John 15:9-17
Anne and I are learning about love. It’s not that we don’t love each other, we really do. But we’re learning about a different kind of love. The kind of love Killian is teaching us. There is no doubt that we both have very deep feelings of love for our little boy and each other. But feelings aren’t enough. Learned more about that this week as Killian had a bad cold. He had trouble sleeping. And with his nose stuffed up, he had trouble keeping a pacifier in his mouth, and right now, no pacifier = no sleep. Which means that Anne and I were up it seemed every five or ten minutes putting that thing back in for him. I thought about taping it to his hand. Anne suggested we tape it to his face (just kidding).
We were good at first. One of us would pop right up and run in and save the day! But at about 4:30 in the morning, I heard him fuss and thought. What if I pretend I can’t hear him? Maybe Anne will get up. And then I thought, what if we’re both lying here awake pretending to sleep. Well no matter how tired I was, or Anne was, we took care of Killian. Sometimes sitting up with him for a few hours at a time so he could sleep upright (heaven forbid he sleep in his carseat!) so his sinuses could drain. It wasn’t easy, but we did it. Why? Because we love him. And for as much as love might be a feeling, feelings weren’t going to take care of him. Feelings wouldn’t hold him, or feed him, or change his diaper. Love had to be an action. A verb, not just a noun.
This is an important distinction isn’t it? That real love isn’t just the pitter patter of our hearts, but in the activity of our hands, and feet, and voices. If there were anything to summarize what God is trying to tell us through our Gospel lesson today, it would echo those thoughts. There is a pretty clear message for us:
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
In other words, God the Father is one with the Son and Loves the Son. God the Son is one with us and loves us. And therefore we are one with each other and are called to love one another. But love is further defined by action! That God actively loves us. And as those who are actively loved, we become partners in God’s mission to actively love others. Point that John makes so simply and beautifully:
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
It’s hard to miss the impact of these verses. It is a noble ideal to give up your life for the life of a friend. But these verses take on a little more significance when we read them in light of how the ancient world sometimes defined friendship. We get a hint of it later in John’s Gospel (19). Pontius Pilate is trying to proclaim Jesus’ innocence, but finally succumbs to the pressure from the crowd when they start chanting: “If you let this man go you are no friend of Caesar!” So we understand that as Governor of Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate was a friend of Tiberus Caesar. But what exactly did this mean? Did this mean that they were buddies? That when Pilate went to Rome, we would call the Emperor and say, “hey Tibby, it’s Pilate! I’m in town, let’s go get an olive and mutton pizza and catch up!” NO! Not at all! Pilate was a friend of Caesar’s inasmuch as he was appointed by Caesar to share in the mission of Rome in his part of the world. Caesar considered him a friend, but would never think they were equals.
If we understand “friendship” in these ancient terms, we can see how it can be a fitting way to describe how we are friends with God. He is all powerful, all knowing, our creator. So we understand that our friendship with Him is not a partnership of equals. But we can also better understand how stunning it is when Jesus says to the disciples, Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Things aren’t supposed to work that way! The greater isn’t supposed to die for the lesser. Tiberus Caesar would never sacrifice himself or Pilate! So how is it that God would love us so much that he would lay down his life for us? It’s an incredible reversal!
When I went to Navy Chaplain school, I was bored one evening so I went out for a run. The sun was starting to go down and I was only about a mile or so from my barracks when I hit a narrow bridge that went over a stream. I was about halfway across when I noticed that someone was walking toward me. And to my dismay, as I got real close I realized that this person was a Full Bird Marine Colonel in his Dress Uniform. I didn’t know what to do as I stood there in my navy issue sweatsuit. So I pressed myself up as close as humanly possible to the guard rail, stood at attention, and said, “Good evening Colonel, I am sorry I am in your way.” I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, if he was going to yell at me for not noticing him coming the other way or what. What he did, I will never forget. “He said young man, you’re the one running and making yourself stronger, I’m in your way.” Then he stood as close as he could to the guardrail, stood at attention and said, carry on son!” I ran past him and said, “Thank you sir.” It was a role reversal that made an impact on me.
As I thought about that. The Colonel giving up his rights to have me give way for him, I thought about what it means that God, as our benefactor, chose to do give up his rights for us. Phil 2 says, He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but took on the form of a servant, being obedient unto death, even death on a cross. I also thought about how this colonel did what he did because he found me doing something good. And how different a state God found us in when he chose to die for us. Romans 5:8 says, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Still sinners! God didn’t find us doing great things, or being so wonderful and decided to give his life for us. God gave his life freely for those who are stained with sin, those who rebel against him, those who deserve to be cast away from him. In short, you and me. God gives us his Grace in our sins place. God gives us his forgiveness in place of our hopelessness. His love for us is a verb, it’s an activity, it does something. God’s love for us changes us. And it gives us a purpose, and activity, a verb to live out to others. He appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that you will love one another.
There is no more important thing for us to do than this. And if we ever forget, or grow weary, we need to remember who gave us the mission. If you get home today and the phone rings, and on the other end of the line you hear someone call you by name and say, “This is the president of the United States, I have an important job for you to do.” Are you going to pay attention or say, maybe you should call me back, my soup is getting cold.” Pay attention! Of course! The most powerful man in the world is calling you and wanting to talk to you and has an important task that he needs you to do!
Sometimes we need to think in these terms because talking about God having a mission for us to do is sometimes too abstract for us to really think about. But isn’t it infinitely more significant that God calls us to serve him than the President. President (unless name is Franklin Roosevelt) can only be in power for 8 years. God invented years, created years, has no term limits. He is all powerful, he is all places, he is all knowing. And he has a job for you to do. To bear fruit in your life and to love one another.
Sounds simple. But as you know in your own life, it’s not. I have only two guarantees for you when it comes to living out God’s mission to love in your own life. The first promise is that you will mess it up royally at times. The second is that God will never stop in his mission and promise to love you and forgive you.
As we talked about last week, it all starts with God’s grace. Our relationship with him starts with him, and his death for us and for our sins on the cross. And therefore we approach our mission to love others with a sense of anticipation, and joy, and excitement – not Fear! We take great comfort in those words of our Gospel reading: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.
It is a blessing that God chooses you to be his in the cross. He changes you in his forgiveness and mercy and Easter’s promise of life eternal with him. And he calls you to join in his work, to be a participant in his story of love for all humanity. Great words we read in our Tuesday morning Bible class from 1 Cor 3:9 - For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
And as God’s fellow workers, as those saved freely and undeservedly in his grace, we are to love (verb kind, active kind) one another. Means our neighbors, our family, our friends. But there is more to it than that. When I was in Seminary Anne worked at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in St. Louis. One of the benefits she enjoyed was something called the friends and family discount. What this discount allowed us to do was to spend the night at almost any Ritz for $50 a night. And we used it when we could. It was great! I always felt like the Clampets from the Beverly Hill Billies, but boy was it fun to live the good life. Friends and Family Discount was great.
But you know what, there was no plan called Jerks and Enemies discount. Why would there be, it would never be used. Why would you want to help out people like that? But I have to think of how different Christ is, and thankfully so. He offered us his love, a love that cost Him his life, a love that saved us from the eternal misery we deserved. And he did it all for us who had nothing to offer him but our shame, our sin, and our rebellion. He did it for us, people he knew would sin against him and hurt him over and over again. He did it for us who have nothing to say in our own defense. He did it because he chose to love us.
Brothers and Sisters, it’s a gut check to talk about God’s love for us in these terms. With this kind of brutal honesty about ourselves. And it’s a gut check for us to consider that following God’s call to active love, means loving people that are hard to love. It means loving our enemies, our rivals, people that have hurt us. But God’s verb of love has no qualifications on it. And neither should ours.
Read a story about a guy you’ve probably never heard of. He was a pastor named Peter Miller. Pastor Miller was great friends with someone you have heard of named George Washington. At the end of the Revolutionary war a man from Pastor Miller’s hometown of Ephrata, Penn. was arrested for treason and sentenced to death. The man’s name was Michael Wittman, and he had spent his life spreading rumors about the preacher, humiliating him, and making his life and ministry as hard as he could. But upon learning of his arrest and sentence, Pastor Miller walked 70 miles to Philadelphia to talk to his friend George Washington to plead for the man’s life. After he talked to Washington, the General told him, “I am sorry, but there is nothing I cannot grant you the life of your friend.” At which Pastor Miller said, “He isn’t a friend of mine, he has been my bitterest enemy, but I have come to plead for him all the same.”
This is Love. The kind of love God has for you. The kind of love he calls us to have for one another. The kind of love that is undeserved, unmerited, and hard to give and to live.
This story could have ended very tragically for Wittman, but it didn’t. General Washington let him go. He gave the man a pardon in light of the testimony of the preacher. And the two men, Miller and Wittman walked the 70 miles back home together, never to be enemies again.
Think of how your story should end. The sentence that should be carried out upon you. And think of how differently it will turn out because of the one who loved you when you were so unlovable, and forgave you when you were so unforgivable, and saved you when you were undeserving of a rescue. Think of these and you will hear the blessing of Christ in your life, and the mission of Christ given to you in those simple yet powerful words:
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
AMEN
