Those Who Love

Sunday May 29, 2011

Easter 6A

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

John 14:15-21

¹⁵”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

As far back as I can remember, if we were going to be handing out New Testament tracts, or portions of the New Testament, we would load up with copies of the Gospel of John.  I remember they were little yellow paperback booklets, or in later years, they had a picture of a flowing stream and a small waterfall in a green glen in a forest.  It was a picture of living water.

And I remember wondering, why are we giving out the Gospel of John, and not one of the other Gospels?  As I began to study the different accounts, from Mark and Matthew and Luke, I began to get some idea of why, but it was never that clear to me.  Coming from a background that taught me that every part of the scriptures is equally important, equally valuable and equally applicable, it seemed somewhat unfair to always be pushing the Gospel of John over the others. 

 But when you go to the beginning of John and begin to read it, and compare the opening sentences of it to the opening sentences of the other three, the synoptic Gospels, you quickly become aware of the difference in tone and approach between John and the other three. 

To one degree or another, the synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are more self consciously biographical narratives.  While they interweave theology and teachings with the life narrative of Jesus, that life narrative is the primary vehicle that they use to convey the message of the Gospel. 

With John, it is the other way around.  John is a theological treatise that pauses to include life narrative episodes from Jesus’ life.  The primary focus of the Gospel is so that we, the readers, will believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah and savior of the world. 

Stop and think for a moment about that statement.  Tradition holds that John the beloved disciple wrote the account.  And he wrote it to a group of believers who had been taught by him, who had listened to him tell the stories of his experiences with Jesus probably for years if not decades, and who were struggling to believe them – and to believe in Jesus.  

It sounds a little odd to us, that members of the early church, especially members of a congregation led by one of the actual apostles – would be struggling to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah … and yet, it wasn’t any more uncommon than it is for believers today – or people who wrestle with belief, with faith. 

John wrote these words long after Jesus was gone. This gospel is written backwards, in the midst of a community for whom Jesus was only a memory. Most of those in John's community had never met Jesus. Most, if not all, the disciples were dead. The temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed-a sign for many that the end-time would soon come.

But the end-time didn't come.

Life went on and that was, in many ways, the hardest part of all. Jesus hadn't returned even when all the signs seemed right. This community of believers felt pushed to the very edge of despair, and despair could defeat them. John knew the dangers of such despair. So it was that he pulled together many of the things Jesus said into this one section of the Gospel known as "The Farewell Discourses." It's a bit like The Last Lecture Series in some colleges, where professors are asked what they would say if they knew it was their last chance to speak. Here at the table, Jesus says the same things over and over in different ways. The central word is love.

If you love me you will keep my commandments.  

A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you.  

Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.  

I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

"But how can we do that?" the disciples must have wondered. Knowing they had a hard time loving each other even while Jesus was with them, how could believers love like that in John's community where memory was fading?

Let's just keep hearing about that time when Jesus was here.

And we are so prone to be like that, aren’t we?  Don’t we love to hear about the good old days, when things were better, simpler, slower, healthier, more peaceful, less chaotic, more friendly, less self-centered?  Who can blame us?  After all, yesterday can’t be worse than today, and certainly it will be better than tomorrow, at the rate things are going.  I mean, look at the increasing rate of … well, you name it:  crime, corruption, murders, bomb threats, whatever negative statistic you want to pull out is probably enough to make the person you’re speaking to nod in agreement.  After all, it’s obvious, isn’t it?  The world is going to hell in a handbasket!

Jesus didn't call the disciples to hold up his life as memory but as presence. "I will not leave you orphaned," Jesus said, "I am coming to you." What a strange thing to say on the night of betrayal and arrest. He should have said, "I am leaving you." Jesus didn't deny what was going to happen. "In a little while the world will no longer see me," Jesus said, "but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live."

Jesus was calling his disciples to live and love in ways that seemed impossible. They couldn't do it, not without the Spirit. The Spirit is the other theme repeated over and over around the table. Sometimes Jesus says the Advocate, like someone who stands beside you in a court of law. Sometimes he says Helper, sometimes Spirit of Truth. When Jesus said, "I am coming to you," he didn't mean he would return like an old friend from a long journey.

Jesus would be with believers in a different way. Or perhaps we could say that God would be with them in a different way because Jesus had been there. The eternal, cosmic Word of God became flesh in Jesus. That's what John wrote at the very beginning of this Gospel. The Spirit, which blew like a wind over the face of the deep in creation, took on flesh in the one who now sat with them at the table. This Living Word had just bent down to wash the disciples' dirty feet. You can't get much more down-to-earth than that. Jesus was very clear. The Spirit that dwells in me will abide also in you.

Shortly before this, Jesus had said something audacious. "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these because I am going to the Father." If anyone other than Jesus had made such a claim, we would call it blasphemy. Yet, that's what Jesus said that night at the table, even as God breathed into lifeless clay to create a living person, the Spirit will breathe the presence of Jesus into you. In the power of the Spirit, Jesus will continue to be present with you. "I will not leave you orphaned. I am coming to you."

Love and the Spirit-these two are at the center of Jesus' farewell message, his Last Lecture Series. "Love one another as I have loved you" and "The Spirit of Truth will abide with you when I am gone." A little later in this same chapter, Jesus says, "The Holy Spirit, whom God will send in my name, will teach you everything and will remind you of all that I have said to you." That is, Jesus was saying: You don't know everything yet. You have more to learn. In every generation you will be faced with new questions and perplexities. Does the sun revolve around the earth or is it the other way around? Should nuclear weapons ever be used against an enemy? Is welfare the best way to bear one another's burdens? Should women who feel called by God be ordained to preach? Jesus knew there were some questions the sacred writings didn't address. Jesus also acknowledged that there were some things he had never talked about. "The Spirit will be your tutor," he said, "guiding you into all the truth."

Rosemary Radford Reuther is a church historian. She says there are two things the church must do. One is to pass on the tradition from one generation to another. Tell the story of Jesus to your children and your children's children. But that's not all, says Reuther. There is a second thing the church must do. Be open to the winds of the Spirit by which the tradition comes alive in each generation. That is different, deeper than memory.

At the very end of this chapter, Jesus seems to be ready to leave. He says, "Rise, let us be on our way." You can almost see him getting up from the table, then realizing that he forgot to say something. "I am the vine," he says, sitting down again, "and my Father is the vine grower. Abide in me as I abide in you." But how can we abide in Jesus? He has told the disciples over and over, repeating himself at the table: You will abide in me through the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit will teach you how to love one another. The Spirit will keep us connected, said Jesus. You to me, each of us to one another, and all of us to God.

Years ago I read something funny: "The reason mountain climbers are tied together is to keep the sane ones from going home." Whoever said that was playing with us a bit, for we know mountain climbers are tied together to keep from getting lost or going over a cliff. But there's another piece of truth here. When things get tough up on the mountain, when fear sets in, many a climber is tempted to say, "This is crazy! I'm going home." The life of faith can be like that-doubts set in, despair overwhelms us, and the whole notion of believing in God seems crazy. Jesus knew his disciples would have days like that. So he told them we're tied together like branches on the vine-or like climbers tied to the rope-tied together by the Spirit, to trust in one who is always more than we can understand, to keep us moving ahead on the journey of faith, to encourage us when believing seems absurd. "I will not leave you orphaned," said Jesus. "I am coming to you."

This promise is far deeper than a simple word of encouragement, and it wasn't only for Jesus' disciples, but also for you and for me. The Spirit ties us to Jesus. We feel a tug on the rope whenever we are tempted to settle for answers that seemingly make more sense in the eyes of the world, but that cannot give life. 

May the God who breathed life into lifeless clay breathe life and hope into us now and in all the days to come.

Let’s pray.

Come, Holy Spirit, tie us to Jesus and to one another. Breathe into us not only memories but the very presence of Jesus that we may love one another even as Jesus has loved us. Amen.