Preaching on John 15:9-17 at Two Rock Valley and Tomales Presbyterian Churches
I was visiting a good friend the other day.
She had just come from seeing her brand-new, first-born grandson at the hospital.
As soon as I arrived and heard the good news,
she enthusiastically beckoned me to come take a look at his photo on her phone screen.
She said, “I know they all look the same at first,
but isn’t he just the most adorable baby you’ve ever seen?”
In moments like this, with enthusiasm and joy oozing out of us,
it seems like the easiest thing in the world to love one another.
This is a nice reminder on Mother’s Day …
to think about how much love we feel
as we welcome these sweet little ones into our lives.
Truly, babies and puppies seem to bring out the best in most people.
That is unless we are in what I like to call “a moment.”
As life would have it, I came across one of Garrison Keillor’s old radio monologues
about the birth of his daughter while I drove home from my friend’s house.
He waxed eloquent on how smitten he was with her from the very first sight
of her bright little eyes and long delicate fingers.
And how, although that love persisted, it was challenged somewhat,
when only a few days later he was jolted awake from a deep sleep,
for the umpteenth time, at the sound of her siren call,
which apparently adhered to Australian standard time.
And so, bleary eyed he picked her up, slung the drool rag over his shoulder,
and walked the floor exhausted, stained with milk, borderline crazy,
and clearly a person no one would ever hire to look after an infant.
I guess maybe this is why Jesus might need to command us to love one another,
as he does in today’s gospel lesson from the book of John.
Love is deep, but even with our most loved ones, the feeling can be fleeting at times.
In today’s text, Jesus is addressing his disciples in one of his farewell discourses.
Even though it may seem like we just celebrated the Resurrection at Easter,
during the Season of Easter we oddly revisit Jesus’ earthly life
and so in this passage he is facing the time of his death … again.
Although Jesus forewarns of this over and over,
his disciples don’t seem to take notice.
Now, because we live on this side of the resurrection,
hopefully we can hear them with a little more gravitas,
but in reality this is about the time that most folks’ attention has just waned during a sermon,
so if you are dozing off on me, please try to plug back in 😉
Listen to these words as you might listen to a loved one on their death bed …
words that you want to take in and savor and remember for months and years to come.
It’s of course not always the case,
but often these last moments in life are ripe with poignancy …
I am thinking of an older person who has lived a long life,
maybe a parent who is still trying to offer some life-earned wisdom,
or leave us with an important last message to carry forward in our lives.
There is urgency in Jesus’ words, as he attempts to break through to these friends of his;
and his message bears repeating, this command to love one another,
which He does five times in this short passage from the Gospel of John.
You see, Jesus knows the disciples are headed into a time much more trying
then a sleepless night with a demanding infant;
they are going to be facing his death, … a horrific, painful, and frightening one.
It is one of his last attempts to impress upon them his central guiding life message:
“Love one another, as I have loved you.”
Those eight little words are what true religious observance is for him;
it encompasses all of life and it is what he came here to do.
Some have argued that you could condense the entire Christian Bible …
all 66 books and 1189 chapters … down to this simple statement.
What does it mean to love one another as Jesus has loved us?
Well for one thing it means acting on love
even when we are not experiencing the feelings of love.
My friend welcoming her new grandson was feeling the love;
Garrison Keillor in his sleep deprived state was acting on it.
As we all know, it can be challenging to act on love
when we aren’t quite in touch with those intoxicating feelings of love.
Anyone who has lost sleep night after night to take care of a baby
(or a sick loved one) knows this.
The love is there underneath all the fatigue,
but when you are that tired you can’t really feel much of anything other than crazy,
which is why I am sure that God made babies so cute.
It’s also why we all keep photos of our best days with loved ones
scattered around our homes, saved on our phones and the like …
we need to remember the good times, in the midst of the not so very good ones.
But even in those trying moments, acting with love for those we do love is one thing;
it is far more challenging to act with love when faced with a stranger.
And yet this is what Jesus is asking us to do.
Now, sometimes the stranger is our loved one … how could they just have said or done that?
But sometimes, it is a complete stranger that Jesus is calling us to love …
someone for whom we have no past reference and to whom we have no commitment.
You see, the word friends as Jesus is using it, might better be translated as strangers,
because Jesus is calling us to love his friends, not ours.
The friends Jesus is calling us to love includes all those who Jesus welcomed
in his own daily comings and goings,
i.e. tax collectors, prostitutes, and contagiously ill people.
This love is not contingent upon our likes and dislikes, our values and beliefs;
it is not necessarily a call to agree with ‘the other.’
His call is to act with love for all of God’s creation, whether we feel like it or not.
Now that’s a tall order. Especially given our current days,
which maybe aren’t worse than in Jesus’ day,
but since we can’t compare it doesn’t really matter.
These are tragically tough days in our world.
I called a friend who lives in Paris this week
to ask her if the wheels were falling off the bus in Europe too.
Perpetual optimist that she is, Colleen said
“No, we’re okay here … what’s going on there, Lis?”
So I told her …
Well, for one I think everyone, no matter what their political persuasion,
is on edge in this election year when once again we have
two older white men running to be our U.S. President.
“I think it’s making us all crazy, Colleen … people are behaving so badly!”
And then I told her about the two attempted suicides
and one house fire in our little churches this week.
If you haven’t heard, this happened.
One of the suicides was successful, we lost a 21-year-old young man this week.
The other was not successful,
but the 50-something may almost wish he had been successful,
even if his attempt was more of a call for help than an actual desire.
On the heels of learning more fully about both of these situations, I called my son John.
I have a modicum of faith at this point, a modicum I said, so these situations rattle me,
(as I suspect they rattle you too) …
and so I wanted to hear my son’s voice, for some reassurance.
You know we moms may appear to have it all together … and we do,
but we still need to hear our littles and know that they are okay.
And he was, thanks be to God. It gave me a little extra strength.
I was listening to some music this morning …
I won’t play the song, as I’ve been want to do from the pulpit,
but I will read you the lyrics, because they spoke to me.
The song is called Winter, by Tori Amos and the refrain goes like this …
“When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
Because things are going to change so fast …”
I think Jesus is saying this to us today … well, every day really.
“My people … Love one another, family, friend, and stranger alike
… and don’t forget to love yourself …
as I love you.
Do so, and things are going to change so fast.
As in get infinitely better.
Do this, Dear Ones.
Please.”
Amen.