25.05.03 Colin Easter 6 Love One Another John 15: 9-17
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I
want to start today by asking you to read the passage from John’s
Gospel again, because it is just such a fantastic passage. When I
read the passage yesterday, I started to almost laugh with delight (I
think that’s what the emotion was) at the wonderful relationship
that is laid out there. This passage has fantastically positive and
affirming statements by Jesus, which lay out for us the ideal
relationship that God wants us to have, and lays out what we must do.
So, lets all read through the passage again together:
Isn’t that a fantastic
passage! I hope it leaves you, as a left me, with a glow of warmth
about the love of Jesus for us:
He
shares his knowledge with us so that his joy may be in us and our
joy may be full.
He
makes it clear that the kind of love he talks about is not just
falling in love and feeling love. It is not a love people can
discipline themselves into. Rather it is a love of obedience
achieved by abiding in Christ’s love.
He
calls us friends – not servants
Best
of all - Jesus chooses us individually as his special friends so
that we can go and bear fruit in sharing his love.
This sits almost squarely, in the middle of what is traditionally
known as the farewell discourses of Jesus in Chapters 14-16 of John’s
Gospel. These discourses are located in the gospel narrative
immediately following Jesus washing his followers’ feet, on the
night when he will be arrested for his crucifixion.There
are a number of metaphors describing Jesus inn the New Testament e.g.
the Bread of Life is one of those. The governing metaphor for the
whole of this section in John 15:1-17, is that of the vine and the
branches, with Jesus being the true vine that the branches must abide
in if they are to bear fruit. If the branch does not abide in the
vine, then it bears no fruit and is cast out and burned in a fire.
From verse 9 onwards, the metaphor is applied to the disciples abiding in Jesus, and it moves into a discussion of bearing fruit. From previous verses, we already know that the disciples are the branches, connected to or abiding in the central vine: Jesus. The fruit that the disciples are called to bear, love, is demonstrated by Jesus in the foot washing in 13:5 and then in the most ultimate way, as Jesus goes to be crucified.
The mention of love in the reading today from verses 9-17 follows straight on from the metaphor of the Vine in verses 1-8. This suggests that love is the chief item in the fruit, which the Father is concerned to find in his children. In us! But, this is not love in the general sense; it is not our own human love; it is not something that we can generate on our own. Rather, it is the love of Christ, which he brings to us when he comes to abide in our life. And, the measure of Christ’s love for his own people is his self-sacrifice. Jesus says, and much more importantly lives out his own words, that “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”
To look at another way of describing what Jesus love is like, listen to this story of a mother who played a game with her daughter. The mother would say 'How much do you love me?' and the daughter would respond by stretching out her arms a little and saying 'this much.’ Then the daughter would ask 'How much do you love me?' and the mother would stretch her arms just a little further than the daughter’s. This would continue until both had their arms stretched out very, very wide, and then they would end up in a big hug and lots of laughter. Their love was infinite. The mother would willingly lay down her life to save that of her daughter.
Similarly, in his book, The Power of Love, Paul Tillich speaks about a woman who helped prisoners during World War I. Because of her work, she eventually was arrested and placed in a concentration camp. Tillich says it’s a rare gift to meet a human being in whom God’s love is so overwhelmingly manifest. The woman sacrificed her life in order to save others. This is the sacrificial love, which is the fruit that God wants to see in his children.
This
kind of love undercuts the dead correctness of theological arrogance
claiming that we know the absolute truth.
It
is the fruit of faith and obedience that God wants, rather than the
pious isolation of faith lived individually.
It
is more than justice and greater than faith or hope.
It
is the very presence of God in the form of a human being.
For God is love. In every moment of genuine love, we are dwelling in God and God in us. We are truly bearing the fruit that God wants, when the sacrificial love of Christ is exhibited in our life and can be seen by other people. It’s more important than being theologically correct. It’s more important than justice, faith, or hope.
Jesus loved us so much he stretched out his arms on the cross to be crucified for us – the living proof that he lived and died by what he said “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” This whole discourse in John 15 is a word of encouragement to the community about carrying and abiding in fellowship with Jesus, sharing in his love. So, how can we as individuals, and our whole Christian community here at St James, manifest the fruit of sacrificial love? We thought at the church weekend about Community and our study of the Temptation of Jesus suggested the three temptations to break community were to:
Abuse
nature’s power
Abuse
social power
Abuse
spiritual power.
These are important issues if we are to live a fruitful life for God in our world. However, today’s passage is not about what breaks community. The passage from John’s Gospel is about what creates community. Community with nature, with society and community with God. Real community is only possible when we abide in the love of Christ, when we bear the fruit of love and when we sacrificially give that love to our world. Caring for nature, caring for society by using social power responsibly and using spiritual power wisely. These are only possible when we abide in Jesus and when we give to our world the same kind of sacrificial love that he has given to us. The bible uses many metaphors to help us understand Jesus, and as we think about our community here in St James’ perhaps a metaphor is an appropriate one for us to ponder how our community might become more Christ-like in sharing sacrificial love with our world. Here’s the metaphor:
Great music, like great art or great achievement in any walk of life requires sacrificial commitment to practice. We know there are many individuals who are great musicians. But we also know that when individual musicians come together then the great sound that they can make together, is much greater than the sum of their individual talents. I think we can learn from this.
If we think of Jazz as a great music form, it requires just as much sacrificial commitment if it is to be great music. But it also needs mutuality, respect, and yet freedom for individuals within the jazz group to adventure along new paths. Somehow, all the individual exploration within Jazz adds to the whole sound of the group. To be part of God's world is to be included in a song of hope and joy, bringing our own notes to the song of worship and praise in harmony with creation and one another.
Taking our cues from Jesus, we need to give ourselves sacrificially to build up our worshipping community in St James in order that our songs of love, justice, compassion and caring are sacrificially expressed in our world. Each of us has a style of playing that can enrich our community; each of us has something to give to the community here in St James; each of us has a part of the tune to carry into our world sharing the sacrificial love of God’s community with his world.
Let’s reflect on the metaphor of God's will as music, with ourselves being invited to play along, to harmonize, to dance, or to sing along. How in tune at St James are we with God's will? How can we harmonize with those whose response is wholly different from ours or influence others when we believe that the harmony they make is destroying the world?
Jesus is present with us today; a friend, setting the rhythm, inviting us to work together in responding creatively and fruitfully to God's love. How will we, like the great Jazz musicians, add our individual sacrificial commitment to improvise on what we have received of God's love as a community of faith? Whatever the detailed answer to these questions, Jesus calls us today to the joy of giving to this world His sacrificial love.
Let us thank God for this great passage that tells us how to change the world – for “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”