he gave his life for you, he gave his life for me, and he gave his life for that man. All he asks is that we love each other, just as he loved us. But how do we go about loving each other?

One of the first steps is to love ourselves. You’ve probably heard it before, you can’t love someone else if you have no love for yourself. In a world filled with millionaires, successful artists, engineers, and entrepreneurs, and social media that is dominated by unrealistically attractive people, it’s so easy to feel as if you’re not enough. In schools today, academics are so competitive that you have 16-year-olds in Calculus 2 and kids leaving high school with 7 or even more college credits, just so they can get a GPA boost. Teenagers are recommended to get 9 hours of sleep each night, but most of my peers get 5 or less staying up all night to maintain their good grades. There is so much pressure on our youth about academics these days, and life is hard when you cannot measure up.

Since I was a kid, I’ve always been good at reading, good at math, science and history were a breeze, and I was labeled as gifted. Throughout my school career, I’ve valued myself based on my grades being better than others’ and being top of my class. But this past year, like many of my other peers, I’ve struggled with school. And while I’ve struggled, I’ve watched others maintain their amazing grades and scores like normal, and I wonder, “Why aren’t I that smart? Why am I struggling when they’re doing just fine? Why can’t I have their talent and their grades?”

One of the 10 commandments states: Thou shalt not covet.

We cannot love each other if we covet each other’s abilities and belongings, but we cannot stop coveting others until we love ourselves.

If you didn’t know, May is mental health awareness month, and while addressing the multitude of issues surrounding mental health, one of my favorites that is being addressed is the simple and extremely common issue of low self-esteem. There’s been a trend going around that focuses on appreciating your body and yourself for the simple things. God gave you this body, and even if it has its downfalls, your body gives you the ability to smile at someone, maybe even make their day; it lets you share an embrace with someone you love; it lets you feel a warm summer breeze and smell the scent of fresh rain on a late evening in spring.

Are all these things cancelled out just because you can’t run as fast as him, or you have frizzier hair than her? Do you let the trivial downsides of everyday life stop you from appreciating God’s gifts to you?

I have a challenge for you. Don’t worry, it’s very simple. But the smallest things can create the biggest changes.

When you wake up in the morning, as you take your first conscious breaths of the day, look at your arms: and think of all the people they’ve allowed you to embrace, look at your hands: think of all the lives you’ve touched with them, just by existing and doing your part on God’s earth. Feel your mouth, and think of all the times you’ll smile and even laugh, and the pure joy you feel in those small moments.

And when you settle into your bed to sleep, flex your muscles: think of all the places they’ve taken you and all the tasks they’ve helped you accomplish; feel your mouth again: think of every time you smiled that day, and every opportunity that God has given you to share in the joys of his Kingdom and fellowship; be grateful for your mind, it has helped you solve the largest problems in your life, and even the smallest problems of your day.

And before you close your eyes: remember that God loves you so much that he gave you your body and your life so that you could enjoy his creation.

We must learn this type of love, because the first step in following Jesus’s command to love each other, is to begin by loving ourselves, and the gifts God has given us.

The next step in loving each other is having empathy for those that are different. One part of God’s gift to us is that we are all unique, and our uniqueness causes us all to act differently, have different cultures and morals. Have you ever had a moment where something caused you to act very out-of-character, where someone may have had to tell you to calm down, or even silently judged you for your actions, when you may have felt justified or even weren’t doing anything wrong?

We’ve all committed offenses against each other at one point or another; some being a bit worse than others, but we don’t get to choose who deserves God’s love based on how we feel regarding their actions, that is God’s decision. In today’s reading from Acts, the circumcised believers witnessed the fact that God’s love had been given to the uncircumcised Gentiles. According to the circumcised, the Gentiles were wrong and unworthy of the Holy Spirit, but God believed that they were worthy. It is in this passage that we learn that God’s love is not reserved for a select few and kept hidden from outsiders, we learn that it is not our job to determine who deserves love and who does not. We must remember that we are here to follow God’s will, and God is the ultimate determiner of who should be granted his love.

When you see someone that is different, or someone that you think might not be worthy of God’s love, someone that is outside of our religious code, remember that we are merely mortals, and we can only see the surface of others, but God can see all of us, God can see all of them, and we must trust in God’s will of faith and love.

Who have you encountered that you view as someone on the outside, someone that is different, someone that, by your code, you may not deem worthy of God’s love? Then think, why might they be this way? What does God see in them? What does God see in the guy screaming at teenagers in a Subway restaurant? And for what reason are you going to choose to love them, just as God loves you?

Learn this, and love.

The last step is living a life of faith, and understanding our purpose in God’s will. Unfortunately, this last idea has been on a steady decline since many of our congregation first became part of the Church. In the last 30 or 40 years, there has been a decreased emphasis on the importance of active involvement in the church, especially within our youth. You can see this even here at St. Andrew’s. Our youth group used to be extremely active, with our meetings every Sunday having at least ten or twelve kids present, but now we don’t even have enough attending EYC to meet anymore. Of course, this is because many of our youth have graduated and moved on to other congregations but also the fact that we have such a significant decrease in the number of children being raised in the Church today.

But why is this? Maintaining a life of faith and being active in the church not only benefits youth spiritually, but throughout their whole life as well. A 2018 Harvard study actually found that children who grew up in the Church tend to be happier than their non-religious peers, become more active and connected in their community, and are more likely to avoid drinking, smoking, and drug use. But besides all these things, faith helps children through their struggles. Faith provides a purpose and understanding through many of life’s toughest challenges.

It also allows us to appreciate God’s love for us, and walk beside him in the Holy Spirit. God’s love guides us through our lives. His love gives us everything we need to enjoy the life he has given us, and to understand the most confusing parts of that life. And when we give that love to others, we show that we understand God’s gift to us, and our relationship with God is strengthened, and we become closer with Him. When we become close with God, we strengthen our prayer, we strengthen our love, and we strengthen our understanding of life, and isn’t that all we really want to do?

How strong is your relationship with God? What have you done to strengthen this relationship? Have you done anything that may have harmed this relationship? When we lead lives of faith and devotion, we explore our relationship with God and come to understand the great gift that he has given us. And once we see this amazing gift, we don’t have as hard of a time sharing it with others, even if we cannot completely agree with God’s choice. And when we spread this love, we can, together, achieve the greatness that God wills for us and share in his paradise.

And before I finish, since it is Youth Sunday and Mother’s Day, I would like to thank all the mothers of our youth for giving us the opportunity to understand and share God’s love, and I thank all you other mothers for sharing that love with your children.

And remember Jesus’s simple command: love each other.